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maemo.org - Talk (https://talk.maemo.org/index.php)

- Applications (https://talk.maemo.org/forumdisplay.php?f=41)

- - witter - a python twitter client (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=35596)

dwould

2009-12-01 20:59

witter - a python twitter client

ok, IT's long past time to update this first post of the thread to avoid confusing people......
Witter is a full featured twitter client written in python.
It aims to support as much as possible, currently that is
main timeline, mentions, dms, search, trends, public timeline, user history (see a specified users last 20 tweets)
it supports bit.ly url shortening (if you have an id) and also will give domain hints for bit//ly urls expanded into brackets inline with the tweet.
It also has some support for uploading pictures via twitPic.
etc, etc
the latest info on versions and a full change history is maintained on my blog
http://danielwould.wordpress.com/witter

it can be downloaded from Extras here:
http://maemo.org/downloads/product/Maemo5/witter/

Generally speaking I try not to break the version in extras-testing too much, but do frequently break extras-devel version so only go there if you are prepared to figure a few things out.

if witter fails for any reason, then please run it from x-term like this:
run-standalone.sh python2.5 /opt/witter/witter.py

this will put lots of information to the terminal which I will need to figure out what I broke.

Tintin

2009-12-01 21:27

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Congratulations on what I believe is your first application.

Does it support any kind of contact management - meaning deleting people, searching for people and adding them?

It's one of the things I'm missing in Mauku.

dwould

2009-12-01 21:32

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tintin (Post 403579)

yep, my first app.
currently no support for contact management. but I'll think about it.
might not be too difficult to get basic function then.

dwould

2009-12-02 22:20

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tintin (Post 403579)

Does it support any kind of contact management - meaning deleting people, searching for people and adding them?
.

It does now ;-)

Just uploaded 0.1.0-2 to the auto builder queue. so should be through shortly.
I added a previously missing python-glade2 pre-req.
I think I found something I can check to detect maemo5 properly

If you tap-hold on a tweet you get a menu with URL actions and User actions.
if there were any urls in the tweet they will appear under the url actions, and you can launch them in a browser.

In User actions you get follow/unfollow user.
It doesn't check whether you already follow or don't follow.
You can use the search panel (now brought to one of the main buttons instead of 'public') to find people if you know their id, or of course if you found someone interesting in a search etc.

let me know if you give it a try ;-)

dwould

2009-12-03 22:08

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Ok, so I've now managed to check the install for both n900 and n810.
On the n810 it weirdly claims the install failed, but the install seems to have worked. Any suggestions on how I can determine the problem?

On the n900 the install seems fine, but I can't get the launcher to work anywhere other than the command line. I thought it was a case of having the X-osso-service setting in the witter.desktop and a line in the python app to set a context that matched. but it doesn't seem to work.

I'd like to get these issues fixed before progressing.

rEv9	2009-12-03 22:12

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Sounds interesting! Can you upload a few screenshots?

dwould

2009-12-03 22:37

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Ok, finally used this as an access to register a flickr account to share from my n900...
it doesn;t look like much...
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2551/...4981036f_o.png

I tried to screenshot some of the menus but it didn't seem to let me do so.

rEv9	2009-12-05 15:03

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Looks promising! :)

I haven't tested it, but if you are looking for ideas you maybe don't have yet, here is a few:

-When you open the twitter app, and the timeline have loaded, scroll down to the oldest of the new twits. Then you can start to read the oldest and slide up towards the newest twit.
-Open a twit link in a browser when clicking on it
-Upload a picture (maybe with twitpic?) and add the url to the twit
-Make a widget to the desktop

dwould

2009-12-05 15:08

Re: witter - a python twitter client

witter 0.1.0-7 should now be in extras testing for the n900
I'm keeping a page on my blog up to date
http://danielwould.wordpress.com/witter/

now with kinetic scrolling and a fremantle style menu.

dwould

2009-12-05 15:13

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Quote:

Originally Posted by rEv9 (Post 411624)

It seems to already jump to the oldest of the new tweets, I didn't have to do anything to get that.
you can launch links from tweets, but it's through a tap-and-hold menu.
twitpic support already in place :-)
not sure how I'd do a desktop widget. I may look into it. but I'd like to get the core app polished first.

rEv9	2009-12-05 16:06

Re: witter - a python twitter client

I installed it, and nice to see the twitpic function there already! This is what I want, a simple twitter client :)

Here is some feedback from a first time user:

- I had a problem with logging in. I didn't get any notification if it worked or not, and after a few attempts to figure out what happened I saw that the password field changed the first character to a uppercase..
- Its a litte hard to see who is writing what. So maybe change background color on every second tweet to the color you're using on the buttons? Or something to make it stand out better.
- What about twitter's blue color on the URLs and mentioned nicks ?
- And maybe the "posted on ..." text could be smaller/colored/something
- The url/user actions popup is ok, but is suppose to pop up where my finger/stylus is? Its popping up in the left top corner on my n900.
- The url is opening in the same browser window I already had up. You should make it open in a new window, I'm not finished reading the window I had up :p
- The possibility to see what pic you're uploading before choosing it. (Maybe this isn't possible, it seems to use a default file browser?)

:)

dwould

2009-12-05 20:39

Re: witter - a python twitter client

getting application launching to work properly is driving me crazy.
I thought I had it right, by removing the X-Osso stuff from the .desktop file. but that stopped working.
I've since tried a bunch of combinations of values in the desktop file and service file. tried a context value with and without .'s in it. with and without com.nokia pre-fix.

this is the most frustrating thing I've found in maemo development. made most frustrating by zero feedback and no apparent place to find a log of why it's not working.

any help on diagnosing failure would be great.

dwould

2009-12-06 14:56

Re: witter - a python twitter client

ok. 0.1.0-12 is now in extras-testing. I think application launcher is working again. but since I don't understand why it stopped working, and I'm not sure why it is working now, I'm not as confident in it as I should be.

it features a new layout for the tweet text. no more two columns with screen name separate. it now uses pango markup to have one column and make the screen name blue, whilst the tweet should be some default colour. and the timestamp is now small.

I have no idea how to work with themes, so if it looks wrong in different ones...sorry.

it also now gives a little more feedback on errors. it will prompt for credentials on first launch. and it should pop up error codes if there is a problem talking to twitter.

noobmonkey

2009-12-06 15:17

Re: witter - a python twitter client

what a great little application :)seem to be a few issues, and it's not hugely user friendly.
The tweets load fine, but having no luck on the mentions/DM's or friends at the moment.

Loving the twitpic integration! well done

noobmonkey

2009-12-06 15:18

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Forgot to add the Login box is a little strange, seems to have "insert turned on" so when i made a mistake, was easire to delete it all and start again,

Also the first password character is capitalized - wondered why it was telling me i got my password wrong :)

dwould

2009-12-06 15:29

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Quote:

Originally Posted by noobmonkey (Post 412958)

Also the first password character is capitalized - wondered why it was telling me i got my password wrong :)

i tried to figure out how to stop this from happening. anyone know a setting for gtk.entry in python that willswitch this behaviour off?

dwould

2009-12-06 15:32

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Quote:

Originally Posted by noobmonkey (Post 412957)

The tweets load fine, but having no luck on the mentions/DM's or friends at the moment.

weird... any chance you can run it from a terminal ('witter') and tell me if it gives out errors when you try to load the dms/mentions etc. it works fine for me, but it's possible something in your feeds is tripping it up.

noobmonkey

2009-12-06 15:39

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Quote:

Originally Posted by dwould (Post 412968)

bear with me, my first terminal usage! :)

Well it loaded fine from terminal

Auto-logged in which was fine.
Clicked timeline, can see all the tweets.
If i click mentions, i get nothing - just a blank screen (Shown below)
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2774/...c28d7635_o.png
same with direct mentions, search and friends.

dwould

2009-12-06 16:02

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Quote:

Originally Posted by noobmonkey (Post 412973)

bear with me, my first terminal usage! :)

Well it loaded fine from terminal

so nothing came out in the terminal?

it has just occured to me that there is an aspect of userfriendlyness that I've probably overlooked.

when you load the timeline. it *only* loads that timeline. if you switch to another view, it will be blank until you hit refresh.

I didn't want to be slow loading all the data behind all the views if people didn't necessarily want it. It's part of my choice not to auto-refresh either.

Perhaps I should put a default entry on each screen that says 'hit refresh to load data'

of course if that isn't the problem, then I really would have expected information in the terminal when you hit refresh.

noobmonkey

2009-12-06 16:19

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Quote:

Originally Posted by dwould (Post 412991)

Dohhhhhh it was just me using your app wrong! i didn't realise i had to hit refresh to show the mentions, dm's, friends etc!

As a user i would expect the refresh to happen when i hit the actual tools button - ie, when i hit mentions, it refreshes and loads the mentions.

That was you can remove the refresh button entirely.
Also, i think maybe a mini loading icon/image may be needed. when i hit refresh, i really wasnt sure it was doing anything for about 6-10 seconds. Once i figured it out once, it was fine :)

noobmonkey

2009-12-06 16:21

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Also, xterm did bring up alot of things!!!
Here's the end of it :)
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2511/...5f2d1cb0_o.png

dwould

2009-12-06 16:44

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Quote:

Originally Posted by noobmonkey (Post 413021)

Also, xterm did bring up alot of things!!!
Here's the end of it :)
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2511/...5f2d1cb0_o.png

ok I can see a bug there, which I've just fixed. though I may roll up a few more things before trying to push through a new version.

as far as the refreshing when you switch views goes...I am not sure about doing it that way. sometimes I might want to just switch through the already loaded view, without necessarily incurring a refresh. particulaly if you wanted to refer to something that you had already loaded, but whilst you are not connected. then it would be annoying to have an error every time you switch views.

noobmonkey

2009-12-06 16:47

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Quote:

Originally Posted by dwould (Post 413053)

can you check for a connection first?

ie: If connection then refresh, else show refresh button - or just refresh :)

dwould

2009-12-06 16:56

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Quote:

Originally Posted by noobmonkey (Post 413055)

can you check for a connection first?

ie: If connection then refresh, else show refresh button - or just refresh :)

interesting idea, no idea whether I can query from python whether there is an active data connection. I guess I'll look into it.

noobmonkey

2009-12-06 16:57

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Quote:

Originally Posted by dwould (Post 413061)

interesting idea, no idea whether I can query from python whether there is an active data connection. I guess I'll look into it.

sorry i've allways done VB and asp, i really should learn Python :)

dwould

2009-12-07 09:42

Re: witter - a python twitter client

I have now created a project space for witter here:
https://garage.maemo.org/projects/witter/

at some point this week I'll try to figure it out enough to upload witter into proper SCM. but in any case this seems a place in which people can raise bugs/enhancements etc if they really want to.

I'm in no way suggesting that I will necessarily fix or add anything, but it will in theory be a more sensible place to manage such things.

noobmonkey

2009-12-07 10:06

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Quote:

Originally Posted by dwould (Post 414109)

Thank you very much :) - i'll pop by and join in if needed :) - happy to test and try to help if i can :)

thp	2009-12-07 10:30

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Quote:

Originally Posted by dwould (Post 413061)

interesting idea, no idea whether I can query from python whether there is an active data connection. I guess I'll look into it.

python-conic (the binding for libconic) allows you to do this:

http://pymaemo.garage.maemo.org/conic.html
http://maemo.org/api_refs/5.0/5.0-final/libconic/

And to quote from bug 5399:

Quote:

All network types supported by the device are found as directories in gconf at '/system/osso/connectivity/network_type/', if an application needs them anyway. There is no API in libconic for this, though.

noobmonkey

2009-12-07 10:37

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Quote:

Originally Posted by thp (Post 414185)

python-conic (the binding for libconic) allows you to do this:

http://pymaemo.garage.maemo.org/conic.html
http://maemo.org/api_refs/5.0/5.0-final/libconic/

And to quote from bug 5399:

thanks thp :) - useful having that!

thp	2009-12-07 11:12

Re: witter - a python twitter client

And here's some more generic feedback after trying out your app:

Buttons should be hildon.Button instances (with FINGER size, probably)
The gtk.Entry you have should be hildon.Entry (for the styling)

Also, it's not really obvious that the entry box belongs to the "Search" button (in addition to other things). A nicer design would be to open a dialog with a text entry box when the "Search" button is clicked and open the search results in another view (StackableWindow).

When I'm not entering any authentication data, Clicking on "timeline"+"refresh" should probably use a Hildon Note instead of a dialog with the title (and ideally with a 401 error, you could show the login dialog, as this is where most users would want to go in this situation).

The "Exit" button in the appmenu is redundant, as there is the "X" button in the titlebar already.

What does "Invert" in the app menu do?

The context menu should pop up at the location of the mouse coordinates, and should have the widget name set to "hildon-context-sensitive-menu" to get the correct styling.

The "TwitPic!" item should use a hildon file chooser instead of the GTK+ one.

I would also suggest either opening a new subview for different content (e.g. "Trends", etc..) or at least changing the window title so that the user knows which "mode" he/she is currently in (e.g. "Witter - Search for maebar" or "Witter - Your timeline").

Oh, and a feature request: Add support for identi.ca :)

Thanks for the great application - I especially like the "search" functionality, as the only other twitter app that I know of does not yet have this functionality ;)

dwould

2009-12-07 14:57

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Thanks for taking the time to provide this feedback!

Quote:

Originally Posted by thp (Post 414235)

And here's some more generic feedback after trying out your app:

Buttons should be hildon.Button instances (with FINGER size, probably)
The gtk.Entry you have should be hildon.Entry (for the styling)

Hmm, I switched to using glade to define the user interface in the mistaken idea that this would make my life easier. If there are hildon specific versions of everything, does that mean i should just give up with glade? or is there some glade ui design software that will let me use hildon objects?

Quote:

Originally Posted by thp (Post 414235)

This is an interesting one.. I quite intentionally made it this way because I wanted fewer clicks between me and a given function. and I don't like all the opening new window stuff. However I take the point that it is really not a user friendly thing, because you'd probably not *guess* that it worked that way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by thp (Post 414235)

When I'm not entering any authentication data, Clicking on "timeline"+"refresh" should probably use a Hildon Note instead of a dialog with the title (and ideally with a 401 error, you could show the login dialog, as this is where most users would want to go in this situation).

I could switch to hildon notes, what is the specific advantage over a dialog?,
I guess I could catch all non-auth responses and drive the login dialog. that said it should go straight to the login dialog on first use now anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by thp (Post 414235)

The "Exit" button in the appmenu is redundant, as there is the "X" button in the titlebar already.

What does "Invert" in the app menu do?

Yeah, in my current development level both exit and invert are gone. invret used to flip the text colour to try to avoid problems with people having a theme which made the text invisible. Then I switched to pango markup and that stopped working anyway.
I stlil have no idea if the text will obey any theme rules.

Quote:

Originally Posted by thp (Post 414235)

The context menu should pop up at the location of the mouse coordinates, and should have the widget name set to "hildon-context-sensitive-menu" to get the correct styling.

good tip on the styling. That said i like the pop-up in the top right, maybe I'll try setting it to pointer location and see how I get on with it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by thp (Post 414235)

The "TwitPic!" item should use a hildon file chooser instead of the GTK+ one.

again with the hildon specific stuff. I may just throw away glade ;-(

Quote:

Originally Posted by thp (Post 414235)

I would also suggest either opening a new subview for different content (e.g. "Trends", etc..) or at least changing the window title so that the user knows which "mode" he/she is currently in (e.g. "Witter - Search for maebar" or "Witter - Your timeline").

I'll look at changing the window title, because I specifically didn't want to open new windows for the different views.

Quote:

Originally Posted by thp (Post 414235)

Oh, and a feature request: Add support for identi.ca :)

Thanks for the great application - I especially like the "search" functionality, as the only other twitter app that I know of does not yet have this functionality ;)

given that I don't use identi.ca, and my code is hopelessly badly architected, I suspect this one is unlikely. at least for some time. Sorry

rcadden

2009-12-07 15:11

Re: witter - a python twitter client

How possible is including support for multiple accounts?

dwould

2009-12-07 16:15

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Quote:

Originally Posted by rcadden (Post 414635)

How possible is including support for multiple accounts?

it's entirely possible. the question is really around quite how that is best implemented.
would you want to be able to switch between them, doing distinctly one at a time
would you want any refresh to simultaneously get from all accounts? or just currently selected one?
if you intermixed views, would you need to see which account a tweet related to?

I've never used multiple accounts so I'm not sure what would make the most sense.

thp	2009-12-07 16:47

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Quote:

Originally Posted by dwould (Post 414620)

You should use GtkBuilder instead of Glade. There's an automated utility to do this called "gtk-builder-convert". You can use Hildon widgets with GtkBuilder (i.e. replace GtkButton with HildonButton). Please note that bug 4718 will cause the styling to still be incorrect, so you have to set the name of the widget to "HildonButton-finger" (or "HildonButton-thumb") after loading it from the .ui file, like this:

Code:

yourwidget.set_name('HildonButton-finger')

You should be able to do the same thing for a GtkButton to get the styling, but this is untested, and not really beautiful ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by dwould (Post 414620)

A HildonNote is the "big" yellow, modal thing where the message is shown until the note is touched:

Code:

win = ... # your main window

msg = 'some text'

note = hildon.hildon_note_new_information(win, msg)

note.run()

note.destroy()

An alternative would be to use a HildonBanner that has a timeout for non-critical messages: http://maemomm.garage.maemo.org/docs...res/banner.png

Quote:

Originally Posted by dwould (Post 414620)

good tip on the styling. That said i like the pop-up in the top right, maybe I'll try setting it to pointer location and see how I get on with it.

In all the built-in applications, context menus pop up under the touch point, so for consistency, it should probably be like that for your application, too. Even on the desktop when right-clicking somewhere, the menu pops up at the cursor position, and not at the top left corner of the screen. Of course, there are issues with this approach on a finger-based UI (because the content that pops up is hidden by the physical finger), but it's how things are done in the Maemo 5 UI today.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dwould (Post 414620)

I'll look at changing the window title, because I specifically didn't want to open new windows for the different views.

If you convert to GtkBuilder, think about using HildonStackableWindow + sub-views. It's nice, easy, and makes the user navigation more friendly. It also restricts the possible actions that the user can do (i.e. because in a search results view you cannot click on "Timeline", you have to go back first), leading to less errors that you have to catch :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by dwould (Post 414620)

given that I don't use identi.ca, and my code is hopelessly badly architected, I suspect this one is unlikely. at least for some time. Sorry

AFAIK Identi.ca has a Twitter-compatible API, so just having a "API URL" setting should be enough to support Identi.ca as well (with the default being the URL of the Twitter API).

rcadden

2009-12-07 16:58

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Quote:

Originally Posted by dwould (Post 414722)

Glad you asked. Ideally, I'd like it to function similar to Seesmic Desktop, where the home timelines are kept separate, but @replies and messages are able to be viewed in a single stream.

The only trick with that is when I click to reply to someone from this master @replies view, I would want Witter to either choose the account that they responded to, or popup a box asking which account I would like to send the response from.

If that's too much, then simply ALL separate views would suffice. This could easily be implemented with a button that would pop up a box asking which account i'd like to use, or have the accounts listed in the Fremantle drop-down box, either or. Each accounts' avatar could be used as an icon somewhere to show which account I'm currently using.

noobmonkey

2009-12-07 17:00

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Quote:

Originally Posted by thp (Post 414762)

Code:

yourwidget.set_name('HildonButton-finger')

You should be able to do the same thing for a GtkButton to get the styling, but this is untested, and not really beautiful ;)

A HildonNote is the "big" yellow, modal thing where the message is shown until the note is touched:

Code:

win = ... # your main window

msg = 'some text'

note = hildon.hildon_note_new_information(win, msg)

note.run()

note.destroy()

An alternative would be to use a HildonBanner that has a timeout for non-critical messages: http://maemomm.garage.maemo.org/docs...res/banner.png

In all the built-in applications, context menus pop up under the touch point, so for consistency, it should probably be like that for your application, too. Even on the desktop when right-clicking somewhere, the menu pops up at the cursor position, and not at the top left corner of the screen. Of course, there are issues with this approach on a finger-based UI (because the content that pops up is hidden by the physical finger), but it's how things are done in the Maemo 5 UI today.

If you convert to GtkBuilder, think about using HildonStackableWindow + sub-views. It's nice, easy, and makes the user navigation more friendly. It also restricts the possible actions that the user can do (i.e. because in a search results view you cannot click on "Timeline", you have to go back first), leading to less errors that you have to catch :)

AFAIK Identi.ca has a Twitter-compatible API, so just having a "API URL" setting should be enough to support Identi.ca as well (with the default being the URL of the Twitter API).

I'm really impressed, not only are you incredibly helpful - i can actually understand what you are saying and what you mean :)

Going to make an effort to try to learn python soon - (Have done facebook api's before and coded in PHP, ASP and .net) - so how hard can it be! (Crossing fingers after i type that!)

It's also very refreshing on here to not be be-littled! i know not everyone does, but a few spoil it - and its just great to see help like the above :)

tso	2009-12-07 18:00

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Just want to say, nice work :D

I seem to have bumped into a issue with 0.1.0-4 where it fails to save user name and password on exit. This is on a N800/N810 btw.

On the scrolling side, i am not much fan of kinetic scrolling, but it may work better on witter vs mauku, as witter do not have a double-tap action on entries. That is, if you get so far as to implement drag to scroll on the N810 version at all. Optionally i guess you could just do a wider scroll bar, so that its easier to use with fingers (see modest as an example).

There is a small issue with the long-tap menu, where even tho it shows a focued menu, one have to tap the menu twice before it shows any sub-menus.

And some of the text flows under the scroll bar, rather then shift the word down to the next line.

Oh, and a feature request. It would be nice if a long-tap menu option would be to show the timeline for the specific user, as sometimes its nice to dig back and see what kind of entries a user have made lately.

Tintin

2009-12-07 19:37

Re: witter - a python twitter client

Looking forward to testing this once it hits Extras for Diablo.
Would love a Mauku alternative.

joshua.maverick

2009-12-07 20:26

Re: witter - a python twitter client

1 Attachment(s)

how about a layout similar to this? It's a quick mock up but do you think it would be beneficial to make it a little more visually pleasing?

tso	2009-12-07 20:57

Re: witter - a python twitter client

i found myself thinking, would it be possible to trigger the long-tap menu using center dpad?

would be useful when one scroll thru the list using the dpad anyways.

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