TweetHub

TweetHub is a rich user interface built over the ECF Twitter provider using RCP.

Where to get it

TweetHub is hosted at https://github.com/ECF/Twitter

Modules/Projects

• ECF twitter provider: plugins/org.eclipse.ecf.provider.twitter
• TwitterHub UI: plugins/org.eclipse.ecf.provider.twitter.ui.hub
• RCP product: plugins/org.eclipse.ecf.provider.twitter.ui.hub.product

A detailed description how to get TweetHub can be found here: http://www.vogella.de/blog/2009/08/10/eclipse-twitter/

To file a bug

Go to bugzilla(ECF) here and select "ecf.twitterhub" as component.

Requirements

The following is a list of requirements for both the UI and provider levels

User Interface

• Provide the following views:
  • Tweet (send message)
    • Shorten the text as you type (Eat up vowels to reduce message length).
  • Mentions
  • Direct Messages
    • Auto Reply? (I'm away on vacation)
  • Sent Messages
  • Favourites
  • People
    • Following
    • Followers
    • Stalk (follow without adding to "follow" list)
  • Groups
  • Search
  • Trends - not sure how necessary this is!

Avatar actions Whereever the avatar appears allow:

• RT, Reply and DM.
• Tooltip displaying profile

Tweet View

• Tab completion in the Tweet view for all @ addressed users in your follow lists
• Provide a URL shortening service in the tweet view (e.g., tr.im)
• Provide a picture service in the tweet view (e.g., pic.im)

General

• Mark new tweets/read tweets
• Notification of new tweets, and new additions to search
• On mouseover of a shortened link, show the full link in a tooltip. (Maybe provide an option for this)
  • Likewise for photo links, show thumbnail on mouseover.
• Perhaps provide a view of sent/recieved links?
• Provide a Translate option through Google Translate?
• Allow multiple accounts
• Spell checker?
• Support multiple microblogging services (identi.ca & private laconi.ca servers, others)
• Shorten URL
• Image upload (copy/paste, auto-upload to twitpic, other svc.)

Preferences

• Update rate (keep in mind the Twitter API call limit of 100 per hour)
• Autologin
• System tray integration?

Provider

• Change the client name from Twitter4J to TweetHub

Plan

Currently we're working on part 1 of the plan. Help is welcome for any of the features below. Just let us know on the ecf mailing list, and we can put your name next to the feature.

Part 0: Public Beta Build

We're days away from our first release of TweetHub. Here are the tasks that we want to do before we send it out.

Before We Release

• Add in preferences for the amount of API calls. Every view that gets populated = 1 call. And a Tweet is another call. We need a clever preferences page so that the user can balance this.
• Show follower count
• Get more than 100 followers
• Get more than 15 search results
• Allow access to older messages in all views
• Show trends in a nicer way
• System tray notification
• Update message timestamps on a timer (every minute)
• Track down Auto-refresh memory issues
• Provide a build for users to download a complete TweetHub version

Part 1: The Basics

• Add in the direct messages. Provider, View and How to Send.
  
• Also should split Sent/Recieved DMs
  
• Populate the trends view.
  
• Show all Followers/Following rather than just 100
  
• Get more than just 15 search results.
  
• Save Search so that it can restart. Perhaps allow more than one search?
• Update search results periodically (User preference)
•  Add in buttons in the Message Composite to mark as favourite or to follow the user.
  
• Add in a View User link in the Follower/Following view so that we can open their Twitter page in a browser (to save API calls)
  
•  Finally I need to contact Twitter to register TweetHub as a valid client. I plan to do that soon.
  
•  Add a cool splash screen. I have an idea, I just need to get around to using Photoshop :-)
  
• I think we may need more detail in the Message composite (e.g. in reply to...
  
• I'd like to add in Mylyn-type notifications on the task bar
  
• Multiple user support, so that if I have two Twitter accounts I can have both open.. Maybe that needs to wait :)
  
• Perhaps we should persist the follower/following list on the users disk. This would make the application appear to open faster.

Provider

• Access Sent Messages
• Group functionality
• Favourite functionality
• Seperate Following and Followers [Done]
  

UI

• Send Direct Message

Better formatting of Tweet box

• Link #tags with search
• Mark as favourite
• Direct Messages View [Done]
  
• View following/followers [Done]
  
• View profile in tooltip[Done]
• Replies View[Done]
  
• Search [Done]
  
• Add cache functionality (especially for images)[Done]
• Gets profile image from message (don't depend on Follow lists)[Done]
• Allow sending of tweets [Done]
• Retweet [Done]
• Reply [Done]
• Decorate @tags with link [Done]
• URL Shorten [Done]

Bugs in Part 1

• Need to sort messages by timestamp bug 277294(James)
• Separate Following and Followers bug 277291 (Marcelo)
• User images in MessagesViewPart are not always showing bug 279126 (Vincenzo)
• User images in SearchViewPart are not showing at first search bug 279206 (Francesco)

Part 2: User Assistance

• Tab completion in the Tweet view for all @ addressed users in your follow lists
• Mark new/read tweets
• Picture service/image uploading
• Trends
• Groups
• Favourites
• Preferences page
• System Tray Integration (Notifications)

Part 3: Killer Features

• Multiple user accounts
• Spellchecker
• Space saver (eat up vowels)
• On mouseover of a shortened link, show the full link in a tooltip. (Maybe provide an option for this)
• Translate option through Google Translate

Part 4: Zero Install

• RAP Implementation of TweetHub