TTYtter for Perl

*** TTYtter is currently at version 2.1.0 (27 December 2012). You can skip to the changelog/download if you like.

*** Subscribe to updates over Twitter! -- twitter.com/ttytter

*** Want to expand your TTYtter ? Check out these extensions from @vkoser , @reuteras , @stormdragon2976 , @colindean , @pr4wn , @FunnelFiasco , and @IvanSanchez ! Send yours @ttytter !



Noooo, not another Twitter client! Yes, another Twitter client. The difference here is that you're dealing with a multi-functional, fully 100% text, Perl command line client.

In interactive mode, it is a fully interactive client with asynchronous background updates and commands. Use it over telnet , ssh or even a dummy terminal. Supports Streaming API, ANSI colour, UTF-8, hashtags and Twitter Search!

, or even a dummy terminal. Supports Streaming API, ANSI colour, UTF-8, hashtags and Twitter Search! Works within your favourite environment: use a compatible readline library (like our own bespoke Term::ReadLine::TTYtter ), or modify prompt and input methods for many popular window and session managers. Or don't: basic editing and screen management features built-in.

library (like our own bespoke ), or modify prompt and input methods for many popular window and session managers. Or don't: basic editing and screen management features built-in. From the command line, use it to update your Twitter in shell scripts, from cron , and so on.

, and so on. Security: Supports Twitter OAuth and HTTP Basic Authentication, and SSL where supported by your user agent.

Notification support with Growl and libnotify (and extendable to others via the API).

(and extendable to others via the API). Geolocation support: hand your GPS coordinates to TTYtter for any application.

for any application. Lists support, including fast creation and modification, and merging lists with your timeline as "custom timelines."

Supports Twitter-alike APIs, compatible with Twitter API 1.1.

Supports standard timelines and automatically fetches direct messages, and optionally replies/mentions, and runs queries against the Search API and incorporates them into your timeline as well.

New and old re-tweet support.

Write and use your own custom extensions!

Run detached in -daemon mode, and make your own Twitter bot!

TTYtter

cURL

LWP

cURL

Net::Twitter

cURL

telnet

ssh

TTYtter

If you are using a Perl version prior to 5.8.6, please read this important support note. You may be able to use TTYtter with Perl 5.005 and 5.6, but these versions are no longer routinely tested as of version 1.2. Perl 5.004 and earlier are not supported at all.

New users: Setting up TTYtter and getting OAuth keyfiles

This is primarily intended for Twitter accounts using OAuth (which will be the majority of users). If you will be using TTYtter with a Twitter-alike service that uses HTTP Basic Authentication, the OAuth portion of this introduction may not pertain to you; you should also read the OAuth portion of this introduction may not pertain to you; you should also read TTYtter and Basic Auth

TTYtter logs into Twitter using a system called OAuth, not with your Twitter username and password. OAuth uses a set of keys and secrets to authenticate your installation of TTYtter to Twitter. The OAuth tokens and secrets for each account are stored in that account's TTYtter "keyfile" and are used by TTYtter as credentials. You need a keyfile for each account you access Twitter with (but you only need to do this once for each account, and you can copy the keyfile to multiple computers if you use it multiple places). We'll talk about how you create that keyfile in a second.

To install TTYtter , download it to the location you want to run it from (such as your home directory or bin/ ), make it executable with chmod +x , and then start it from your shell prompt with something like ./ttytter . If your Perl is not in /usr/bin , change the first line ( /usr/bin/env on some systems does not support passing arguments in shebang lines, so for maximum compatibility it is not used here).

When you start TTYtter without a keyfile, which will be the case the first time you run it, it will automatically start an assistant to help you create the keyfile. You only need to create the keyfile once for each account. It will never expire. TTYtter will find where your cURL is located, and if successful, you should see something like this:

% ./ttytter trying to find cURL ... /usr/local/bin/curl -- no version check performed (use /vcheck, or -vcheck to check on startup) +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ || WELCOME TO TTYtter: Authorize TTYtter by signing into Twitter with OAuth || +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Looks like you're starting TTYtter for the first time, and/or creating a keyfile. Welcome to the most user-hostile, highly obfuscated, spaghetti code infested and obscenely obscure Twitter client that's out there. You'll love it. TTYtter generates a keyfile that contains credentials for you, including your access tokens. This needs to be done JUST ONCE. You can take this keyfile with you to other systems. If you revoke TTYtter's access, you must remove the keyfile and start again with a new token. You need to do this once per account you use with TTYtter; only one account token can be stored per keyfile. If you have multiple accounts, use -keyf=... to specify different keyfiles. KEEP THESE FILES SECRET. ** This wizard will overwrite /home/screwtape/.ttytterkey Press RETURN/ENTER to continue or CTRL-C NOW! to abort.

(If TTYtter complains that it cannot enable UTF-8 support, re-run it with the -seven option for now. You might want to look at the TTYtter and UTF-8 section later.)

By the way, these URLs do not expose passwords, but if you want to make sure everything is covered by SSL and your cURL supports it, start TTYtter with the -ssl option. The "screen shots" below use SSL.

Assuming you got that far, when you press RETURN, you go to the second step. You will need a web browser for this part.

Request from https://api.twitter.com/oauth/request_token .... SUCCEEDED! 1. Visit, in your browser, ALL ON ONE LINE, https://api.twitter.com/oauth/authorize?oauth_token=[random token, use yours] 2. If you are not already signed in, fill in your username and password. 3. Verify that TTYtter is the requesting application, and that its permissions are as you expect (read your timeline, see who you follow and follow new people, update your profile, post tweets on your behalf and access your direct messages). IF THIS IS NOT CORRECT, PRESS CTRL-C NOW! 4. Click Authorize app. 5. A PIN will appear. Enter it below. Enter PIN> _

Follow the steps exactly; namely, visit the URL on your screen (this URL is unique each time), sign in if needed, authorize the application, and enter the PIN Twitter gives you back. If this works, you should see

Request from https://api.twitter.com/oauth/access_token .... SUCCEEDED! Written keyfile /home/screwtape/.ttytterkey Now, restart TTYtter to use this keyfile. (To choose between multiple keyfiles other than the default .ttytterkey, tell TTYtter where the key is using -keyf=... .)

The keyfile this creates lives by default in your home directory, in ~/.ttytterkey . This is the first place TTYtter will look for a keyfile. When you restart TTYtter , it will log you into Twitter using that keyfile, like so:

% ./ttytter trying to find cURL ... /usr/bin/curl -- Streaming API disabled (no -dostream) (TTYtter will use REST API only) -- no version check performed (use -vcheck to check on startup) (checking credentials) test-login SUCCEEDED! -- processing credentials: logged in as screwtape ###################################################### +oo=========oo+ TTYtter 2.1.0 (c)2012 cameron kaiser @ @ all rights reserved. +oo= =====oo+ http://www.floodgap.com/software/ttytter/ a==: ooo .++o++. ..o**O freeware under the floodgap free software license. +++ :O::::: http://www.floodgap.com/software/ffsl/ +**O++ # :ooa #+$$AB=. tweet me: http://twitter.com/ttytter #;;ooo;; tell me: ckaiser@floodgap.com #+a;+++;O ###################################################### ,$B.*o*** O$, # a=o$*O*O*$o=a # when ready, hit RETURN/ENTER for a prompt. @$$$$$@ # type /help for commands or /quit to quit. @o@o@o@ # starting background monitoring process. @=@ @=@ TTYtter> a0> <barely> Looks like I am going to Baltimore next week

a1> <pamela> Redesign for bookstore website is almost done! RFP for custom publishing projects in the works due to start in Sept. Keeping busy.

-- checking for most recent direct messages:

[DM da0][cbqueue/Fri Sep 28 02:01:33 +0000 2007] test test

[DM da1][ttytter/Fri Sep 28 03:01:51 +0000 2007] don't forget to update the website

-- notification: API rate limit is currently 350 req/hr

-- no version check performed (use -vcheck to check on startup)

-- you are logged in as screwtape

You have now successfully logged into TTYtter and you can use that keyfile indefinitely for that Twitter screen name. If you use this screen name on other machines you use TTYtter on, simply copy the keyfile there; the credentials are machine-independent. If you are on a machine with other users, verify no one else can read the keyfile (this should be done for you, but consider a prophylactic chmod go-r on your keyfile(s) so that only you can read them).

At this point, the client is ready to go and you can start tweeting, and we'll talk about that below. In the background, TTYtter will automatically fetch new tweets and optionally direct messages and mentions, and feed them to you at regular intervals, allowing you to follow your timeline just like in any other interactive client.

If you're not seeing ANSI colours and you know your terminal supports it, either use the -ansi option on the command line or type /set ansi 1 now. Your terminal must understand ANSI colour escape sequences or things will look rather weird. There are other things we can also enable (all in good time):

You can keep your version up to date with the -vcheck command-line option. No personally identifiable information is transmitted and I strongly recommend using it; it only informs you about new versions, and does not replace any files. If you're ultra-paranoid about this, be reassured by reading its description in Command-line options.

No personally identifiable information is transmitted and I strongly recommend using it; it only informs you about new versions, and does not replace any files. If you're ultra-paranoid about this, be reassured by reading its description in Command-line options. You can enhance TTYtter with readline support if your Perl supports it and you have a compatible Term::ReadLine::* module, but make sure you read the rest of this page before reading about TTYtter and readline support. Use our bespoke "beta" driver Term::ReadLine:TTYtter for Twitter-specific features , including repainting prompts and even a character counter!

if your Perl supports it and you have a compatible module, but make sure you read the rest of this page before reading about and support. , including repainting prompts and even a character counter! You can send and receive tweets in UTF-8 if your Perl supports it, but make sure you read the rest of this page before reading about TTYtter and UTF-8.

if your Perl supports it, but make sure you read the rest of this page before reading about and UTF-8. You can tunnel your traffic under SSL if your cURL (or Lynx) supports it, but make sure you read the rest of this page before reading about TTYtter and SSL.

if your (or Lynx) supports it, but make sure you read the rest of this page before reading about and SSL. You can enable ANSI terminal sequences/colour sequences if your terminal emulation supports it by using -ansi on the command line, or putting ansi=1 in your .ttytterrc file, but see Command-line options.

if your terminal emulation supports it by using on the command line, or putting in your file, but see Command-line options. You can use Twitter's Streaming API to get tweets in near-real-time (essentially turning Twitter into an overgrown JSON-based IRC channel, but this is not necessarily a bad thing) with the -dostream option, but see TTYtter and the Streaming API to make sure you satisfy all the prerequisites.

(essentially turning Twitter into an overgrown JSON-based IRC channel, but this is not necessarily a bad thing) with the option, but see and the Streaming API to make sure you satisfy all the prerequisites. You can geo-tag your tweets with your location and coordinates if your account is geo-enabled, but make sure you read the rest of this page before reading about geolocation support.

if your account is geo-enabled, but make sure you read the rest of this page before reading about geolocation support. You can have TTYtter send you notifications of specific types of tweets and direct messages over Growl or a compatible messaging system (currently either Growl or libnotify using (modified) notify-send ), but make sure you read the rest of this page before reading about TTYtter and notification support.

(currently either Growl or using (modified) ), but make sure you read the rest of this page before reading about and notification support. You can adjust how the prompt is displayed, or tell TTYtter to signal your terminal environment (like ssfe or irssi ) , but make sure you read the rest of this page before reading about TTYtter and your special terminal environment.

, but make sure you read the rest of this page before reading about and your special terminal environment. You can have multiple keyfiles for multiple accounts. Switch between them with the -keyf=... option (e.g., -keyf=w loads your OAuth information from ~/.ttytterkeyw ). If you specify a full path starting with / , then that is used as the filename itself without further interpretation.

.ttytterrc

.ttytterrc

.ttytterrc*

-rc

Basic use: TTYtter as a command-line posting agent

ttytter foo

foo

foo

TTYtter

You can also use the -status=... option to post a single tweet, which is more efficient (and can be made bulletproof using the -hold option):

% ./ttytter -status="Writing a letter to my nephew."

This will be posted as the user in your keyfile (in our examples above, that was screwtape ). If you add -silent , then there is no output, which is good for unattended jobs. If you use "-" (a single dash) as your status, then a single line is accepted over standard input.

For some scripts, that's all you'll need to get started. We'll talk about scripting TTYtter in a moment, but first let's get to the

Basic tweeting

TTYtter

micq

To send a tweet, just type it. Whatever doesn't appear to be a command (see Built-in commands) will be submitted and appear on the next update. Keep in mind that posting tweets and executing most commands are asynchronous operations, so don't expect instant feedback.

If an update occurs and your tweet is overwritten on screen, don't worry: just hit CTRL-R, and the line you're currently working on will be redisplayed. (If you have -readline , SPACE/BACKSPACE will usually do it; if you are using -readline and Term::ReadLine::TTYtter , your prompt should repaint itself automatically. See TTYtter and readline .)

If you don't like the background updates, and only want updates to occur when you request them, use the -synch option. In this mode, only tweets, or pressing RETURN/ENTER, cause updates to occur. This is useful for input methods like Kotoeri that may make it hard to refresh your current line, or if you simply don't like the effect, but robs you of automatic updates.

If you want to cancel what you're typing and start over, press CTRL-U.

If your tweet is over 140 characters, it will be automatically trimmed (hopefully intelligently to a word or punctuation boundary) and you will be offered a chance to accept or edit the trimmed version. This affects the command history. If you use the -autosplit option, you can let TTYtter break up long lines for you into multiple tweets (see Command-line options). (NB: bytes != characters. See TTYtter and UTF-8 support for why this matters.)

If your terminal supports ANSI colour sequences (or you force it on with -ansi ), then replies to you appear in red , and your own tweets appear in yellow , by default.

If you want to pass coordinates for your current location and your account is already geo-enabled, look at geolocation support.

If tweets are too wide for your screen, you can wordwrap them with the -wrap option. This defaults to 79 characters, sufficient for most terminals and terminal programs.

If you keep fat-fingering your tweets, or are prone to cutting and pasting in the wrong window, or just want a second chance to approve stuff before it goes out to the Interwebs, you can force TTYtter to verify every tweet you (unintentionally or otherwise) type with the -verify option. A gentler option might even be -slowpost . For both of these (very useful: I couldn't live without -slowpost ) options, again see Command-line options.

If TTYtter can't download any tweets or messages, or if the Twitter folks have put up an announcement or service outage page, ttytter will report the error and retry automatically when it can. If your terminal supports ANSI colour sequences (or you force it on with -ansi ), then server messages appear in magenta by default. Built-in commands Speaking of commands, there are also some TTYtter internal commands you can use. All internal commands start with / . If you enter a bogus command, TTYtter will complain at you instead of tweeting it, which cuts down on mildly useless but enormously entertaining tweets like /quot and /refrehs . If you really want to send a tweet that starts with a slash, just double slash it (e.g., //the ants are my friends/they're blowing in the wind/ ) and the double slash will be made a single slash and passed on.

Most commands have a quick abbreviation, which is given in parentheses. Some commands are asynchronous, meaning that you can do stuff in the foreground while the background process does the work, but most are synchronous and will hold your console temporarily until the task is completed.

Commands with a (+) let you specify an optional "count" parameter, like so: /again +40 ttytter The count parameter is a request (which the server is free to ignore, btw) for that number of results, be it tweets, usernames or whatnot. You may not get that number of results, but you will never get more than that number. Please note that the more you request, the harder TTYtter has to work to process it. In practise it is not advisable, and in fact likely not possible, to fetch more than a couple hundred.

Menu codes can be replaced by a Twitter tweet or DM ID, if you know it (for fun, try /dump 20 ). Since DM IDs can overlap with regular tweet IDs, put a d before the DM ID to disambiguate it.

Not all commands work or are fully supported in earlier versions.

/help ( /? ) Displays mad-k001 ASCII art. Oh, and a quick list of commands, secondarily speaking. /set [key] [value] ( /s ), /push [key] [value] , /add [key] [value] , /padd [key] [value] , /del [key] [value] , /pop [key] , /unset [key] ( /uns ) and /print [key] ( /p ) Allow setting and printing of command line options at runtime. Not all command line options can be changed. For more about this, see Command-line options. Whereas /set sets the actual value, /add appends to the existing value (and for multi-set values, adds an appropriate delimiter if required). If you type /print by itself with no key, the (visible) settable values are displayed. With boolean values, /set [key] and /unset [key] set the key to 1 (true) or 0 (zero) respectively. You can use /unset on other options, but it sets them to a null string, which may not be desirable. /push /pop allow you to sling values onto a temporary stack. /push acts like /set , except it pushes the current value on the stack; /pop brings it back. /padd is the same thing, only analogous to /add . This is very useful for long values like -filter , which can be very annoying to edit. /del removes all occurrences of the value from that key, including delimiters if necessary. There is no /pdel , but you can push and then delete if you like in two steps. /refresh ( /r ) Thumps the background process to do another update for new tweets right away instead of waiting for the next one scheduled. If you are in -synch mode, this is automatically done every time a tweet is posted. If you have a very busy timeline or a lot of friends, Twitter may only give you a partial list, though this is generally not a big deal until you start following a good thousand or more or are watching the public timeline. If nothing new is available, the background process will politely tell you so. ( /thump is a synonym since I keep typing it.) If you have streaming enabled, this command is a lot less useful, and you will be mocked. /again ( /a ) (+) Displays the last thirty tweets from your timeline, even old ones, along with refreshing the most recent results from keywords and hashtags you may be tracking (if any). If you use the -backload option, you can get more than that by default (but be careful! - see Command-line options), or you can use a +count . Also see the username and listname forms. /again [username] ( /a [username] ) (+) Displays the last twenty tweets for user username (sans braces, of course). If the user doesn't exist, or is protected/otherwise not available to you, you will get an error message instead. Also see the form with no arguments and the listname form. This command is synchronous and the foreground process will pause until the tweets are received or timed out. /whois [username] ( /w [username] ) Displays the Twitter "vital statistics" for the specified user, including number of people they follow and are followed by ( f: ), number of updates ( u: ), real name, location, description, URL and image/picture, along with (if you are not anonymous) if you already follow this user and if this user follows you. Their URL, if they have one, is loaded into the variable %URL% so you can substitute it in a tweet (see command history and substitution below), /short en it, or open it with /url . If you specify a filter with -avatar , then the URL for the user's picture is passed to the specified shell command to operate upon it, including saving it, opening it in a window somewhere else, or even converting it to ASCII art. See Command-line options for more. This command is synchronous and the foreground process will pause until the data is received or timed out. /wagain [username] ( /wa [username] ) Combines /again followed by /whois (yes, the name is out of order, but it sounded better than /againw ). /follow [username] and /leave [username] Follows or unfollows a username ( /unfollow also works). /doesfollow [user1] [user2] or /doesfollow [user] ( /df [user1] [user2] or /df [user] ) Tells you if the first user follows the second. If you just use one screen name, then yours is substituted for the second (telling you if that user follows you). /followers [username] ( /fos ), /friends [username] ( /frs ) (+) Displays users who follow you or whom you are following, by default twenty. If you specify a username, then that user is queried instead. Also see the listname form. /block [user] and /unblock [user] Blocks or unblocks a user (you are prompted to confirm the former). /dm [username] [message] Sends a direct message to the specified user. See the section on direct messaging below. /dmrefresh ( /dm by itself) Thumps the background process to do another check for direct messages right away instead of waiting for the next one scheduled. See the section on direct messaging below. /dmsent (+) Displays DMs you've sent. Because DMs don't contain threading information, this is not threaded. /dmagain ( /dma ) (+) /again : /refresh :: /dmagain : /dmrefresh /replies ( /re ) (+) Displays your last twenty @ replies, mentions and old-style RTs. This may be affected by your Twitter account notifications settings. This command is synchronous and the foreground process will pause until the replies are received or timed out. If you specify -mentions and/or have streaming enabled, then replies and mentions are mixed into your timeline automatically, even from users you don't follow, making this command unnecessary. /reply [menu code] [tweet] ( /re ), /replyall [menu code] [tweet] ( /ra ), /vreply [menu code] [tweet] ( /vre ), /thread [menu code] ( /th ) This set of commands respectively replies directly to a tweet or direct message using threading if possible (the first using conventional replies, the second a conventional reply to everyone mentioned in the tweet, the third using a publicly visible reply a la " .@twitterapi Twitter API roxx "), and the last displays the thread a tweet is part of (if any). See the sections on tweet selection and DM selection below. /delete [menu code] ( /del ) Deletes a tweet (only your own tweet -- nice try) or a direct message. See the sections on tweet and DM selection below. /deletelast ( /dlast ) Deletes the last tweet (that is, the most recent tweet) you posted during this session. This doesn't work for direct messages nor carries forward from session to session, in case you have a habit of posting incorrectly targeted death threats and then quitting TTYtter (in that case, use /delete against said bogus tweet). /favourite [menu code] ( /fave , /f ), /unfavourite [menu code] ( /unfave , /unf ) Favourites or unfavourites a tweet, respectively. See the section on tweet selection below. /favourites ( /faves , /fl ) (+) Displays your most recent favourite tweets. This command is synchronous and the foreground process will pause until the data is received or timed out. /favourites [username] ( /faves [username] , /fl [username] ) (+) Displays someone else's most recent favourite tweets. This command is synchronous and the foreground process will pause until the data is received or timed out. /retweet [menu code] ( /rt ), /eretweet [menu code] ( /ert ), /fretweet [menu code] ( /frt ), /oretweet [menu code] ( /ort ) Retweets a tweet (direct messages, wisely, not allowed). /retweet uses a NewRT (unless you append to it, or -nonewrts is set). If you want to edit it, /eretweet loads the tweet into the special substitution variable %RT% which you can use at the beginning or end of your next tweet; and good old fashioned /oretweet just sticks on RT @username: as an old style retweet and sends it right away. If you really like the tweet, then /fretweet will favourite it for you at the same time as you retweet it. See the sections on tweet selection and command history/substitution below. /rtsofme ( /rtom ) (+) Displays tweets of yours that other people have retweeted through the NewRT system (different from the old manual retweets), and you can query individual retweeters of those tweets with /rtsof . Old-style "manual" RTs are seen by the Twitter API as mentions, and can be seen with /replies . This command is synchronous and the foreground process will pause until the tweets are received or timed out. /rtsof [menu code] (+) Displays who retweeted that tweet. This can be any tweet, not just the ones you brought up with /rtsofme . Only NewRTs work for this. /lists , /lists [username] , /list [listname] (+) Displays your lists or the lists of the specified user or who's on the specified list. See List management and list timelines. /again [listname] ( /a [listname] ) (+) Displays the most recent statuses of members of that list, whether it is yours or a public list. See List management and list timelines. Also see the form with no arguments and the username form. /liston [listname] , /listoff [listname] , /autolists [list of lists] ( /alist ) Sets lists that are automatically queried and mixed with your timeline (either one by one, or [ /autolists ] en masse). See List management and list timelines. /withlist [listname] [verb] [arguments] ( /wl ) Runs subcommands on a list. Used for creating, editing and removing your lists. See List management and list timelines. /listfollow [listname] ( /lfollow ) and /listunfollow [username] ( /lunfollow ) Follows or unfollows a list. This only marks you (or unmarks you) as a follower; it does not actually add the list to your timeline. You do not have to be following a list to add it to your timeline, but IMHO it's courteous to the list owner. /listfollowers [username] ( /listfos ), /listfriends [username] ( /listfrs ) (+) Displays lists who are marked as following you or whom you are marked as following, by default twenty. If you specify a username, then this is relative to that user. See also the next command. /followers [listname] ( /fos ), /friends [listname] ( /frs ) (+) Displays users who are marked as following the specified list or whom the list is following, by default twenty. Also see the username form. /search [query] ( /se ) (+) Queries the Twitter Search API, as if you had typed it into the box on search.twitter.com , and displays the most recent results. See the section on Search API integration below. This command is synchronous and the foreground process will pause until the data is received or timed out. /track [keywords] and /tron [keywords] , /troff [keywords] , /#[hashtag] , /notrack Keyword and hashtag tracking (respectively: set your keywords, add a keyword, remove a keyword, shortcut for adding a hashtag, and cancel all tracking keywords). See the section on Search API integration below. /trends ( /tre ) Asks Twitter for the most current trending topics. Displays them as /search and /tron commands (qq.v.) you can simply cut and paste to execute. See the section on Search API integration below. If you provide an optional WOEID number as an argument, or your default WOEID is set with the -woeid option, then local trends for that WOEID are fetched if available (otherwise global trends). This command is synchronous and the foreground process will pause until the data is received or timed out. /woeids Displays the WOEID codes corresponding to your location, as set with -lat and -long (see the Geolocation API section). /dump [menu code] ( /du ) Dumps out the internal structure and metadata for the tweet referenced by the specified menu code (which, if only stored in TTYtter 's backing store, may omit fields irrelevant to TTYtter ). You can also view information such as creation date, source and Geolocation API position data, and is particularly useful for people who want to grab URLs to individual tweets as the URL for the specified tweet is placed into %URL% for additional use. /entities [menu code] ( /ent ) Dumps associated entity URLs with the tweet or direct message specified, allowing you to see what that t.co link is cloaking. Unfortunately, this is often another shortened URL, but there's nothing TTYtter can do about that (if we queried the shortener, this would necessarily leak to the shortener that the URL is being probed). This also can grab media URLs, if there are any. /url [menu code] Opens the URL(s) specified in the tweet or direct message indicated by the selected menu code, according to the current -urlopen option. See the sections on tweet and DM selection below. If you don't specify a menu code, then the current value of %URL% is substituted (you can also use an arbitrary URL if you like). Note that the t.co versions of these URLs are opened, in accordance with Twitter TOS (see the -notco entry in Command-line options). /short ( /sh ) Shortens a supplied URL (by default using the is.gd service, but may be compatible with others). The new shortened URL is displayed and you can substitute it at the beginning or end of subsequent tweets using %URL% (see command history and substitution). If you don't specify a URL, then the current value of %URL% is substituted. /versioncheck ( /vcheck ) Pings the floodgap.com server (this one!) to see if you are using the most current version. /! Allows you to enter a shell command from within TTYtter . This is run with whatever Perl thinks your shell is (inside system() ); for example, /!ls displays the contents of the current working directory. Remember that this opens up subshells (on purpose), so you can't change, say, an environment variable this way and expect the Perl running TTYtter to see it. /history ( /h ) Displays the last set of commands entered (see Command history and substitution below). /me For the IRC freaks. Simply echoed as a tweet, /me included. /clear ( /cls ) Clears the screen, either with an ANSI sequence or printing linefeeds. /ruler ( /ru ) Prints a "ruler," 140 characters wide plus the size of the prompt, as a convenient visual aid. /eval I'm sorry, this command is classified. /quit ( /q ) Leaves ttytter . Pressing CTRL-D or CTRL-C will also do this. It's preferable to use this command (or those keysequences) to exit ttytter because if you kill the console process outside of ttytter , the background process may not get cleaned up and will have to be killed separately. /exit and /bye are synonyms by popular request. /quit immediately stops anything running in the background, including pending requests for new tweets or DMs. If you want to wait for these to complete, use /end ( /e ).

Direct messaging

-dmpause

If your terminal supports ANSI colour sequences (or you force it on with -ansi ), then DMs that you receive appear in green by default.

Since ttytter does not save state (on purpose), it doesn't know where you left off in your DM inbox. When you start ttytter , it will display the two most recent DMs and their time stamps. If both are new to you, a quick /dmagain will show you the full last twenty (by default) to see if there are any others. You can see what you have sent, btw, with /dmsent .

To send a direct message, use /dm with a username and message, e.g., /dm zaphod trillian is gonna kill you when you get home you two-faced jerk . Direct messages are also subject to -verify , -slowpost and -autosplit (again, see Command-line options).

You can also use the /reply command to reply to a DM menu code, which we will talk about now. Replying to tweets and direct messages, threading ("in reply to"), favourites, retweets and DM/tweet selection (or, "what are those funny little codes for?") After a bit of time using TTYtter , you will have noticed the a letter-number code on the left of every tweet. This is the tweet's menu code. The letter ranges from a-z and the number from 0-9 , with tweets za0-zz9 reserved for temporary menus the foreground process constructs ( zz0-zz9 always reserved for thread requests).

That sounded a little dizzying, so I think an example will be the best way to show how to use this effectively. As your timeline moves along, say there is a tweet you want to reply to. You could simply use @username , but this does not thread your reply (there is no 'reply to'). Instead, the /reply command can take a menu code and you can then tell TTYtter the exact tweet you are referencing. For example,

h2> <ev> I am so awesome. You all want me. #eviswanted

h3> <ttytter> Version 16.0.9 will enable world domination.

TTYtter> /re h3 I would like very much to dominate the planet.

(expanded to "@ttytter I would like very much to dominate the planet.")

TTYtter> h4> <@floodgap> @ttytter I would like very much to dominate the planet.



Notice that your reply appeared with its own menu code (so you can reference your own tweets), that the reply had the correctly referenced screen name added for you (you don't need to retype that), and that your tweet appeared with a @ before your screen name. The @ means that your tweet is now part of a thread (i.e., it has "reply to" information attached to it). If you asked TTYtter for the thread it belongs to using the /thread command, you would get

TTYtter> /th h4

zz0> <ttytter> Version 16.0.9 will enable world domination.

zz1> <@floodgap> @ttytter I would like very much to dominate the planet.



(up to 10 tweets in a thread can be retrieved, if it's that long), ending with the tweet you asked to have threaded.

Notice that the menu codes are different. Any collection of tweets requested by your command uses special menu codes constructed just for those tweets. For example, if you asked for your mentions-replies, you might see

h5> <@ttytter> @floodgap I like your world domination code.

TTYtter> /re

za0> <@ttytter> @floodgap I like your world domination code.

za1> <cbqueue> Waiting for @floodgap to hack into my wireless.

za2> <@floodgap> @ttytter We have fired you for being too awesome. Please see HR.



Then you can see the threads that any of those belong to:

TTYtter> /th za0

zz0> <ttytter> Version 16.0.9 will enable world domination.

zz1> <@floodgap> @ttytter I would like very much to dominate the planet.

zz2> <@ttytter> @floodgap I like your world domination code.

TTYtter> /th za2

zz0> <ttytter> I have converted lead, puppy poop and rubber bands into gold. I am awesome.

zz1> <@floodgap> @ttytter We have fired you for being too awesome. Please see HR.



Replies and mentions (with /replies ), asking for a user's tweets ( /again username ) and searches all create foreground menu codes starting with z . These roll forward from za0 to zy9 ; when the foreground process runs out of menu codes, it simply wraps around (viz., after zy9 comes za0 again).

Threads occupy their own special temporary menu from zz0-zz9 so that you don't have to keep grabbing, say, your replies when you want to look at a whole bunch of threads. In fact, that is exactly what we did above. Each time you request a new thread, the previous thread menu is destroyed and a new set of codes generated. If you try to access a tweet that has gone out of scope, you simply get an error message. For example, we made a new temporary thread menu when we asked for the second thread. To prove this,

TTYtter> /re zz2 I will E-mail my world domination code update to you.

-- no such tweet (yet?): zz2



Likewise, because you are always receiving new tweets, the background menu codes also roll forward, viz., after tweet y9 comes a0 again. This means that the background has a "memory" of 250 tweets, after which the tweet is removed from the backlog. Don't worry: if you should miss the chance to reference a tweet, you can still get a temporary menu code by calling up that user's tweets (or your replies) and referencing that tweet that way using a foreground menu code.

If you don't know if a tweet still exists, don't fret. Whatever is the most recently displayed tweet with that code is always the tweet it will reference.

Deletion ( /delete ), retweets ( /retweet , /eretweet and /fretweet ), marking and unmarking favourites ( /fave , /unfave and /fretweet ), dumping tweets ( /dump ), dumping entities ( /entities ) and opening URLs ( /url ) also all take menu codes. The /url command opens all URLs in a tweet according to the current -urlopen setting; for example, try /set urlopen lynx -dump %U | more and then run /url on a tweet with URLs in it. Mac OS X users, try /set urlopen open %U

Note that /url will permit UTF-8 characters in URLs thanks to the proliferation of faddish shortners like tinyarro.ws , but some browsers don't understand them on the command line (in fact, Mac OS X's open will see these characters and think its argument is a filename, so caveat scriptor).

If you want to reply to everyone mentioned in the tweet, use /replyall .

If you want to make a visible reply everyone can see regardless of whether they follow the user you replied to, or regardless of their settings, you can use /vreply . This generates a tweet like r @username your reply , and threads it. Use sparingly to avoid annoying people.

/delete deletes your own tweets, after you confirm which tweet you have flagged for destruction. You cannot use it to erase another user's. Deletion is not guaranteed: even if TTYtter reports it received successful confirmation, it may be queued for later by Twitter internally, or it may not happen at all if Twitter is having database problems. If you're really prone to fatfingering your tweets, you might want to use the -verify or -slowpost options so you have a chance to catch mistaken tweets before they are sent. You can use /deletelast as a shortcut for deleting the most recently posted tweet in this session.

/retweet simply retweets the selected tweet as a NewRT (unless you specify -nonewrts ). If you prefer an old-style retweet, you can use /oretweet , or tack on to the tweet; either way, the old tweet will be sent back out with RT @userwhosaidit: followed by the tweet (and any additional tail text if you specified it). If you want more flexibility to add your own commentary, you can use /eretweet , which loads the tweet into the substitution variable %RT% which can then be used at the beginning or end of a subsequent tweet. Here is an example of both in action:

s5> <floodgap> I am awesome

TTYtter> /rt s5

(expanded to "RT @floodgap: I am awesome")

TTYtter> /ert s5

-- ok, %RT% is now "RT @floodgap: I am awesome"

TTYtter> yes, you are %RT%

(expanded to "yes, you are RT @floodgap: I am awesome")

TTYtter> s7> <@ttytter> yes, you are RT @floodgap: I am awesome

Note that NewRTs are marked with a % symbol. You can see who retweeted a tweet (whether it's yours or not) with /rtsof (or see which of your tweets were NewRT-ed with /rtsofme ). Also note that NewRTs you make of people who already see in your timeline are not echoed again to you, but they will appear if you query yourself with /again .

If even this is not expressive enough for you, you can also edit %% with the usual substitution sequences (see Command history and substitution below), which is also populated by /eretweet . If you really enjoyed the post, then /fretweet will retweet and favourite the tweet for you all at the same time.

Direct messages also have their own menu codes. These three-character codes always start with the letter d, and are completely separate from each other (e.g., tweet code a5 is unrelated to DM code da5 ). For example, when you start up you might see

-- checking for most recent direct messages:

[DM da0][cbqueue/Fri Sep 28 02:01:33 +0000 2007] test test

[DM da1][ttytter/Fri Sep 28 03:01:51 +0000 2007] don't forget to update the website

These codes can also be used to /reply (sending them a direct message reply), to /delete (deleting it from your direct message inbox), or for /url to extract URLs from, just like a tweet menu code would be. Instead of using the two-character tweet menu code, however, use the three-character DM menu code and "the right thing" (tm) will be done automagically:

TTYtter> /re da0 test test back atcha

(expanded to "/dm cbqueue test test back atcha")

Currently Twitter does not support threading for direct messages, so /thread cannot be used for DMs at present (and /reply to a direct message thus cannot thread it; in this version it acts merely as a convenient shortcut). Also, there is no /retweet for DMs. If you want to be like that, cut and paste yourself.

Like regular tweet menu codes, DM menu codes wrap around. There are no temporary menus for DMs, however; if you use /dmagain to redisplay your inbox, the codes simply keep advancing. Whatever is the last DM on screen with a particular DM menu code will always be referenceable by that code. Because there are no temporary menus, the range of DM codes is da0 through dz9 , meaning a "memory" of 250 direct messages. You can always get them back with /dmagain .

If your /reply or /(e)retweet of a tweet (or, where allowed, a DM) ends up expanding over length, the usual automatic trimming or autosplitting applies with one important change: if you use % -substitution on the most recent tweet that is or originally was a reply or retweet, then the substituted tweet is also linked (see Command history and substitution). This allows things like autosplit or % -based line editing to work correctly and connect to the same thread. As soon as you type a new tweet or reference a new one, however, TTYtter may automatically purge it if it thinks you are no longer working with the selected tweet.

Anywhere that a menu code is accepted, you can also directly use that tweet or DM's ID, if you know it (for example, /dump 20 ). This is mostly useful for command-line scripting where you don't have a menu code, but still want to reference a particular tweet or DM. To distinguish DM IDs from tweet IDs, since they can overlap, put a d before the DM ID number. Geolocation support To geotag your tweets with location coordinates, your account must be geo-enabled first. This cannot be done from within TTYtter for security reasons; you will need to change your settings from the Twitter web interface. Once this is done, your account will be ready to pass location information.

Three options control how TTYtter manages Geolocation API support. You specify coordinates as either -lat and -long options on the command line (see Command-line options), or by using the commands /set lat and /set long from within the client, such as /set lat -35.4925 . You need to specify coordinates as signed decimal: Twitter does not accept (and therefore neither does TTYtter ) minutes/seconds and directions. You can change your coordinates as often as you like dynamically. Note that on the command line, zero is seen as undefined -- if you are sitting on the Equator or the Prime Meridian, use 0.0 (that is, a floating value) as the coordinate.

Once you have a completely specified set of latitude and longitude, the -location option controls whether TTYtter transmits it. This defaults to false so that you do not inadvertently leak location information with your tweets. To turn this on, say -location on the command line, or /set location within the client. To disable it, say -location=0 on the command line, or /unset location within the client, and your location information is no longer transmitted. If your location information is incomplete, it is not transmitted and a warning is displayed.

Whenever you tweet with location enabled, TTYtter reminds you as a security measure that your location was sent, and specifically what coordinates were transmitted.

To see the location information for a tweet, use the /dump command. This displays whether the user in question is geo-enabled, and gives you their latitude and longitude which you can directly punch into a tool such as Google Maps. If a tweet contains geolocation information, it has a + (plus sign) next to the user's screen name. Note that even if a user is geo-enabled, that does not mean they are always transmitting location information, so not all their tweets may be so marked (including yours!).

Certain geographically coded information in Twitter is based on Yahoo! WOEID (Where On Earth ID) codes. Once your latitude and longitude is set, you can use /woeids to find the WOEIDs closest to you. You can then feed this as an argument to commands like /trends , or set your WOEID with /set woeid [WOEID] to define a default zone. Your WOEID is not automatically updated when your latitude and/or longitude are changed. If you don't select a WOEID, WOEID 1 (global scope) is assumed. Following and leaving users You can follow or unfollow users using /follow , and /unfollow or /leave , respectively (or block and/or unblock them with /block and /unblock ).

You can always find out if a user follows you with /whois or /doesfollow , or get a list of your friends and followers with /friends or /followers , respectively. Tracking keywords and hashtags, and integration with Twitter Search API TTYtter can also talk to and run queries automatically against the Twitter Search API. You can use this to search for keywords and topics as if you were searching Twitter from your browser, or you can even tell TTYtter to watch for #hashtags and keywords you specify, and add them to your stream of tweets automatically with regular refreshes.

Let's start with a typical workflow. What are people looking at? The /trends command tells you what the current topics du jour are:

TTYtter> /trends <<< TRENDING TOPICS GLOBALLY >>> /search #sxsw OR SXSW /tron #sxsw SXSW /search Twilight /tron Twilight /search Ireland /tron Ireland [...] <<< TRENDING TOPICS GLOBALLY >>>

This displays a string of topics, formatted into /search and /tron commands you can cut and paste from and into your terminal. If you see a search you want to run, the /search command runs it as if you had typed it into the Twitter Search page, and displays the most current tweets that match. You can use any search term and operator the web page would normally let you. Obviously you are not limited to the trends list; those are just suggestions. (If you want to see trends locally, either provide the WOEID number as an argument to /trends , or set the woeid variable to your desired location.)

But say you want to actually follow that topic or hashtag. The /tron command adds that topic or hashtag to your list to follow, and automatically executes that search on your behalf, mixed into your regular updates from your timeline and updated whenever your timeline would normally update. If your terminal supports ANSI colour sequences (or you force it on with -ansi ), then keywords and hashtags you are tracking are highlighted, and results that came only from a search (i.e., weren't part of your normal timeline) and aren't replies or your own tweets are marked in cyan by default so they stand out. (If you only want to see tracked results, then either use the -notimeline command line option or say /set notimeline 1 and your timeline will be turned off -- only direct messages and tracked results will appear.) For example, you can say /tron #twitter , or use a keyword: /tron ttytter or even a quoted string: /tron "Jack Dorsey" . You can follow multiple at once; you don't need to say AND or OR (they are treated as OR).

Following certain topics can literally flood your terminal out with a massive stream of tweets. If you want to completely replace your tracking list with a new list, use /track (such as /track "Cameron Kaiser" #gopher ); however, if you want to just withdraw one single term, use /troff (such as /troff #twitter ) to remove that search term or hashtag from your tracking list.

If you've totally had enough, you can turn off tracking entirely with /notrack , which cancels all your keywords, or you can reversibly disable tracking with the -notrack commandline option (or /set notrack 1 to turn it off, and /set notrack 0 to turn it back on).

To see what you are tracking now, type /print track . When you quit TTYtter , your tracking list is shown and you can either pass it on the command line next time or put it in your .ttytterrc with the -track option.

Because hashtags are so popular, you can use the /# shortcut to follow a particular hashtag, such as /#twitter . To turn it off, use /troff like usual ( /troff #twitter ).

Automatic keyword/hashtag tracking does not support using Search API operators or logicals. Occasionally you want an automatic search that is more prolix, and the semi-secret command /set tquery allows you to specify a single complex query that the Search API will support. This overrides your keywords. For technical reasons, tquery requests still highlight your old keywords, if you specified any before. To cancel a custom query and return to regular tracking (if any), say /set tquery 0 ; your old keywords will be reinstalled. List management and list timelines Twitter and selected Twitter-alike APIs allow you to create "lists" of users, essentially ways of grouping particular users together. You can offer your own lists for your own use privately or for others to use, and you can peruse other lists people have publicly constructed too.

TTYtter not only supports populating and managing these lists with simple commands, but also allows you to use your lists as user groups so that you can merge whole groups of users into your timeline temporarily, or mix and match your lists and other lists, or even just look at a particular list as a "view" of your timeline rather than your entire timeline.

Lists have four attributes: whether they are public or private, the screen name of the list (the name of the list that is displayed on the screen), the slug of the list (the "handle" that you use in API requests), and the description of the list (a free-text blurb). There should be no spaces in the slug. A fully qualified list is in the form username/listslug (such as @ttytter/floodgap ). A list in the form /listslug is understood to be your own list.

The screen name and description don't change (unless you change them), but changing attributes of a list will change the slug for purposes of security.

Let's start with making a list (and checking it twice) using the /lists command, which shows you lists associated with the user you specify (or yourself), and the /withlist ( /wl ) command, which is the list manipulator. In this example, we build (as @ttytter ) a new public list called floodgap ):

TTYtter> /withlist floodgap create public People associated with Floodgap. *** ok, created new list floodgap (mode public) TTYtter> /withlist floodgap add floodgap ttytter --- warning: user list not checked *** ok, user(s) added to list floodgap TTYtter> /withlist floodgap list Floodgap Updates (floodgap) (f:1/82) (u:114) "Information won't drown if there's a breach in the flow." TTYtter Updates (ttytter) (f:13/1219) (u:1521) "A Perl 5 client for Twitter." TTYtter> /lists floodgap (@ttytter/floodgap) (f:2/0) "People associated with Floodgap."

In this example, we created the list with the slug floodgap , which for convenience TTYtter forces to be the same as the screen name on creation. We made it public (you can also make it private ), and gave it a free text description; we then queried the list and verified its contents.

So that was nice for marking the users as a group, but that's not the only trick TTYtter can do. You can also mix lists into your own timeline, as we will show with this example with a real list:

TTYtter> /lists scobleizer Super mobile users (@Scobleizer/super-mobile-users) (f:233/253) "These are people who have more than 100 apps on their mobile devices." Weapons for Entrepreneurs (@Scobleizer/weapons-for-entrepreneurs) (f:330/3010) "Tools and services to help entrepreneurs startup and run their compani..." [ ... blah blah blah ... ] programmers (@Scobleizer/programmers) (f:426/1493) "Programmers/developers I follow and like." venture_capitalists (@Scobleizer/venture-capitalists) (f:500/3000) "Venture capitalists and angel investors (tech centric, very complete l..." most influential in tech (@Scobleizer/most-influential-in-tech) (f:274/8898) "People who make stuff happen in and to the technology industry." rackspace (@Scobleizer/rackspace) (f:309/273) "Rackspace employees and news sources (best web hosting company)." TTYtter> /lists scobleizer/rackspace OpenStack (OpenStack) (f:428/3807) (u:382) "Go to http://openstack.org for more information or irc.freenode.com #o..." Ben Hubbard (benhubbard) (f:151/261) (u:1308) "I believe in the Cloud" [ ... yadda yadda yadda ... ] eddy hernandez (eddywashere) (f:526/457) (u:2923) "o#? web developer @Rackspace & husbo to @altheatremaine :)" Andy Schroepfer (appmatcher) (f:16/89) (u:24) "VP of Enterprise Strategy at Rackspace. This account focuses on hosted..." Burris (harleyguytx) (f:80/50) (u:310)

Seems interesting. Let's put this list into our timeline.

TTYtter> /liston scobleizer/rackspace *** changed: lists => scobleizer/rackspace *** (transmitting to background) *** changed: lists => scobleizer/rackspace

And suddenly, new stuff starts appearing:

g0> <(scobleizer/rackspace)harper> Glad I was able to sleep a bit g1> <(scobleizer/rackspace)+kr8tr> I'm at Smitty's Market (208 S Commerce St, Lockhart) w/ 7 others http://4sq.com/g24F4O

These tweets are tagged, so that you can see which list they came from and that they were not part of your timeline originally. Duplicates are filtered for you. Mixing a list into your timeline doesn't automatically follow users you weren't following before: when you stop mixing the list in, whatever users you weren't already following "disappear." However, their tweets are tweets like any other, and you can reply, favourite, dump them, etc., or any other operation, like you would for any other tweet.

The "list of lists" you grab comes from a new variable lists , a comma-delimited string of the lists you want automatically mixed in with your timeline. You can make it as many as you want, and you can jump in and out of them at will. The /autolist command lets you set them en masse, or add them one-by-one with /liston (which also checks them for you). Again, if you leave off the username, then you are filled in (but include the slash, or it might not be recognized as a list).

TTYtter> /autolist scobleizer/rackspace ttytter/floodgap menadeau1/vintage-computers --- warning: lists aren't checked en masse; make sure they exist *** changed: lists => scobleizer/rackspace,ttytter/floodgap,menadeau1/vintage-computers *** (transmitting to background) *** changed: lists => scobleizer/rackspace,ttytter/floodgap,menadeau1/vintage-computers TTYtter> h2> <(menadeau1/vintage-computers)ps_collecting> http://yfrog.com/h0b7ynhj aaaaargh i HATE manuals with stickers on them :( what kind of person does horrible things like that h3> <(scobleizer/rackspace)lapaterson> "web designers aren't artists" #noexcuse #sxsw h4> <floodgap> check it yo, I'm still all up in ur regular timeline wid all the list shizzle

Oh, the noise! We can turn lists off,

TTYtter> /listoff scobleizer/rackspace *** ok, filtered scobleizer/rackspace *** changed: lists => ttytter/floodgap,menadeau1/vintage-computers *** (transmitting to background) *** changed: lists => ttytter/floodgap,menadeau1/vintage-computers

or kill autofetching lists completely,

TTYtter> /unset lists *** changed: lists => *** (transmitting to background) *** changed: lists =>

Automatic rate-limiting compensates for the number of lists you are following so that you don't crush Twitter with the data flow, unless you follow a crapload and you hit the rate limit -- in that case, you will need to specify a fixed value to -pause .

If you just want to look at a list as a timeline, you can use /again , as you might expect, e.g. /a ttytter/floodgap This shows the statuses of the people the list follows, as a timeline, just like it would for your own timeline or for an individual user.

I mentioned that you can use lists as "user windows." Say you have a large number of users you follow, but you want to partition them into groups, and follow certain groups only. In that case, create your groups as lists, kill your main timeline with /set notimeline , and then start mixing the lists into your new, blank timeline with /liston or /autolist . Voila: you're only seeing the users you want to see! Now you can simply sling groups around and join or remove them from your timeline dynamically. To get back to your regular timeline, kill your list-of-lists if you like, and then /unset notimeline .

Note that mixing a list into your timeline is not the same thing as following. In the Twitter API, following just marks you as a follower of the list. It does not actually mix the two. To distinguish this, the /lfollow (and /lleave , /lunfollow , etc.) commands handle this marking and unmarking, and give you the chance to add the list to your timeline also if you want. You don't have to follow a list to put it in your timeline (in fact, for your own you can't), but it would be nice to give props to the list owner if you do.

You can use the /friends and /followers commands with lists, but they will only show you who the list follows ( /friends ) and who is marked as following that list ( /followers ). If you want to see what lists follow a user, use /listfollowers ( /listfos ), and I'm sure you can guess what /listfriends does. If you don't specify for these commands, then they default to you.

By the way, here is the complete list of command words for /withlist ( /wl ). Note that certain commands change the slug, and this change can be delayed (this is Twitter, not TTYtter ). For those commands, once you have run them, wait a few seconds and then run your /lists again to see what the new slug is. You don't need the slash for list names with /withlist ; it already knows it's yours.

create (makes a list with name and slug as given; provide it with public or private and an optional description);

(makes a list with name and slug as given; provide it with or and an optional description); public|private (changes the mode of an existing list; THIS WILL CHANGE THE SLUG )

(changes the mode of an existing list; ) name (renames a list; THIS WILL CHANGE THE SLUG )

(renames a list; ) desc (changes the list long description; THIS WILL CHANGE THE SLUG )

(changes the list long description; ) add (adds a list of user names to the list)

(adds a list of user names to the list) delete (if you specify a user name, it will remove it from the list; if you give no arguments, it will delete the list after you confirm)

Command history and substitution

readline

TTYtter

readline

-readline

A simple one-command history (I used to call this the "re-tweet," which was a term I used long before the johnny-come-lately "RTs"! sigh) allows you to recall the last command. Instead of using !! , which can sometimes start (or be) a tweet, the last command is recalled with %% , and can be further modified. If the last tweet was too long, the truncated version is added to the history, allowing you to approve or append to it (and you are reminded of the new length). For example,

TTYtter> this is an attempt at a really long tweet which will almost certainly be greater than one hundred and forty characters even without UTF-8 overhead.

*** sorry, tweet too long by 7 characters; truncated to "this is an attempt at a really long tweet which will almost certainly be greater than one hundred and forty characters even without UTF-8" (137 chars)

*** use %% for truncated version, or append to %%.

TTYtter> now is the time

TTYtter> %% for all good men to eat pizza

(expanded to "now is the time for all good men to eat pizza")

TTYtter> q3> <floodgap> now is the time

q4> <floodgap> now is the time for all good men to eat pizza

[DM dn4][cbqueue/Mon Oct 01 07:31:54 +0000 2007] stop doing that



If you have -autosplit on, then the split tweets get placed into %% . See Command-line options for how this works.

In addition, a proper and full command history is also available, by default the last twenty in a session. Just as %% replaces !! for the immediately preceding command, so does, say, %-3 replace !-3 to retrieve (in our example) the command you entered three lines ago. If you add a :p (e.g., %-3:p ) it will print it for you, or you can type /history to see all the commands in the buffer. :p and /history don't get added to the history themselves, but all other commands and tweets are. %% also still works just like before.

When using % -substitution sequences, you may either append to a substitution, such as %% jumps the shark , or prepend to it, such as American Idol jumps the %% . To avoid ambiguity, intercalation is not supported (e.g., American Idol %% the shark is not subject to substitution). /%% is specifically allowed to let you escape tweets that look like commands.

You can also use % -sequences to do primitive history editing. Since a particularly common task is to try to take words off the end to shorten a tweet, you can do this by adding -x to the end of a history command (or -- for one word only). For example, %%-- takes the last word off the last command and resends that, or for a more complex example, %-2-4 takes the command two lines ago, and takes four words off that. You can then append to this construct, e.g., %-3-2 with Phyllis I mean , or prepend to it, e.g., this is cool >> %-3-2 . Note that this does not work with :p .

The most recently-shortened URL is always available as %URL% (e.g., if you shorten http://www.example.com/ , then %URL% is http://is.gd/7bP ). Again, to eliminate ambiguity in potentially compressed 140-character missives, it is only interpreted at the beginning or end of a line.

%URL% is also set by /whois and /wagain from the user's URL (if any), along with the last URL you looked at with /url , and the URL for the tweet dumped by /dump . If you say /short or /url with no arguments, then %URL% is used as the default, so you can open someone's home page with /whois user followed by /url .

As mentioned above, the /eretweet command loads a selected tweet menu code into %RT% , allowing you to frame a tweet with your own commentary before you send it. Once again, to eliminate ambiguity in potentially compressed 140-character missives, it is only interpreted at the beginning or end of a line. If even this is not flexible enough for you, it also populates %% so that you can use the other % -substitution sequences to edit it or shorten it.

If you use % -substitution on the most recent tweet and it was connected to another tweet (such as making a /reply to specify a tweet you are replying to, or a /(e)retweet ), then any immediate substitutions made on that tweet are linked to that tweet also. Note that these kinds of tweets, such as /reply , appear in your history in their original unexpanded form, i.e., literally as you typed them (e.g., " /re f9 bletch foo bar "), except if they are auto-split. This is, in fact, how /eretweet works by design. If you reference another tweet or type another tweet, however, this context is automatically purged if TTYtter believes you have stopped working with this one.

Remember to read TTYtter and readline support if you intend to use readline support.

Command-line options

Special features

TTYtter and UTF-8 support

TTYtter

For minimal support of UTF-8, including receiving and decoding UTF-8 tweets, your Perl must have support for Unicode (thus 5.005 won't work) and the internal utf8 pragma (which usually means you must have utf8.pm ), and your terminal program must be configured to understand a UTF-8 locale or at least not interfere with bytes with the high bit set. For example, even many modern xterm s will not properly display UTF-8 unless the LC_CTYPE environment variable is correctly set prior to launching the xterm (this is particularly relevant to Mac OS X), such as en-US.UTF-8 . You may also need to set other LC_* environment variables, or the LANG environment variable. Users of terminal programs in other environments should enable UTF-8 encoding in their settings, and if you are using Telnet or rlogin , make sure your connection is 8-bit safe. Your font must also include the needed glyphs for display.

If you do not meet these minimum requirements, or ttytter complains your Perl does not support enough features to enable UTF-8 support, then you must disable UTF-8 with the -seven option. This is the only supported way for 5.005 or for impoverished installations.

To send UTF-8 encoded tweets, there are several more gotchas. First, you will need to make sure that your terminal environment gives you the ability to enter the desired character; TTYtter does not support any specific input methods internally and relies on your terminal. As a corollary, if your terminal program or input method does not properly support wide characters such that a backspace or delete does not delete all bytes in a "wide" multibyte character, backspacing over a wide character only once will leave an incomplete UTF-8 sequence even if it looks like the glyph was deleted. This is entirely under the control of your terminal environment; TTYtter only reads from standard input. If you don't know, press CTRL-R to redisplay the current line. Don't worry, however: if you enter a tweet with demonstrably invalid UTF-8 encoding, ttytter will refuse to post it. Pressing CTRL-U will always clear your line in this case. You might also consider using -synch if your input method is unhappy with TTYtter 's background updates.

TTYtter counts tweets in characters, not bytes, allowing you to post a 140-character tweet even if it is longer than 140 bytes when encoded as UTF-8. This is properly supported by -autosplit such that you can split on character and word boundaries. Note that -autosplit=word might be a little odd if you mix, say, Japanese and English in your tweets, because TTYtter currently only knows to split words on spaces and may make a wrong best guess about where to split up your tweet; no okurigana support yet, すみません。

Certain -readline drivers may not allow you to enter UTF-8 (although virtually all I have tested will let you receive it). If you get Malformed UTF-8 errors while you try to type or edit a line, your readline driver is not UTF-8 safe. For more on readline , see TTYtter and readline support.

UTF-8 support is not possible for every combination of font, terminal, locale and Perl version, and while I'm trying to make sure it works in most places, I can't make it work every place. If you'd rather just junk UTF-8 or 8-bit characters in general altogether, use -seven . In this mode, all 8-bit characters are rendered as printable dots and UTF-8 entry is not allowed. This is the lowest common denominator for compatibility. TTYtter and SSL For modern versions of either Lynx or cURL , OpenSSL is mandatory for the following section.

TTYtter supports encryption as long as your Lynx or cURL does, since obviously the network lifting is done by Lynx or cURL , not TTYtter . For this reason, since not everyone has a crypto-enabled client, SSL is not enabled by default. If you are using HTTP Basic Authentication, your password is sent in the clear; and even if you are using OAuth (the default), all updates and information you send and receive are also transmitted in the clear except your OAuth secrets, which are only used to generate cryptographic signatures. This may be a problem if you require high security for your application or are on an insecure link such as open wireless.

If your client does support SSL, then you can easily change TTYtter to use it (do note that this may scale less well due to the additional overhead) by simply using the -ssl option. All of the applicable URLs will be changed for you. (This assumes you are using the regular Twitter API URLs and might not work properly with Twitter-alike APIs. Also, this does not apply to -shorturl for the URL shortening service, which is not a Twitter service. You should make sure your URL shortening service allows SSL access first, and if so, specify -shorturl=... yourself. See Command-line options.)

If you aren't using the Twitter default URLs, you can use the various URL command-line options to manually specify https:// URLs, or using -apibase to establish a single "root" URL for the compatible Twitter-alike service you are connecting to.

By default, cURL 's certificate bundle is old and does not support Twitter's current CA. cURL offers an updater script in Perl which will rebuild a new certificate bundle suitable for installation, which requires LWP , along with the standard Getopt and MIME modules. (A more current version may have already come with your cURL install.) If you need a version of this updater script for systems without LWP (like Mac OS X) and don't want to install LWP to run it, I offer a modified version using cURL itself. Once it's downloaded and converted, copy the resulting bundle file over the old one, or put a line in your ~/.curlrc to specify --cacert to the location of the new bundle (such as --cacert /home/zivadavid/ca-bundle.crt ). (On Mac OS X and probably most systems, the default bundle lives at /usr/share/curl/curl-ca-bundle.crt .)

For Lynx users, if you get certificate errors, read how to manage certificates in Lynx. The MirOS root certificates package is known to work with Lynx 2.8.6 (yours truly uses it); simply expand the sh-archive into your OpenSSL certificates folder, by default /usr/local/ssl/certs , and Lynx should automatically start using them. TTYtter and readline support (and Term::ReadLine::TTYtter ) If you need more advanced command line management than the basic client offers, TTYtter also supports readline for interactive command line history, TAB completion and editing. You must have Perl 5.6 or higher for readline support to properly function -- it is not supported in 5.005 -- along with the Term::ReadLine stub module (part of the standard Perl distribution), and a functional Term::ReadLine::* driver.

TTYtter now offers tight integration with its own bespoke "beta" driver, Term::ReadLine::TTYtter , which offers several unique features including automatic prompt updating, history synchronization, background control and even a character counter. As a descendant of Term::ReadLine::Perl , it is pure-Perl and should run on most systems and environments. This is now the recommended driver for most users, but T::RL::T is beta and under development and may have bugs. Your impressions are appreciated. Current versions of TTYtter require at least version 1.3; they will not work with earlier versions of T::RL::T .

If you don't want to use T::RL::TTYtter , TTYtter should support any module that follows the API laid out in Term/ReadLine.pm .

To start TTYtter in readline mode, pass the -readline=... option, along with a (n optional) string of words to preload the TAB completer with. This string is space delimited, so you may need to quote it, or you can just type -readline by itself with no string and use the defaults. (If you have multiple drivers and want to choose between them, set the PERL_RL environment variable before starting TTYtter to an appropriate value, such as Gnu , Perl , TTYtter or Stub . If you do not specify it, the default is TTYtter .)

TTYtter displays the driver it is using on startup. If you get Term::ReadLine::Stub and you were expecting another driver, try specifying it in the PERL_RL environment variable (see above). The default is TTYtter ; if Term::ReadLine can't find it, it falls back on the basic Stub driver unless another driver was requested.

With readline enabled, assuming your driver supports it, your cursor keys will become enabled allowing you to go back and forth through your history, and you will be able to use them to edit the current command plus any additional editing keys enabled by your driver's features and/or keybindings.

Tweets will still print on screen and may overwrite what you're typing. How you redisplay your current line varies on the keybindings of your driver, but a routine that works for most is to press SPACE, and then BACKSPACE. (This might not work for certain input methods, however, particularly ones like Kotoeri where nothing is transmitted until a completed word is sent. There is nothing TTYtter or Term::ReadLine can do about that. The -synch option can help you here, but disables automatic updates.) If you are using T::RL::TTYtter , however, your prompt will be refreshed for you automatically as updates occur. If you need a manual update despite that, press CTRL-R.

TAB is also active in readline mode for standard TAB completion. The TAB completer starts out with the standard TTYtter command set (completed only at the beginning of a line, natch), plus any additional keywords you give it with the -readline=... option. These can be regular words, or they can be Twitter users (if so, they should be prefaced with @ , e.g., -readline="@floodgap @ttytter" ). Like any sane TAB completion routine, if you press TAB and multiple options match, you will be given a list.

During the course of your session, people you @ -reply to, people you DM and people you query with /again , /whois and etc. will be added to the completer's vocabulary. The completer is smart -- it will add the name in context whether the @ is needed (replies) or where it isn't (commands), but commands will accept @user arguments as well so that improved orthogonality is achieved. (Your list is not populated out of tweets you receive: this would scale very badly, and edge cases would find themselves running out of memory!) When you quit TTYtter , the words you preloaded plus the added usernames (ranked with highest usage to the top) will be displayed in command line form, up to 15. You can pass this directly to ttytter or cut it up to put in your .ttytterrc . Note that of course you can have active, and specify on the command line, more than 15 terms; I just picked that number to make it easier for people to parse and cut and paste. If you want to know what the optimized readline string is now, type /print tabcomp ; if you just want to see what got added to your TAB completer (and all of it), use /print ntabcomp .

TAB completion can also shorten URLs for you. Type any http:// URL and at the end before you hit SPACE, press TAB. After a brief pause the URL will be replaced with a shortened one as if you had used the /short command. This does not always work for characters that the driver eats before handing the string to the TAB completer -- it is best used for URLs that do not query forms or use excessively complex parameters. If you're having trouble with the TAB URL shortener, use /short .

There is less need to use % -based command line history in readline as it's much easier to just cursor back and re-use or edit the line yourself interactively with the cursor keys. Nevertheless, % -sequences are still active and can still be used (and for things like oversize tweets, autosplit, etc., still have to be). Because of the way the history is generated, % -substitutions appear in your cursor up/down history in their unsubstituted original form. Also, the -maxhist option (q.v.) only affects TTYtter 's internal history, not readline 's. If you intend to mix and match TTYtter 's internal history and readline 's (not recommended!), check the /history command to make sure that you and TTYtter agree on what particular portion of the history is being operated upon. If you are using T::RL::TTYtter , however, your history is synchronized between TTYtter and ReadLine so that most cursor-back and % -sequences work as expected.

Remember that readline does not necessarily work like standard input. For example, characters you type between prompts may not be seen.

If you intend to work in an UTF-8 locale, some readline drivers may not handle UTF-8 character entry correctly (the current version of Term::ReadLine::Perl is the most notorious). If you receive Malformed UTF-8 errors while attempting to edit a string with UTF-8 encoded characters, your driver is not UTF-8 safe. Note that you may still be able to receive and see UTF-8 encoded tweets, so if you don't need to send them, you can still use that driver. However, neither TTYtter nor Perl nor Term/ReadLine.pm can magically make a driver accept input methods it does not understand. For more about UTF-8 support in TTYtter , see TTYtter and UTF-8. T::RL::TTYtter does accept UTF-8 characters entered at the command line, but may not be compatible with all keyboard layouts. If characters you type are appearing incorrectly, send a bug report.

[For advanced users, you can add repaintable support to your favourite readline driver if you want to modify it. Make sure your driver advertises canRepaint canRemoveReadline canSetTopHistory in your Features , which map to redisplay , removereadline and settophistory functions in your readline object (you can do this incompletely and only advertise the implemented functions if you like). redisplay and removereadline should be prepared for getting called outside of an actual prompt (and silently ignore those calls). You might also change your readline routine to send PID $main::child a signal 30 (or SIGUSR1 ) when a key is being processed and signal 31 (or SIGUSR2 ) when processing is complete, which stops background work while you are typing.] TTYtter and the Streaming API If you meet the necessary system and security prerequisites, TTYtter now supports accessing Twitter in near-real-time using Twitter User Streams. The Streaming API is a very fast way to use Twitter and lets you communicate with other users in a way very much like IRC. (Those who forget about the past are doomed to reinvent it, apparently.)

Streaming API support is not enabled by default. If you have not opted into streaming, the REST API is used instead. The following is required to enable streaming support:

You must opt in by using the -dostream option (or putting dostream=1 in your ~/.ttytterrc ).

option (or putting in your ). You must be using cURL ; Lynx does not support the persistent connection type required, nor OAuth.

; Lynx does not support the persistent connection type required, nor OAuth. You must be using OAuth. (This is the default anyway.)

You cannot be anonymous. (Anonymous access is not compatible with Twitter User Streams, although it can be used with other kinds of streams, but we don't support that [yet]).

You cannot be using -synch , because it is synchronous and the Streaming API is asynchronous by definition.

, because it is synchronous and the Streaming API is asynchronous by definition. You must have a secured link with SSL by using the -ssl option (or putting ssl=1 in your ~/.ttytterrc ).

Using a compatible readline driver for TTYtter as tweets are likely to be fast and furious, and will asynchronously appear onscreen. You could also use something like ssfe .

ttytter

When streaming mode is active, you will see four TTYtter processes instead of the usual two: although the regular foreground and background processes are still present in streaming mode, TTYtter also adds a buffer process that insulates the background from signals generated by cURL and maintains a continuously operational channel of data, and a nurse process that alerts the buffer when cURL dies or is disconnected. For maximum compatibility with as wide a range of operating systems as possible, these thread-like entities are implemented as processes, not as true threads. They automatically kill themselves if their parent process (viz., the background) shuts down or is killed.

In streaming mode, the client works mostly the same as it did in regular REST API mode. While streaming mode is the primary way tweets are downloaded, the REST API is still used to back up your timeline and direct messages in case the stream is interrupted, and is also used to fetch Search API tracked keywords (because TTYtter supports search queries more sophisticated than the Streaming API can presently deliver) and any lists you have mixed into your timeline, so you are still subject to ratelimiting. TTYtter will seamlessly mix all this together regardless of source, so all you see is the same continuous river of tweets and DMs, just delivered more quickly. The experience is intended to be so seamless that not even most extensions will know the difference. Only if you examine the internal structure of a tweet with /dump or equivalent will you be able to distinguish whether it was fetched from your REST timeline or the stream.

Replies and mentions, however, do work slightly differently. If a user mentions you, it is always delivered to your timeline even if you do not follow that user (i.e., in streaming mode, you don't need the -mentions option, and in fact you will get a warning if it is enabled). Retweets of you act like replies in that they are delivered as well. If this annoys you, -nostreamreplies will block replies delivered through the stream and they are then received in the usual manner from your REST API timeline (and/or through the REST API -mentions option).

You can also enable conversations outside of your timeline with streaming mode too, similar to the way "old" Twitter used to work (i.e., seeing tweets from people that you follow in conversations to people you don't follow, but also seeing replies from those people you don't follow back to the people you do). This is fairly spammy, so speak softly and carry a large -filter pattern. To enable this mode, use -streamallreplies . Careful if you follow major accounts like @twitter or @ev because this will introduce a lot of spam and noise into your timeline from low foreheads and morons. The -filterusers and related options can help you deal with these unexpected annoyances; see Command-line options.

For extension authors using Streaming, you can use the Streaming API for faster robot performance with -daemon , but because -script is inherently deterministic and streaming is inherently anything but, -script will automatically disable streaming (as will -status , for that matter). TTYtter and notification support (Growl, libnotify , ...) Depending on your operating environment's support, TTYtter can pass selected tweets and direct messages on to a notification system. Thus, not only will they appear on your regular terminal window, but you can also be alerted to them in another customizable way. For example, with Growl support (built in to TTYtter ), you can then configure Growl to send selected tweets and DMs to your iPhone via Prowl. Or, when I'm working out and not sitting at the computer, I have Growl configured to display very large alerts on the screen, driven by TTYtter , so I can see tweets I might need to respond to from across the room without having to watch the window all the time.

To enable notifications, specify the notifications driver(s) you want to use with the -notifytype=... option, and the class(es) of messages you want to send through the driver using the -notifies=... option. For example, this command line enables Growl support and passes notifications for (and only for) direct messages and replies that you receive:

% ./ttytter -notifytype=growl -notifies=dm,reply

TTYtter supports Growl and libnotify drivers (more about that below) and dm , me , reply , search and default message classes, corresponding to, respectively in order of precedence, direct messages, tweets you wrote, replies and mentions, tweets that appear in search, and other unclassified tweets from your timeline. The highest level class is selected, so a tweet selected from search that mentions you is promoted to a reply; if you retweet yourself (you shameless publicity whore), it is promoted to a self-written tweet. If you want to be notified about everything that you get in your timeline, you might say

% ./ttytter -notifytype=growl -notifies=dm,me,reply,search,default

Each notification is tagged as a TTYtter alert, along with the class of the notification, and the contents of the DM or tweet.

Growl support is built-in and well-tested, and uses the growl driver (i.e., -notifytype=growl ). Growl is available for Mac OS X (although there are endpoints supported on other systems such as iPhone OS via Prowl). You must also install growlnotify , which comes separately with the standard distribution of Growl in the installation disk image. Run the growlnotify install script; it places growlnotify in /usr/local/bin by default. When you start TTYtter for the first time with Growl, it registers itself as an application so that you can make application-specific settings such as alert type, sticky alerts and timeouts specific to TTYtter within the Growl preference pane. Changes to settings are stored by Growl, become active immediately, and are remembered for future TTYtter sessions.

libnotify support is also built-in but currently experimental, and uses the libnotify driver (i.e., -notifytype=libnotify ). Although it uses the standard notify-send utility, currently it requires that notify-send be recompiled with standard input support (use this patch) in order to protect the command line from malicious data. Replace notify-send with the new binary and start TTYtter . If notifications appear successfully, your configuration is correct. On purpose no special settings or categories are currently used. Please report any bugs you find to ckaiser@floodgap.com, as this support is currently not well tested.

You can specify multiple notification endpoints by separating them with commas, if you have multiple notification drivers installed. For example, -notifytype=growl,libnotify sends notifies to both built-in notifiers.

I would invite any other suggestions for notification frameworks, although I am intentionally restricting built-in notification support to the most common applications and systems. You can, however, build a handler for your own preferred notification system using the API.

TTYtter

TTYtter

TTYtter

TTYtter

To switch to Basic Authorization, override TTYtter 's normal authentication with -authtype=basic . You will need to specify your username and password with the -user option, like so:

% ./ttytter -authtype=basic -user=screwtape:wormwood

If you don't want to type your password on the command line, then just use a username like -user=screwtape , and TTYtter will ask for the password. (NB: If you have a password like pa$$word that has shell metacharacters in it, you may need to single quote it like ./ttytter '-user=screwtape:pa$$word' .) You can also put these options into your .ttytterrc . In this mode, any keyfile you may specify is ignored.

Do not use Basic Auth with Twitter: it will not work. TTYtter and Twitter-alike APIs TTYtter will speak with other Twitter-alike APIs, although less functionally depending on how much of the Twitter API is implemented. As of TTYtter 2.1, the Twitter-alike service you connect to must be compatible with Twitter API 1.1.

The special command line option -apibase rewrites the default Twitter URLs (and only the Twitter URLs, not, say, Search API URLs or URL-shortening-service API URLs) to point to a different server. For example, let's take an example service with a "base" URL of http://twitter.alike/api . If this service only supports Basic Authentication, additionally add -authtype=basic (described above). Thus, a command like

% ttytter -apibase=http://twitter.alike/api -authtype=basic

, plus your usual login options (such as -user=.. with your username and password) and such, will suddenly enable you to authenticate and make requests with that server.

You may need to disable certain features if your remote system doesn't support them; this can cause TTYtter to halt unexpectedly with a security warning if it gets data it isn't expecting. Relevant options might include -notrack , to disable the Search API; -nonewrts , to disable NewRTs; -dmpause=0 , to disable checking for direct messages; -linelength=... , to enable longer lines for those APIs that support it; -notco , to disable t.co unwrapping on a server where this has no meaning; or -noratelimit , to disable automatic rate limit checking (use -pause with a fixed interval also). You can also put these options into your .ttytterrc file. To find out what all these command line options do, see Command-line options.

Depending on the service you use, you may need to only include some of these options, but this is the minimum lowest common denominator of functionality supported in TTYtter . TTYtter and your special terminal environment It is possible, and quite often entirely functional, to run ttytter within a custom terminal environment. For example, your humble author runs ttytter routinely in GNU screen . This works as-is and requires no special options.

For environments that try to provide a custom editing environment, such as running ttytter under ssfe (a simple full screen environment that is part of the sirc package) or similar, often TTYtter needs to signal the environment that it is running, and TTYtter 's normal prompt handling usually must be suppressed. This is accomplished with two options: -noprompt , which as its name implies means no prompt is displayed and TTYtter simply waits on standard input; and -leader=... , which prints a lead line even before TTYtter has started up in order to flag the environment. Depending on your real terminal or terminal program, you may also need -ansi or -noansi to handle escape sequences correctly. Details on all these options are on the Command-line options page.

For example, this command line will start TTYtter under ssfe :

% ssfe ttytter -leader='`#ssfe#sTTYtter' -noprompt

(Naturally include your login and any other relevant options; also, my particular environment does in fact require -noansi , but I have omitted those options for clarity. This patch may be useful for passing ANSI sequences through.)

If you are trying to get TTYtter to run under rlwrap or other kinds of readline -specific wrappers, this usually will work, but a better idea is to use TTYtter 's own built-in readline support instead.

It is not possible for me to support every possible environment in TTYtter , and some just won't work. Also, I do not like to add special trivial cases to the code if I can help it. However, if there is a general way I can extend support to your favourite runtime environment, or if you have written an extension to accomplish this, please let me know at ckaiser@floodgap.com. Please, no attachments unless I request them. Thank you :) Scripting TTYtter TTYtter can be easily "scripted" by passing it console commands on standard input (and tweets, although if you are doing a single tweet -status=... works much better and can be made 'bulletproof' with -hold to boot):

% ./ttytter -status="Writing a letter to my nephew."

For many custom applications where you just need, say, a cron job to fetch your last 20 DMs or your replies, simply passing commands can be all you need. When passing commands to TTYtter , most of the time you will want to use -script to ensure that you have full control over the environment and that prompts are suppressed. For example, if you put this in a file and pipe it to ttytter -script ,

/r

/dm

TTYtter will fetch your 20 most recent tweets on the timeline (since /r will start from the beginning, having no history) and your 20 most recent direct messages, and emit them all to standard output. You don't even need to use a file at all, of course, and naturally you can pipe it to something else such as in this marginally useless example:

echo "/again twitterapi" | ttytter -script | grep -i banana

Any command that the console understands can be passed, even history substitutions and actual tweets.

You can also specify an arbitrary Perl expression on the command line for simple filtering of tweet content; see the -filter option and friends under Command-line options. For example, here is the banana example again, using TTYtter to do the filtering:

echo "/again twitterapi" | ttytter -script -filter="\!/banana/i"

Or you can make it even simpler and use -runcommand , which combines -script and your (single) console command all in one:

ttytter -filter="\!/banana/i" -runcommand="/again twitterapi"

You can even search Twitter for hashtags and keywords. For example, you can find a lot of Japanese poets this way:

ttytter -runcommand="/search #haiku"

Or you can get your replies on the command line (I have this very line in my crontab so that replies to @ttytter get E-mailed to me at regular intervals):

ttytter -runcommand="/re"

Such things suffice for simple tasks, but you cannot change the format of tweets this way (except with things like -timestamp ), and there is no reliable error detection or conditional logic. For much more custom behaviour, you need to write an extension in Perl, which brings us to ... Writing extensions for TTYtter ( -exts ) If scripting isn't enough, you can completely override the engine's guts for your specific purpose. Using the -exts=... option, you can specify extensions to augment TTYtter 's core behaviour, including but not limited to adding new user commands, changing how received tweets and DMs are dealt with, changing how errors are reported or altering even how the console itself is handled. You can either use this in interactive mode, or, if you use -daemon , even make a Twitter bot. You can load as many extensions as you like and mash them up together.

For more information on this very useful function, see Advanced usage.

Using TTYtter as a bot or daemon ( -daemon )

ttytter

-daemon

If you just pass -daemon and don't specify any custom behaviour with -exts=... , then tweets and DMs are printed asynchronously in the background and you can watch them while you use the terminal session for something else (it will just print over what you're doing). However, you must do something like ttytter -status=... to post tweets, as there is no console process, and you must kill the daemon process manually to turn it off.

Combine -daemon with the -exts=... option and, as mentioned above, you can use ttytter as a Twitter bot. Again, for more information on this very useful function, see Advanced usage.

Now that you've read all that ...

... go download TTYtter and look at the change log and known bug list.

Send comments and blank cheques to ckaiser@floodgap.com.