First of the random ideas for Over The Air hacks – a Twitter client for Windows Mobile.
When posting a tweet, the key is speed. I don’t want to wait to launch an app, I don’t want lots of features. I just want something to take my message and post it.
When reading tweets, I don’t mind waiting (e.g. for the list to be gathered).
And on mobile, I don’t really want regular notifications or polling. Following over a hundred people, I’d either hose my phone battery by constantly getting updates, or I’d miss most updates anyway. I just need to be able to see a list of updates when I want.
I went for a Today screen widget for posting, written in C++ to keep it quick and lightweight.
And if you click on the twitter logo, it launches your default browser at the mobile Twitter site http://m.twitter.com/. The best of both worlds 🙂
Download a copy here
To set your username and password, go to the Options dialog for “Twit Today” from the Today screen control panel applet.
Update: There has been some confusion in the comments… this is a ‘Today screen‘ plugin – which means it is for the Today screen that you get on touchscreen devices. It is not a ‘Home screen’ plugin (which are meant for devices without a touchscreen). Apologies to the people whose time I wasted by being unclear!
Update 2: The current version is 1.6 (version is shown in the settings screen where you enter your username and password). If you have an older version than this, please download it again.
Tags: mobile, overtheair, twitter, twittoday, windows mobile, windowsmobile
Hey Dale,
All installed, appears on my Today screen, password accepted, launching Internet version – all no problemo.
BUT how to activate writing panel from Today screen? Tapping, writing with my stylus, swearing in my most ladylike manner all produce NADA.
Can you help, please?
Many thanks,
Michele
@everyone-asking-for-new-features
sorry, I haven’t really done much with this since writing it on the hackday evening. I’ll try and find some time to do this soon
[…] Apps « TwitterBash Twit Today July 20, 2008 Twit Today – Twitter client for Windows mobile. Note that “this is a ‘Today screen‘ plugin – which […]
[…] TwitToday is a Windows Mobile Today screen widget (touchscreen only) for posting to Twitter, written in C++ to keep it quick and lightweight. Also, if you click on the Twitter logo, it launches your default browser at the mobile Twitter site http://m.twitter.com/. […]
updated – hope this addresses a lot of what people have been asking for
[…] from adding the ability to initiate an internet connection, my Twitter widget for Windows Mobile Today screens is still virtually the same code as I wrote in a few hours overnight at the Over The […]
TwitToday is THE coolest thing for MOBILE Twitter. The mobile clients that try to emulate desktop programs miss the point. TT posts very, very quickly. Like Dale said, when mobile you mainly want just to post updates. Do your following elsewhere.
Discovered the keyboard problem with the XV6700 as mentioned above. Bummer! But from the screen input, it’s still an awesome concept.
@CaptainJustice – sorry to hear about the problem. it’s so strange that the XV6700 has that quirk in it’s keyboard driver!
Thanks very much for the kind comments.
Very nice. I had downloaded Pocket Twit yesterday but for the reasons you stated it was a battery killer. Deleted it and installed TwitToday… um… today. Thanks very much. Just what I needed for my ATT TILT.
Does it support Twitpic?
@Spadty – I’ve not used Twitpic, so I’m not sure what you would want when you say ‘support’. Do you mean have I added control of a cameraphone to take and upload a picture? Cos if so, then no.
Hi Dale! I’ve been using your app for… god knows! I’m so pleased with it, simply love your work! BUT! I’m from Norway, and I really need it being able to handle the ??? letters.
Don’t know what kind of text encoding you use, but UTF-8 should go well… I get “500 – Failed to post tweet” when I submit the form with ??? letters.
I’m willing to donate a little something for you if this problem could be fixed! You have my e-mail 🙂
Hi Michael
Thanks very much for the comment. I don’t know how to do this, but will try and research it if I get the chance.
Kind regards
D
Just and idea… what about adding a ping.fm today screen updater? I’ve been using it to update twitter as well as other social networks all at the same time!
Does this use SMS to send updates?
nope – just your phone’s Internet connection. (so it uses WiFi/3G/GPRS as available)
A great idea but unfortunately had problems on my device (Verizon XV6700). My device has a fold out keyboard. When I try and use it I get numbers instead of letters on the top row. The “display on screen kb” option did work, though it can get confused when you switch to other things and back. You can get into a situation where the kb is not displayed and you have to toggle back and froth between your ap and something else to make it show up again.
Dale,
I have been looking for a WM6 plugin ever since I signed up for twitter and now I have finally found one that is simple and quick. I have been asking via tweets; unfortunately, many tweeters are iPhone users and consequently they couldn’t offer any suggestions. I am definitely going to let everyone know about this plugin. It makes posting my tweets from my smartphone as fun as from my desktop.
My thanks to your plugin. James
Any change of porting this over to Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard, I’m so jealous of you guys, you know what would be cool a panel where you can shoot a twitt
Sorry – I don’t know how to write home screen plugins.
[…] was originally written back in April as a hackday idea. The code posts Twitter updates using a variation on the twitter-from-curl approach of HTTP POSTing […]
Hi Dale
I’m new to tweeting and just found your app, which would seem to be simple & perfect.
I have wm6.1 pro on att tilt. with wifi connection my tweets won’t post, comes back with generic message that it failed. if I close down the wifi and use GPRS then I get a 401 error – failed to send tweet.
Is there something I’m doing wrong?
Thanks in advance
Red
@Redjessy – I don’t know.
Do you use a proxy to connect to the Internet?
[…] Twitter ist ein Dienst der Micro-Blogging seit 2006 anbietet. Die Anmeldung erfolgt schnell und einfach, der Dienst ist kostenlos. Was auch auffällt ist, dass Twitter keine sichtliche Werbung schaltet. Um es den Twitterern leicht zu machen sich mitzuteilen gibt es viele mögliche Kanäle über die man seine Tweets loswerden kann. So gibt es neben dem Standard-Webinterface auch ein mobiles Webinterface für Handybrowser sowie Plugins für Firefox (TwitterFox) aber auch Applikationen für alle möglichen mobilen Endgeräte, z.B. TwitToday. […]
[…] TwitToday – A plugin for your Today screen that allows you to post to your Twitter account. […]
[…] ao seu telefone. – Slick – Faz exatamente a mesma coisa que o Fring, mas com menos recursos. – TwitToday – Plugin para Twitter. Indispensável para quem usa o programa direto. – Skype – O programa VoIP […]
[…] dale lane » Blog Archive » Twitter for Windows Mobile (tags: twitter pda) […]
Nice one, thanks.
[…] Twittoday: TwitToday is a simple today screen plug-in which allows you to post twitter messages directly from your Windows Mobile device. […]
Just installed it on the new Treo Pro (v.nice phone) and twit Today fails to install. WM6.1 doesnt really give any error msgs…anyone else had this prob?
Ta
@paul – Sorry for the delay in replying. I’m not sure what you mean by fail… few things worth verifying though:
a) Did you install to main memory (i.e. not a storage card, etc.)?
b) Did you enable the plugin from your Today Screen settings?
c) Did you try restarting your phone after installing and enabling?
Hi!
I would love to use that little gem, but every time i try to send a tweet on my Samsung SGH-i780 (over GPRS or WiFi), it just tells me “Failed to send tweet” without any further explanation. INet access surely works, as it correctly loads the twitter homepage when tapping the little icon in front of the input line. This error message pops up very fast, immediately after tapping “OK”, so i guess it is not connecting something online at all. I also double and triple-checked my login details, they are OK. The Device uses WM6.0. Any ideas?
Stefan
Args…i just tried again, and it works now….incredible! 😉
Sorry…
Stefan
I have to say that I consider TwitToday to be an essential application on my windows mobile phone. But I have ONE suggestion… a characters remaining counter. Add that and this app is truly perfect.
Just my .02 cents…
Mark
Hey there,
The application is a great one, easy to use and quick option to update twitter with no fumbling, but a few suggestions.
My first suggestion is, is it possible to have your current status shown in the today option?
Second, the white box is unsightly, could you (in reference to the first suggestion) have your current status as normal text (Like any other today option) and then when tapped, the box appears (Empty!) ready for a new status. When okay is tapped, the status is sent and returns back to normal text with the new status.
And third and radical suggestion….
A FaceToday application! I’ve been looking for a similar Facebook application, yours would be perfect if you migrated it to facebook e.g. A status update box (same method as above), the icon sends you to mobile facebook.
If possible, even throw in a second line with number of new messages, friend requests, pokes and notifications. When tapped, each one sends you to the correct page 😉
Jamie – Many thanks for the comment.
Not sure about using the plugin to display current tweet. For one thing, I know what I wrote, so I’m not sure that I gain much by being shown my own updates.
But more importantly, the aim of the plugin is to be uber-lightweight and small – with minimal memory and battery footprint. As soon as I add polling for twitter updates to the app, it becomes a more resource hungry app, which runs counter to what I wanted. This was never meant to be a full-featured app – apps like ceTwit give you features if you want them, this is meant to be a way to post-in-a-hurry.
I admit it’s a little ugly though, so making it transparent or something (if I knew how!) would be an improvement.
As for a Facebook app, it’s an idea. I don’t really use Facebook, so it’s not something I need myself, but I could look into it if it’s not too much work. Do Facebook have an API for updating statuses?
Hi,
The HTC Fuze has an “OK” button on its keyboard. Any chance you could add support for this button so that clicking it will automatically publish the tweet? Or the enter button? This would make the ap even easier to use.
Thanks! Love the ap!
-Pyrrhus
Hi Dale,
I was hoping to use this with my Verizon Treo 700wx running Window 6, with update 1.24. I installed it and see it in the list of uninstallable programs. I do not:
1) see it in my Today screen
2) see it in the options of things to add to the Today screen
3) see it in the list of Programs
Any thoughts?
-John
@John – Did you install it to removable storage? (e.g. an SD card?) Have you tried resetting your device since installing?
[…] some issues reported regarding this application. To know more about the user complaints, click on this link. One thing I must emphasis over here is that, you should always install this application in the […]
Similar to John above, this isn’t working for me. Using a Sprint Mogul (HTC PPC6800). I have installed it and it doesn’t show on today screen, or in the today menu settings.
I am in no way a “newb” to windows mobile.
I tried installing to both my SD card and to the phone storage. Tried soft reset between both. No luck. It’s too bad, I literally joined twitter because I saw how easy it would be to update it using your today plugin. Ha.
I hate to double post but I can’t edit it. 🙂 I forgot to mention that I’m running Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro.
@Brent – Sorry to hear you’re having problems. As I’m just a hobbyist developer, I don’t test apps on anything other than the free Microsoft emulator and my own phone. So I can’t say definitively whether it will work on a Sprint Mogul.
That said, a quick look on Google suggests that it does work on more than just my phone, so I can’t think of a good reason why it wouldn’t.
With that knee-jerk defence out of the way… let’s try investigate this.
1) Where did you get the CAB file from? (I know of a couple of dodgy freeware sites who are still distributing flakey broken copies of the app as it was after the first night I hacked it together at the hackday)
2) Please install to the phone storage, not the SD card (I know some phones and/or slower SD cards don’t initialise quickly enough, and if Windows Mobile doesn’t see the DLL in time when setting up Today Screen, it doesn’t go back to check again later).
3) Were there any errors reported during install? Or did it report that it had installed successfully?
4) Check that there is a DLL file present in \Program Files\TwitToday (You might need ‘Show All Files’ to be enabled in case it is hidden by default). And it should be about 19kb.
5) (If you are familiar with what the ‘Registry’ is – skip this otherwise).
Confirm that you have a registry key at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Today\Items\ and that it contains everything you think should be available as third-party Today Screen plugins. If this registry key has been corrupted or broken in any way, you wont see anything show up on the Today screen or Today Screen menus.
If these all look okay, confirm that a registry key has been written to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Today\Items\bLADE TwitToday
There should be several items in there, such as ‘DLL’ with the path of the DLL (e.g. \Program Files\TwitToday\twittoday.dll)
6) Soft-reset. This shouldn’t be necessary, but it’s probably worth making sure there are no locks left open on anything.
7) Start -> Settings -> Personal -> Today -> Items
There should be a ‘bLADE TwitToday’ check box. Check it.
Tap on Options and enter your twitter username and password.
Keep tapping on ‘OK’ until you get back to your Today Screen. Is it there?
8 ) Do you have any third-party Today Screen alternatives/enhancements? (e.g. SPB Mobile Shell)
9) Do you have any other third-party Today Screen plugins installed and/or enabled?
Hmm… can’t think of anything else for the moment. It’s all fairly straightforward. Windows checks that registry key for a list of DLLs to load, so problem 1 would be to not be in that list. Then it loads each of the list of DLLs, so problem 2 would be a failure to load the DLL.
Apologies for the long list of questions!
Hey Dale,
Sorry to waste your time, but thanks for the great response. I ended up uninstalling, rebooting. Installing (to phone) and rebooting, and it came up. 🙂
I typically wouldn’t have posted so fast for help except while reading the blog I saw the guy right above me saying the same thing so I just wanted to post.
It’s all working now. Thanks for the great work! If you want to share the source code, I’d love to play around in it. I can completely understand not wanting to do so though.
Thanks again.
So I am loving TwitToday. Thanks for such a great dev! Just one bug I’ve noticed. The ampersand ( & ) shows up as %26 on twitter.
Any fix for that? If not, I just won’t use it. lol.
@Brent – sounds like you’re using an old version. The current version is 1.3 – what do you have? (Check the screen where you enter your username and password for the version number)
this rules, thanks! working fine on my Treo 750 (AT&T) running WM6.1
just installed this on my Epix (at t) and it is working great… had to install on the phone memory but it is only 21k… great app…
installed and working a treat on a Samsung i780 running WM 6. So quick to post updates on GSM or WiFi – I’d just add a vote for the transparent text box until you click on it if you do decide to develop anything further 🙂