Tangerine UI for Mastodon 🍊🐘

A Tangerine redesign for Mastodon's Web UI, using just CSS.
Tangerine UI features a bubblier look, a more compact timeline, round avatars, and a soft color palette.

🕹️ Live demo at nileane.fr • 📢 Announcement post on Mastodon • 📝 Changelog

Summary

• Variants
• List of instances that use Tangerine UI
• Installation
  • Install on a Mastodon instance
  • Install on a Glitch-soc instance
  • Install as a regular user
• Things to know
• Accessibility
• Credits
• <3

Variants

• Tangerine 🍊
  Default variant for Tangerine UI, featuring a soft orange palette.

• Purple 🪻
  For those of you who like Tangerine UI but want to stick to Mastodon's purple palette.

List of instances that use Tangerine UI

These are the known instances that have enabled Tangerine UI for their users, either as the only theme, or as an optional theme.

If you're an admin and have installed Tangerine UI on your instance, feel free to add yours here (open a PR, or just DM me)

Instance	User count	Installed as...	Default theme?
piaille.fr	10K+	an optional theme	No
norden.social	5K+	an optional theme	No
shelter.moe	350+	an optional theme	No
pipou.academy	100+	an optional theme	No
indiepocalypse.social	100+	an optional theme	No
bolha.one	20+	an optional theme	Yes
nileane.fr	5+	the only theme	Yes

Installation for Mastodon admins

Install Tangerine UI as the only theme on your instance:

• Copy & paste the contents of TangerineUI.css to the Custom CSS field in the administration panel on your Mastodon instance (Navigate to https://domain/admin/settings/appearance).
  • 🪻 For the purple variant, copy the contents of TangerineUI-purple.css instead.
• ⚠️ Caution: Using the 'Custom CSS' field to apply Tangerine UI will prevent all users on your instance from being able to choose another theme in their settings. Please make sure there is a consensus among your users for doing so. If not, see below how to install Tangerine UI as an optional theme for your users.

Install Tangerine UI as an optional theme on your instance [Recommended]:

Follow these instructions if you wish to add Tangerine UI as an available theme for your users on your instance. This will also allow you to set Tangerine UI as the default theme for your instance, while still letting users change back to Mastodon's default themes in their appearance settings.

1. Copy the files from this folder to your Mastodon themes directory app/javascript/styles/:

app/
  javascript/
    styles/
      tangerineui.scss                                | **new**
      tangerineui-purple.scss                         | **new**
        tangerineui/                                  | **new**
          layout-single-column.scss                   | **new**
        tangerineui-purple/                           | **new**
          layout-single-column.scss                   | **new**

2. Add Tangerine UI to themes.yml. To make Tangerine UI available in your users's settings, you need to add a new line to config/themes.yml. Here we're adding 2 new lines, one for Tangerine UI, another for Tangerine UI's purple variant:

default: styles/application.scss
contrast: styles/contrast.scss
mastodon-light: styles/mastodon-light.scss
tangerineui: styles/tangerineui.scss                  | **new**
tangerineui-purple: styles/tangerineui-purple.scss    | **new**

3. Add a localized name (optional). You can edit each desired language's locale file in config/locales/[lang].yml to add a localized string name for Tangerine UI. You need to do this for every language you expect your users to use. Otherwise, in their themes list, they will see the unlocalized theme name ("tangerineui-purple"), instead of a readable theme name ("Tangerine UI (Purple)").

themes:
  contrast: Mastodon (High contrast)
  default: Mastodon (Dark)
  mastodon-light: Mastodon (Light)
  tangerineui: Tangerine UI                           | **new**
  tangerineui-purple: Tangerine UI (Purple)           | **new**

4. Compile theme assets and restart. Run RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails assets:precompile and restart your Mastodon instance for the changes to take effect.

Your users should now be able to choose 'Tangerine UI' and 'Tangerine UI (Purple)' as their site theme:

As an admin, you should also now be able to set Tangerine UI as the default theme for your instance (navigate to https://domain/admin/settings/appearance):

Installation for Glitch-soc admins

Tangerine UI does not yet support Glitch-soc's features and layout, but it can still be installed as a vanilla skin on your Glitch-soc instance:

1. Copy the files from this folder to your Mastodon themes directory app/javascript/styles/:

app/
  javascript/
    styles/
      tangerineui.scss                                | **new**
      tangerineui-purple.scss                         | **new**
        tangerineui/                                  | **new**
          layout-single-column.scss                   | **new**
        tangerineui-purple/                           | **new**
          layout-single-column.scss                   | **new**

2. Copy the files from this folder to your Glitch-soc skins directory app/javascript/skins/vanilla/:

app/
  javascript/
    skins/
      vanilla/
        tangerineui/                                  | **new**
          common.scss                                 | **new**
          names.yml                                   | **new**
        tangerineui-purple/                           | **new**
          common.scss                                 | **new**
          names.yml                                   | **new**

3. Compile theme assets and restart. Run RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails assets:precompile and restart your Glitch-soc instance for the changes to take effect.

Your users should now be able to select Tangerine UI as a theme in their settings, under Flavours → Vanilla Mastodon → Skin

Installation for regular users

Even if you are not the admin of your instance, you can still use Tangerine UI with a browser extension.

• Install any browser extension that allows you to inject CSS on a webpage, such as Stylus, or Live CSS Editor
• Copy & paste the contents of TangerineUI.css to the extension's editor
  • 🪻 For the purple variant, copy the contents of TangerineUI-purple.css instead.
• ⚠️ If you are a user on a Glitch-soc instance, you must switch to the vanilla flavour for Tangerine UI to work properly:
  • In your settings, navigate to Flavours → Vanilla Mastodon → select the 'Default' skin.

Things to know

• Tangerine UI currently only supports Mastodon's single column layout. The advanced web interface (multiple columns) will not be affected.
• Tangerine UI auto-switches from light to dark mode based on your OS preference.
• Check your Mastodon instance version before using. The latest Mastodon release checked to be compatible is indicated in the CSS file header.

Accessibility

• I have not yet adapted Tangerine to Mastodon's High Contrast theme setting. Please consider that some of your users may depend on it before setting Tangerine UI as the only theme on your instance.

Credits

Huge thanks to Roni Laukkarinen whose work on Mastodon Bird UI I adapted for multiple parts of the redesign. The icon replacement implementations I have also adapted from Bird UI.

<3

If you enjoy Tangerine UI, jobless me would really appreciate a tip 💛!