While corebird is certainly accessible I find it less than intuitive and even after having used it on and
off, (much more off/keep reading to understand
a bit more), for 2 or more years I just find it inefficient compared to CLI alternatives.
For readiing tweets corebird is fine, and I like it alright for this, and for posting new tweets, status
updates if you prefer that term, again it's
easy and I have no complaints, but I do a lot of RTing, and post replies to stuff others post and myself
as a way to continue thoughts that just can
not be well explained in 140 chars, no I've not been invited to use the new 280 char format, maybe this is
not even being tested in Mexico, and these
interactions are far less user friendly, and even when I've used corebird for a few sessions over a period
of a couple or three days I find that I am
still almost as dissatisfied as I was when I first started using the app. Again, it is possible to use, I
can't think of any issues where accessibility
is terrible or completely lacking, but it just is not comfortable..
Last I checked it appeared that corebird was not being actively developed, i.e. I do not have much hope
that functionality will be streamlined, the app
wilil become more flexible or customizable, etc. If I am wrong and development is going on and I missed it
or it has recently resumed, please consider
one OT post or mail me off list to let me know what's up.
There are three command line alternatives that are much more efficient to use, certainly for me, but in
most ways I'd say in objective terms, not to
mention that the twitter website is quite easy to use and has been now for quite some time. I am talking
the standard twitter site, not mobile, and
using firefox with horca. I do not do this a lot, so something may have changed, but I'm almost always
happy to pleasantly surprised with the
responsiveness, and the keyboard shortcuts make it easy to do some things I never or seldom do.
I can use the mobilie site with old school txt based browsers as well, but this is a bit slower in most
cases.
For basic stuff one can set up bitlbee to work with their twitter account. If you spend time on irc then
bitlbee is worth looking in to. I use it with
irssi, but it is mostly irc client agnostic. There are some bitlbee pakages that are pidgin specific, but
I've not looked in to them/will let someone
else comment on what is optimized, added or changed in these packages compared with the standard bitlbee
pkgs.
The most effective of all the options that I have found for tweeting is a program called oysttyer, the
continuation of the great work done with ttyer.
Ttyer still works, or did a couple of days ago when I just spaced out and started it instead of oysttyer,
but has no advantages over oysttyer, so other
than advanced documentation that almost if not 100% applies to oysttyer, (not yet ported over to oysttyer
web site(s) yet), and a dependency that has
ttytter in its name new users can just think oysttyer.
Another nice option is twidge. Twidge is not as flexible as oysttyer, but can be a bit easier to usefor
some situations I think as one does not have to
have it taking up a console or terminal window. You just type a command and get what you want, e.g. most
recent tweets in your timeline, your latest
replies and or mentions, dms etc, or you can post something new.
All three of these twitter clients make use of custoom tweet codes, i.e. 2 or three symbol codes that you
use to refference a tweet so that it is either
retweeted, replied to, put in your favorites, likes I guess they are called now, or get the rest of a
conversation thread where a tweet is found.
This is ot for here, and well explained in help and documentation manuals, but a couple of examples may
help give you the idea if you have never used
these programs or had them explained to you.
I can type oysttyer and start the program, and after it tells you if you have logged in, what your posting
rate limits are or if you are using the
streaming api, and checks for updates you will start hearing your time line, latest dms and replies. You
can configure this differently, but the above
would be typical. You can also have keywords in your configuration and oysttyer will use them for saved
searches.
You can just type a new tweet and press enter, and I have my oysttyer set up to require a confirmation
before posting as I can hit enter by mistake, or
decide the second after I pressed it that my tweet is just a bit too radical for acheiving my desired
responses, remember how something should be
spelled or what ever, so I have to type y and hit enter again before my tweet is sent out.
If I want to reply to a tweet I use its oysttyer and session specific tweet code, e.g.
/reply g7 You can't be serious, none of those guys knows as much as your dog, the prez even less
#SpinTillYouLie #PantsOnFire
and the correct username is prepended, and the correct metadata is used so that your reply appears how and
where it should.
You can also put a list of your friends/followers in to your config file and not have to type their whole
username to include them, e.g.
@Be
press tab and if you only have one person on your list whos handle starts with Be the name is filled in,
use more letters if there are several that
start with Be, so I pressed enter after typing @Yo and @BeautifulGeniusLady is written for me and I can
finish the tweet directed at them.
/search BurtHenry
will return the most recent tweets from me or that mention me, and you can put +5 to just see the latest 5
tweets that match what ever you are asking
for with your command.
You can also use oysttyer options to run commands, post tweets, etc as a one off event if you do not want
a program window open, and to save on tyhping
I make aliases for the things I do most, e.g.
twos "Just wanted to show u how to use #oysttyer"
would post my tweet test inside the quotes. The twos is the alias I imade for updating my status, i.e.
posting a new tweet.
I have bash_alias files where I put all such typing saving commands, but if you prefer you can include
aliases in your ~/.bashrc file, either way the
line to use my command would be
alias twos='oysttyer -status="'
I made 2 and 3 symbol aliases for the twidge commands I most run as well, and this is just the tip of the
iceberg as to what can be done.
You could easily have your timeline checked every 10minutes and put on screen and/or written to a file
you can read when you want to, and have oysttyer
check for replies and mentions every 5 minutes. You could have a searches for Orca, Vinux, Linux
accessibility, and great guitar run every few hours.
There are extensions you can download that will give extra functionality as well. Years ago I had some
tweets read to me when they came in using a
different voice than the one I used with Orca and Speakup.
Writing extensions to add functionality is probably beyond the average user's ability to do with out some
serious study and practice, but all three of
the programs I mention can be used with ease by most people with in a few minutes of installing them, and
Storm has a website that automates writing and
customization of a oysttyer configuration file, so you can get a solid basic setup with out even having to
learn about available options.
You can also use the long tweet codes that are standard across all ways to interface with twitter, so you
can interact with a tweet or conversation that
oysttyer has never seen itself, I think this may be true for the other aps I mention, but I'd have to
check to be sure there as I seldom need to use
this method.
Got to bust a move now, but I strongly reccomdnd spending a few minutes to try any or better yet all three
of the CLI options I have mentioned here, and
a few twitter sessions to get the feel for their use. I'm very busy these days, but am working on a few
odds and ends that will make using oysttyer
more transparent and even
easier than it is out of the box, and I'll post an update sometime in the future re this and a couple
other things that should make life easier for
screenreader users.
