Twitter Protocol Discussion

[dentist]

Current version is 0.0.8.4: Unicode | ANSI

Links
Project site
Changelog
Features
Known Issues


Original post follows:

I've been tinkering around with the Miranda API and decided to write a protocol plugin to communicate with Twitter. I've got the (very) basics working: getting friends' current statuses and adding/removing friends. However, there are a lot of things that I'm not entirely sure about, and would like some input on. Here goes:

User Questions

• How would you like to post status updates? Online/away messages seem conceptually similar, but you probably wouldn't want to update your Twitter every time you go away on AIM.
• There are two ways to talk to another Twitter user: by typing "@myfriend blah" in your status update and by using direct messages. How would you like to see these incorporated into messaging in Miranda?

Developer Questions:

• As I understand it, to delete a server-side contact, you hook ME_DB_CONTACT_DELETED and do the deletion in the event function. However, this gets called on all contacts when you remove a protocol from Miranda, and you wouldn't want to delete your friends in that case. How do other protocols handle this?

If people are actually interested in this, I'll post code and (eventually) binaries.

[parsifal]

Hi dentist,

I'm very interested in this as well. Want to work together?

If you do, PM me and we can exchange emails and IMs :)

[Jenson_P]

i would prefer posting status updates with messages instead of online/away-messages.
i'm currently using jabber with identi.ca to update my twitter-status, but it would be really nice to have a real twitter-plugin for miranda! :)

[gssq]

You could have a special Twitter contact which would send you messages everytime someone Tweeted. Status messages would be way too messy (and make it hard to track past tweets).

What you typed to that contact would be posted in your Twitter. Adding a "d" would make it a direct message and "@" a reply. Basically the Miranda SRMM box substitutes for the Twitter.com input box.

I am still thinking of how to implement @replies fully though (since they reference the Tweet the @reply is responding to). And adding/removing Twitter contacts.

[dentist]

Originally Posted by parsifal

Hi dentist,

I'm very interested in this as well. Want to work together?

If you do, PM me and we can exchange emails and IMs :)

Once I get things cleaned up a bit, I'll probably be hosting this project on Sourceforge or wherever. I'll send you a PM when I have that set up, and I can give you commit rights if you want.

Originally Posted by gssq

You could have a special Twitter contact which would send you messages everytime someone Tweeted. Status messages would be way too messy (and make it hard to track past tweets).

This is more-or-less what pidgin-twitter does, and I really don't like it. I'd prefer seeing all my friends' current status on the contact list (however the statuses are stored in the history - they could be messages instead of Miranda status updates).

Originally Posted by gssq

What you typed to that contact would be posted in your Twitter. Adding a "d" would make it a direct message and "@" a reply. Basically the Miranda SRMM box substitutes for the Twitter.com input box.

I am still thinking of how to implement @replies fully though (since they reference the Tweet the @reply is responding to). And adding/removing Twitter contacts.

Well, if each person you're following on Twitter is a contact in Miranda, it becomes trivial to add/remove people. As far as tweeting goes, I realized that new versions of Jabber add some menu items to its status menu in the contact list, and that I could do the same thing to add a "Tweet" command. You could do something similar on each contact for @replies, and then use SRMM for direct messaging.

A screenshot will probably help to explain things more clearly: http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/5376/twittery.png

[Targaff]

Originally Posted by dentist

This is more-or-less what pidgin-twitter does, and I really don't like it. I'd prefer seeing all my friends' current status on the contact list (however the statuses are stored in the history - they could be messages instead of Miranda status updates).

I think your best bet is just to make it optional. Choose what your personal preference is as the default and then have a checkbox saying "Show statuses as" ... or even a radio button.

For myself, I'd rather have everything set to messaging by default - you're essentially trying to shoehorn an SMS protocol into a messaging protocol, so it should act like a messaging protocol. You can always give people an option of set status message to last tweet" or something.

[dentist]

Well, I think a Twitter protocol should use the people you follow as your contacts, which makes direct messaging easy, since it would function exactly like IMs. I don't see much point in writing a protocol for Twitter that just has a single pseudo-contact that feeds you updates, since that problem has already been solved with XMPP gateways, like tweet.im (note that I haven't actually used tweet.im).

Having one Miranda contact per Twitterer you're following presents some issues, however: general Tweets and @replies are sent globally, not to particular users. They aren't exactly status messages either, since there are histories and reply chains to consider. A "standard" Tweet would work fine with a global Twitter pseudo-contact, but I'm not sure how you'd fit in @replies, since a @reply may be in response to a given Tweet, not just a given user (see http://apiwiki.twitter.com/REST+API+...ntation#update).

[gssq]

Originally Posted by dentist

Well, if each person you're following on Twitter is a contact in Miranda, it becomes trivial to add/remove people.

There is that, but for Twitter I think most people prefer consolidating all their contacts' Tweets in one window/box.

"You could do something similar on each contact for @replies, and then use SRMM for direct messaging."

@replies are usually keyed to individual messages, so how will you implement this?
From what I know DMs are a small proportion of Twitter traffic so using SRMM for direct messaging might not be efficient.

Also, how will you view @ replies from non-friends?

[dentist]

Originally Posted by gssq

There is that, but for Twitter I think most people prefer consolidating all their contacts' Tweets in one window/box.

Well, 1) you can basically do that with the contact list, and 2) if that's what you want, just use an XMPP gateway, and then you can Tweet via Jabber. I don't see much point in replicating that, since people have already made finished products that do it. This is meant to provide an alternate view into Twitter.

Keep in mind I'm also talking about the "default" (i.e. "what I want") settings for this plugin, since I'm not going to spend a bunch of time adding configuration options to a plugin that doesn't even fully work yet. :)

Originally Posted by gssq

@replies are usually keyed to individual messages, so how will you implement this?
From what I know DMs are a small proportion of Twitter traffic so using SRMM for direct messaging might not be efficient.

This is part of why I don't think @replies are suitable for SRMM, since as far as I know, SRMM only works as a stream of messages going back and forth, and wouldn't let you select a particular message to reply to. By making a separate UI for @replies, you could (say) right-click on your contact and select "Reply to Tweet..." and then you'd get a dialog that has their current Tweet set as the @reply context, but lets you select an earlier message if you like.

I'm just honestly not sure how you'd do it via SRMM (or history) unless you expected the user to look up and type in message IDs for @reply contexts.

Originally Posted by gssq

Also, how will you view @ replies from non-friends?

Make a temporary not-on-list contact, just like you'd do when a stranger IMs you.

This plugin probably won't ever do everything that Twitter is capable of, since I'm struggling to see how to implement favoriting and deleting of messages without just making a whole new UI that happens to sit inside Miranda. At that rate, it would be easier to make a separate application to handle Twitter (which I've actually considered).

[Drugwash]

The chat module may also be considered at some point (tabSRMM has some enhancements to it, AFAIK, such as clickable nicks). A tabbed interface would be more suited to Twitter anyway, IMHO.