UPDATE: My Mastodon instance crashed and burned! I no longer use Mastodon.
Whilst playing with the custom CSS of the Mastodon Web UI, I settled on a clean white theme with a blue colour scheme. My initial goal was to personalise the “About” page, removing all of the various mentions of “Join Mastodon” and other paraphernalia. My instance is a personal one, so there is absolutely no need to show the rules I govern myself by as well.
I ended up with about 400 lines of CSS and something that looks half-decent. Find the full CSS file on Github.
Home Page
The UI has been slimmed down and various changes have been applied. - Borders between the three columns have been removed - The Mastodon logo is gone - Right-side navigation tab marker added (also blue) - Bookmarks, Favourites and Lists links have been removed from the right-side navigation - Hashtags, links and buttons have the colour scheme applied - Bigger compose box - The footer is gone — no more bottom-left links and no more right-side top-three trends
The Timeline
- The main timeline column is wider at resolutions above 1,300px
- The action button “Bookmark” has been removed
- The action buttons (Reply, Boost, Favourite) have been aligned to the right
- Link preview card — the links do not change colour when hovering
Alt Text
Whilst I always try adding alt-text to images, I do not like being made to police other people’s images, checking whether they have added alt-text or not. I have therefore removed the alt-text overlay on images in my timeline.
The Glow
When a new post arrives in the timeline, the top will glow.
About Page
- The Mastodon logo is gone
- About, Server Rules and Moderated Instances links are not shown
- The footer is gone — no more bottom-left links and no more right-side top-three trends
- All Mastodon marketing links — gone, bye-bye!
What remains is the centre column with a brief “Hello” and a link to log-in.
Preferences and Admin Pages
The Preferences and Admin pages are mostly themed with the blue colour scheme but I have not really paid too much attention to the back-end.