Switching to a fork of an app

[jordanurbs]

This is a duplicate post from the Mastodon forum: I want to switch to the Hometown branch of Mastodon. My install is currently the default one-click installation on Cloudron.

Can I simply initialize a new git repo in the /app/code folder via the cloudron cli and switch branches/remote origins?

Or would this depend on the changes in functionality of the fork itself and it's better to package a custom app?

[jdaviescoates]

@jordanurbs I've no idea really, but I'd guess that later. I think you'd need to create a completely new custom app based on the fork.

[nebulon]

Yes, essentially you can start from the regular mastodon package at https://git.cloudron.io/cloudron/mastodon-app and then adjust that to use the fork. This however then means that our package updates would of course not apply to your modified/forked instance.

[girish]

@jordanurbs The code inside the container (the /app/code you refer to) cannot be changed. It's a read-only file system. On Cloudron, you have to create a docker image and then deploy the docker image.

I think it's easiest if you quickly try https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/3102/building-custom-packages first to build the mastodon app. Once you do that, you can adjust that Dockerfile for the hometown branch and then build again and then run cloudron update.

[jordanurbs]

@girish You just saved me a lot of time and headache, thank you!