Twaddle » 0.1.1

Pending update

MrMDavidson — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:07:10 +0000

It’s funny, you test an application for several weeks and determine there’s no major bugs and go ahead and release it. Then on the day of release you experience a crashing bug didn’t occur previously resulting in egg on your face. Basically, when Twaddle gets updates from Twitter it looks at the list of tweets for any @replies. If it finds an @reply it checks who the target is and proceeds to download their information (if Twaddle does not already have it). Once this is done it can proceed to download that user’s avatar and create the schmick little overlays that you see in the various Twaddle views. Unfortunately there’s a slight problem… if an @reply is directed at a user who protects their updates, and you do not have access to those updates, Twaddle flails it’s arms in the air and crashes. Not cool, not cool all. Now that I’ve experienced the problem and know what it is I can fix it.

I also noticed that obtaining your friends list took way longer than it should. This will also be rectified in the next point release (0.1.2). As a result of this fix the first time you use 0.1.2 – or newer – you may notice that Twaddle takes a bit longer than usual to start up due to an update to the database used to store information. The upside of this is that Twaddle should update a lot quicker, resulting in better battery life, and generally a better user experience.

Expect the new version today or tomorrow.

0.1.1 Public Release

MrMDavidson — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:55:51 +0000

I’m incredibly happy – and proud – to announce the release of 0.1.1 of Twaddle. Features included in this release are;

Viewing your timeline
Viewing all your friends and their last tweets
Viewing your own tweets
Posting tweets, replies and retweets
Downloading of avatars + avatars of @replies of your friends
Geotagging of your tweets
Viewing the Google Map of geotagged posts
OAuth support – no username / password entry required
Portrait and landscape support
Software Input Panel support in both portrait and landscape mode
Copy / view URLs mentioned in posts
Is.Gd URL shortening
Popup notifications

Currently I’ve only tested / developed Twaddle for Pocket PC based devices (also known as Windows Mobile Professional devices / Windows Mobile devices with a touch screen). A Smart Phone version might be supported at a later date.

There are two available downloads;

Pocket PC installation – Run this file from your phone
Desktop installation – Run this file from your Desktop. Twaddle will be installed next time you sync with that PC

Alternatively, if you have Microsoft Tag Reader (visit gettag.mobi on your phone’s browser) installed on your phone you can scan the tag below.

If you’ve installed Twaddle and found it useful and would like to help support it’s development please consider donating via PayPal.

First public screenshots

MrMDavidson — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:37:40 +0000

Yesterday I promised that screenshots and a build would be posted shortly. Well, in order to fulfil that I present a series of images! I’ve tried to get a selection of images which demonstrate various features of Twaddle. As I’ve tried to make sure that no one on my friends list has their privacy violated some features do not show up very well. This not only covers your friends, but anyone that they post an @reply to as well.

Your Tweets (Portrait)

The author’s current Tweets. Unfortunately all my test tweets tend to be fairly short so you cannot see that the individual items will flow and use up as much room as they require. Additionally my test user has the default avatar

Your Tweets (Landscape)

This is the same view as above but in landscape orientation. Twaddle will automatically reflow items when the orientation changes. It should also work across a variety of resolutions (I use a HTC Touch Pro which is higher DPI / resolution device)

Location Support

The focus of this screenshot is the context menu and the selected tweet. You’ll note the selected tweet ends with the text L:-33…,151…. Twaddle has recognised that as a set of GPS co-ordinates and the context menu includes a “View Location” item which will launch your default browser and show the location in Google Maps

Geo Tagging

There’s a couple of features to take in here. First of all, we’re getting a glimpse of the reply functionality of Twaddle. It’s automatically inserted the nick of the user we’re talking to and it shows the user’s avatar as well as the tweet we’re replying to. Secondly you can see that I’ve brought up the option to GeoTag this post. Currently GeoTagging is implemented by looking up your current mobile (cell) tower’s information in Google’s database. This means that GeoTagging will work on devices without a GPS chip. It is however less accurate. Future versions will likely provide the option to use GPS instead of Google

SIP Support

I think this screenshot flows on nicely from the previous shot – it’s the reply / post interface but this time showing the Software Input Panel (for devices without hardware keyboards). Compared to the previous image you can see that the text of the item we’re replying to flows differently. Additionally the entire interface has resized to accommodate the SIP. One final thing is the indicator for the number of characters you have left in your tweet

Short URL (Is.Gd) support

Still in the reply / post dialog this time showing the short URL integration. This is provided through is.gd and comes in two flavours: First, you can select text in this view and replace it with a short URL. Secondly you can copy a URL from elsewhere and when pasting the URL you can have it automatically replaced with a short URL.

Popup Notifications

Finally away from the post / reply interface. This time into the popup notifications provided by Twaddle. When a new tweet is received by Twaddle it will optionally perform popup notifications which provide an interface for replying and retweeting. I find this is really handy when I’ve been busy as a nice way to quickly catch up on what my friends have been doing.

That’s all the screenshots for now. There’s a lot more beneath the surface, but going over some of it becomes tedious. Additionally some features can’t be shown in screenshots (like finger scrolling through tweets).