Tangerine UI is a vibrant, fully-featured custom theme for Mastodon's Web UI that comes in four variants: 🍊 Tangerine, 🪻 Purple, 🍒 Cherry, and 🐠 Lagoon.

🕹️ Live demo @ nileane.fr • 👋 Follow Tangerine UI on Mastodon • 📝 Release notes

Table of contents

1. Overview
   • Variants
   • Features
   • List of instances that use Tangerine UI
2. Compatibility
3. Installation for Mastodon instance admins
4. Installation for regular users
5. Accessibility
6. Credits
7. Support me

Overview

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 hue.

 

🍒 Cherry
I won't be held responsible if you end up licking your screen because of this one.

 

🐠 Lagoon
Soft turquoise palette that gives neon vibes at night.

 

Features

🧑‍🔬 Support for the advanced web interface
All variants of Tangerine UI support Mastodon's multi-column layout.

🚀 Playful animations
The rocket flies!

🌚 Dark mode
Tangerine UI automatically switches from light to dark mode based on your system or browser preference.¹

💬 Distinct look for DMs
It can be easy to mistake a DM for a regular post on Mastodon. Tangerine UI gives DMs a specific look, so they stand out in your timeline, and you don't make any embarrassing mistakes.

👁️ Compact timeline
Avatars are aligned on the side, margins are properly reduced, and threads are easier to read.

✴️ Phosphor icons
Tangerine UI uses a selection of icons from the beautiful Phosphor icon family

🔍 Zoom on emojis
Custom emojis are great, but they may be difficult to distinguish when they are overly detailed. Tangerine UI allows you to hover and pause over an emoji to enlarge it.

✳️ and more
Tangerine UI was designed with care and great attention to detail. Feel free to explore all the changes it brings to Mastodon's UI, and feel free to message me if you ever have any feedback to share or bugs to report. :)

List of instances that use Tangerine UI

This is a list of known Mastodon instances on which Tangerine UI has been installed, either as the only theme or as an optional theme.²

Instance	User count	Installed as...	Default theme?
piaille.fr	10K+	an optional theme	No
social.vivaldi.net	7K+	an optional theme	No
norden.social	5K+	an optional theme	No
convo.casa	5K+	an optional theme	No
c.im	3.2k+	an optional theme	No
masto.es	2K+	an optional theme	No
vmst.io	2K+	an optional theme	No
framapiaf.org	1.5K+	an optional theme	No
eldritch.cafe	1.5K+	an optional theme	No
octodon.social	1K+	an optional theme	No
social.lol	1K+	an optional theme	No
mountains.social	550+	an optional theme	No
shelter.moe	350+	an optional theme	No
toki.social	200+	an optional theme	No
dmv.community	200+	an optional theme	No
c7.io	200+	an optional theme	Yes (Tangerine variant)
pipou.academy	100+	an optional theme	No
indiepocalypse.social	100+	an optional theme	No
town.voyager.blue	100+	an optional theme	Yes (Purple variant)
tooter.social	90+	an optional theme	No
pointless.chat	50+	an optional theme	No
acg.mn	50+	an optional theme	No
yttrx.com	40+	an optional theme	No
bolha.one	20+	an optional theme	Yes (Tangerine variant)
i1.no	15+	the only theme	Yes (Purple variant)
zeppelin.flights	15+	the only theme	Yes (Tangerine variant)
catharsis.cafe	10+	an optional theme	Yes (Tangerine variant)
toulouse.social	10+	an optional theme	Yes (Tangerine variant)
fedinerds.social	10+	an optional theme	No
ngmx.com	10+	an optional theme	No
nileane.fr	5+	the only theme	Yes (Tangerine variant)
social.nah.re	5+	an optional theme	No
esoteric.party	5+	the only theme	Yes (Tangerine variant)
asso.lgbt	5+	the only theme	Yes (Purple variant)
Buddyverse.xyz	5+	an optional theme	No
isfeeling.social	1+	the only theme	Yes (Purple variant)
ucn.social	1+	an optional theme	Yes (Tangerine variant)
fedi.cyberwitches.club	1+	the only theme	Yes (Purple variant)
mastodon.projetretro.io	1+	an optional theme	No
everythingbagel.social	1+	an optional theme	No
social.spicyweb.dev	1+	the only theme	Yes
e5n.cc	1+	the only theme	Yes (Lagoon)

Compatibility

✅ Tangerine UI (v2.x) is compatible with instances running Mastodon 4.3 and newer.³

⚠️ For instances running Mastodon 4.1.x or 4.2.x, use Tangerine UI Legacy (v1.9) instead.⁴⁵

🚫 Tangerine UI and Tangerine UI Legacy are not compatible with instances running Mastodon 4.0.x and older.

Installation for Mastodon admins

There are two ways to install Tangerine UI on your Mastodon instance:

• as the only theme
• as an optional theme [Recommended]

Install Tangerine UI as the only theme on your instance:

1. Check your Mastodon version. For Tangerine UI to work properly, you need to make sure you're installing the right version for your Mastodon instance. Please refer to the Compatibility section in this document before you proceed.

2. 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.
   • 🍒 For the Cherry variant, copy the contents of TangerineUI-cherry.css instead.
   • 🐠 For the Lagoon variant, copy the contents of TangerineUI-lagoon.css instead.

Warning

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 Appearance settings (see Accessibility).
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 to install Tangerine UI as an optional theme on your Mastodon instance.
Your users will be able to select Tangerine UI in their settings on the web, and you will be able to set Tangerine UI as the default theme for your instance.

Install (using the included script)

A basic installation script is included in this repository.
It can be used to install Tangerine UI on your Mastodon instance for the first time, and to automate the process of updating Tangerine UI.

Run the following commands as the mastodon user to install Tangerine UI using the included script:

1. Clone the Tangerine UI repository

git clone https://github.com/nileane/TangerineUI-for-Mastodon.git ./TangerineUI
cd TangerineUI

2. Copy the sample install script.

cp install.sh.sample install.sh

Make sure the Mastodon and Tangerine UI directory paths at the top of install.sh are correct:

• Edit the line beginning with TANGERINEUI= to adjust the path to the Tangerine UI directory.
• Edit the line beginning with MASTODON= to adjust the path to your Mastodon installation directory.

3. Run the install script.

./install.sh

Optionally, run with --skip-confirm to bypass all confirmation prompts:

./install.sh --skip-confirm

4. [Optional] Add a localized name. 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
  tangerineui-purple: Tangerine UI (Purple)
  tangerineui-cherry: Tangerine UI (Cherry)
  tangerineui-lagoon: Tangerine UI (Lagoon)

5. Restart your Mastodon instance for the changes to take effect.

Your users should now be able to choose 'Tangerine UI', 'Tangerine UI (Purple)', 'Tangerine UI (Cherry)', or 'Tangerine UI (Lagoon)' 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):

Install manually

1. Check your Mastodon version. For Tangerine UI to work properly, you need to make sure you're installing the correct version for your Mastodon instance. Please refer to the Compatibility section in this document before you proceed.

2. Copy the files from mastodon/app/javascript/styles/ in this repository to your Mastodon themes directory app/javascript/styles/:

# Where $REPO is this repository, and $INSTALLDIR is your Mastodon installation.
cp -r $REPO/mastodon/app/javascript/styles/* $INSTALLDIR/app/javascript/styles

3. Add Tangerine UI to themes.yml. To make Tangerine UI available in your users' settings, you need to add a new line to config/themes.yml. Here, we're adding 4 new lines, one for each variant:

default: styles/application.scss
contrast: styles/contrast.scss
mastodon-light: styles/mastodon-light.scss
tangerineui: styles/tangerineui.scss
tangerineui-purple: styles/tangerineui-purple.scss
tangerineui-cherry: styles/tangerineui-cherry.scss
tangerineui-lagoon: styles/tangerineui-lagoon.scss

4. [Optional] Add a localized name. 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
  tangerineui-purple: Tangerine UI (Purple)
  tangerineui-cherry: Tangerine UI (Cherry)
  tangerineui-lagoon: Tangerine UI (Lagoon)

5. Compile assets:

RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails assets:precompile

6. Restart your Mastodon instance for the changes to take effect.

Your users should now be able to choose 'Tangerine UI', 'Tangerine UI (Purple)', 'Tangerine UI (Cherry)', or 'Tangerine UI (Lagoon)' 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):

Specific instructions for Glitch-soc instances

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 mastodon/app/javascript/styles/ in this repository to your Mastodon themes directory app/javascript/styles/:

# Where $REPO is this repository, and $INSTALLDIR is your Glitch-soc installation.
cp -r $REPO/mastodon/app/javascript/styles/* $INSTALLDIR/app/javascript/styles

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

# Where $REPO is this repository, and $INSTALLDIR is your Glitch-soc installation.
cp -r $REPO/mastodon/app/javascript/skins/vanilla/* $INSTALLDIR/app/javascript/skins/vanilla

3. Compile assets:

RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails assets:precompile

5. Restart your 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 an admin on your instance, you can still use Tangerine UI with a browser extension:

1. Check your Mastodon version. For Tangerine UI to work properly, you need to make sure you're using the correct version for your Mastodon instance. Please refer to the Compatibility section in this document before you proceed.
2. Install a browser extension that allows you to inject CSS on a webpage, such as Stylus, or Live CSS Editor
3. Copy & paste the contents of 🍊 TangerineUI.css to the extension's editor
   • 🪻 For the Purple variant, copy the contents of TangerineUI-purple.css instead.
   • 🍒 For the Cherry variant, copy the contents of TangerineUI-cherry.css instead.
   • 🐠 For the Lagoon variant, copy the contents of TangerineUI-lagoon.css instead.

Important

If you are a user on a Glitch-soc instance, you must switch to the Vanilla Mastodon flavour for Tangerine UI to work properly: in your instance settings, navigate to Flavours → Vanilla Mastodon → select the 'Default' skin.

Note

Alternatively, if you wish to use a JavaScript browser extension, @Write has written a ready-to-use UserScript to load Tangerine UI on any Mastodon instance. Check out the TangerineUI-Userscript repository for instructions.

Accessibility

Please consider that some of your users may depend on Mastodon's High Contrast theme before setting Tangerine UI as the only theme on your instance. For this reason, unless you're running a single-user instance, I strongly recommend installing Tangerine UI as an optional/revertable theme instead.

Credits

The logo for Tangerine UI was originally designed by Younis @younishd. 🍊

Support me <3

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

Footnotes

1. Tangerine UI uses the prefers-color-scheme CSS media feature to detect if you have requested a light or dark theme through an operating system setting or a user agent setting. ↩

2. If you're an admin and have installed Tangerine UI on your instance, feel free to add yours to this list. (Make a Pull Request, or just DM me) ↩

3. Tangerine UI (v2.x) is also compatible with instances running a version of Glitch-soc based on Mastodon 4.3 and newer, as long as it is installed as a vanilla theme on these instances. ↩

4. The advanced web interface (multi-column layout) is not supported by Tangerine UI Legacy (v1.9) and will fall back to Mastodon's default appearance if enabled. ↩

5. The Cherry variant is not available with Tangerine UI Legacy (v1.9). ↩