Best Linux Microblogging clients?

jasonwryan · 2009-06-25 08:25:23

I have been trying different microblogging clients, trying to find the optimum tool: a tradeoff between functionality speed/lightness, and -ideally- open source.

Currently I am using Gwibber, which is pretty good in the latter two stakes, but is still some way behind some of the other apps in terms of functionality. I have heard that the Adobe Air clients, which by and large appear to be the preferred solutions for power users, have some questionable privacy issues.

For the record, I have tried gTwitter, Twitux, Mitter, TweetDeck, Twhirl, and Choqok. I know there are plenty others out there, and would be keen to hear Archers views on what works for them.

madalu · 2009-06-25 11:20:41

If you use gnome and can stand mono, there's a microblogging plugin for gnome-do --- I see a lot of dents from it on identi.ca.

There are also some very nice packages for emacs: identica-mode and twittering-mode. These are lightweight and gaining a lot of functionality.

For me, the best solution is xmpp with identi.ca. I like it that microblogging takes on the quality of a live conversation with xmpp. Of course, there are a gazillion xmpp clients out there.

cactus · 2009-06-25 18:57:57

I agree with madalu. Why not just use an xmpp gateway?

if you want to update many sites at once, try ping.fm

jasonwryan · 2009-06-25 20:50:45

Thanks madalu & cactus. You are both right about XMPP: while Twitter was still supporting it, it was the best solution. Once they turned it off, however...

Ping.fm is good for broadcasting, but doesn't really support conversation - that is why I have been looking at the desktop clients.

I haven't used emacs, but perhaps this is the spur I need to start experimenting.

Last edited by jasonwryan (2009-06-26 10:02:10)

Nezmer · 2009-06-26 18:49:01

qwit is my favorite twitter client .

Rasi · 2009-06-26 19:11:56

Nezmer wrote:

qwit is my favorite twitter client .

+1, best client i could find on linux

Isengrin · 2009-06-26 20:20:02

Most complete client for Twitter and identi.ca I've found is Choqok. Sadly, it has some annoying bug and opens a lot of processes called kio_http sucking Ram like whores...

Another great client for Twitter (adaptable for other services) is TTYtter, and great if you use it with Tilda or something similar.

Both are in the AUR.

jasonwryan · 2009-06-26 21:11:43

After taking madalu's advice, I have been using Emacs with these two scripts:

1. http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/TwitteringMode

2. http://blog.nethazard.net/identica-mode-for-emacs/

and I am won over. If only someone would write a script that allows you to publish to both services from the one mode (Gwibber-like functionality).

And apparently Emacs can do some other stuff as well...

ilembitov · 2009-06-26 21:54:29

curl rocks

curl -u user:pass -d status="Write your tweet here" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml

Too bad I don't understand basic bash scripting yet. How should I modify this, so that I got a script that could be run as a single command taking my tweet text as an argument?

Last edited by ilembitov (2009-06-26 22:07:36)

Themaister · 2009-06-27 00:20:41

Put this in your .bashrc:

tweet(){
curl -u user:pass -d status="$*" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml
}

So you could do: tweet blablabla sjfkls sdjfskld sdjfls dfj, and ye. The $* inserts all text that tweet() takes from the command-line.

ilembitov · 2009-06-27 01:05:33

Thanks, Themaister
BTW, is it possible to get rid of all that output and substitute it with something like "your tweet has been successfully posted"?

geoisis · 2009-06-27 01:23:06

Themaister wrote:

Put this in your .bashrc:
tweet(){
curl -u user:pass -d status="$*" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml
}
So you could do: tweet blablabla sjfkls sdjfskld sdjfls dfj, and ye. The $* inserts all text that tweet() takes from the command-line.

very cool thanx

+1 for the output thing also

SamC · 2009-06-27 01:28:09

tweet(){
curl -u user:pass -d status="$*" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml >>/dev/null
echo "Your tweet has been successfully posted"
}

Chokkan · 2009-06-27 04:14:23

Hah, that is pretty cool.
I was using Gwibber but now I just use Twitterfox. Only prob is it always shows the wrong date.

jasonwryan · 2009-07-08 01:22:39

The Laconica wiki has the mother of all client lists:

http://laconi.ca/trac/wiki/Apps

/edit

...and, after testing pretty much all of them, TTYtter works best for me: http://www.floodgap.com/software/ttytter/

Last edited by jasonwryan (2009-08-21 11:00:20)

nightchill · 2009-09-19 10:25:21

Hi, I've been doing some scripting exercise in bash and basically this is what I've come up with: clitter (cli-twitter ).

It's located on github and you can grab it with:

git clone git@github.com:n1ght/clitter.git

If you have any ideas/adjustments/etc just do what you want and let me know so I can check it out

sirmacik · 2009-09-19 20:39:23

I'm using identi.ca xmpp gateway also for tweeting (connected accounts)

mimir · 2009-09-20 00:45:19

nevermind this. found out myself.

Last edited by mimir (2009-09-20 00:47:02)

becker_11 · 2010-01-18 23:55:15

Themaister wrote:

Put this in your .bashrc:
tweet(){
curl -u user:pass -d status="$*" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml
}

Okay so I copied this and installed curl to my xubuntu system and sent a test message out which I verified worked correctly, Many thanks to your good self.

Unfortunately my second message wouldn't go through and subsequent attempts to find out what the problem was were unsuccesful.

Here is my (only slightly) modified code

dent(){
curl -u user:pass -d status="$*" http://identi.ca/api/statuses/update.xml >>/dev/null
echo "Your dent has been successfully posted"
}

As you can see the changes I've made shouldn't be causing a problem. The dent that went through correctly was "dent testing a shell script" the following one that wouldn't go through was "dent Awesome!! I LOVE linux it's the shit!!! #linux #curl #identica"

While testing I found another flaw I sent a "dent test msg 1!" which sent properly then I sent "dent test msg 2!!" and it did send but like so "dent test msg 2dent test msg 1!" From this I take it that the script/shell is interpreting the ! as a command character and not as plain text.

If I send "dent test msg 3/1" it sends correctly but I have a slash included in the message then when I send "dent test msg 4/!" it again sends correctly and without appending the first message to the second alas I still have the unwanted slash in my message.

Any help you can offer would be appreciated greatly btw I hope I have done a good job explaining this and not made any silly errors I've never done scripting before and as such know very little.

Regards
Becker

Heller_Barde · 2010-01-19 11:30:38

Here are ever so slightly improved versions which tell you if something failed with the curl command.

Cheers
Barde

tweet(){
 curl -u user:pass -d status="$*" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml >/dev/null && echo "Your tweet has been successfully posted" || echo "Fail!"
}

dent(){
curl -u user:pass -d status="$*" http://identi.ca/api/statuses/update.xml >/dev/null && echo "Your dent has been successfully posted" || echo "Fail!"
}

jdarnold · 2010-01-19 14:47:14

@becker_11 - the problem is that you have special shell characters like "!" and "#". Try doing:

$ dent "Awesome!! I LOVE linux it's the shit!!! #linux #curl #identica"

Ie, note the quotes that wrap the status string.

becker_11 · 2010-01-19 17:36:15

Gottcha! As I read your reply I was going to whinge that those characters (well at least the #) are integral to the way it works but then I finished reading and everything makes sense.

I think the / trick I was trying was something I read in either Perl or regex many moons ago about telling the shell to treat the following character as text, it never occurred to me to try the quotes ..... Thanks!!

p.s. It never occurred to me before I started nutting this out but I do seem to use alot of exclamation marks :-)

Berticus · 2010-04-07 12:49:28

I have a few of ways. There's TTYtter, tircd/irssi (or some irc client), and I have my own tweet function:

function tweet
{
    USERNAME="myuser"
    PASSWORD="mypass"

    if [ -z "$1" ]
    then
        echo "No status update entered. Showing last twenty updates:"
        curl --basic --silent --user $USERNAME:$PASSWORD --get http://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline.xml | sed --quiet --expression='s/<name>\(.*\)<\/name>/\1/p' --expression='s/<text>\(.*\)<\/text>/\1/p'
        exit
    elif [ $(($(echo "$1" | wc -m)-1)) -gt 140 ]
    then
        echo "Tweet too long ($(($(echo "$1" | wc -m)-1)))"
        exit
    else
        curl -s -u $USERNAME:$PASSWORD http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml -d status="$1" > /dev/null
        echo Status updated.
    fi
}

Oops, meant for this post to be in another thread... http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … 01#p738901

Last edited by Berticus (2010-04-07 13:03:36)

becker_11 · 2010-04-07 12:57:44

Since I last posted on this I have found Twidge which can be used for either twitter or identica and it's pretty good. My main complaint with these cli based apps is there is no remaining character count as your typing. When I use the web interface I find the count invaluable for knowing when I have to optimise my message to fit everything in

Berticus · 2010-04-07 13:04:35

becker_11 wrote:

Since I last posted on this I have found Twidge which can be used for either twitter or identica and it's pretty good. My main complaint with these cli based apps is there is no remaining character count as your typing. When I use the web interface I find the count invaluable for knowing when I have to optimise my message to fit everything in

That's why I have a count performed in my tweet function. It's not real time and only occurs after submission, but it works.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-06-25 08:25:23

Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#2 2009-06-25 11:20:41

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#3 2009-06-25 18:57:57

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#4 2009-06-25 20:50:45

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#5 2009-06-26 18:49:01

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#6 2009-06-26 19:11:56

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#7 2009-06-26 20:20:02

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#8 2009-06-26 21:11:43

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#9 2009-06-26 21:54:29

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#10 2009-06-27 00:20:41

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#11 2009-06-27 01:05:33

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#12 2009-06-27 01:23:06

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#13 2009-06-27 01:28:09

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#14 2009-06-27 04:14:23

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#15 2009-07-08 01:22:39

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#16 2009-09-19 10:25:21

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#17 2009-09-19 20:39:23

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#18 2009-09-20 00:45:19

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#19 2010-01-18 23:55:15

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#20 2010-01-19 11:30:38

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#21 2010-01-19 14:47:14

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#22 2010-01-19 17:36:15

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#23 2010-04-07 12:49:28

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#24 2010-04-07 12:57:44

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

#25 2010-04-07 13:04:35

Re: Best Linux Microblogging clients?

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