Since the emergence of microblogging and services like twitter, millions of people around the globe are using them to network and promote their online presence. Large number of them are almost addicted to it. Twitter has emerged as one of the most popular microblogging service, and it's user base is growing exponentially. Although twitter provides a web interface to post and to interact with the followers, very few people use it. The preferred method is using desktop clients for twitter, and among them twhirl is one of the preferred client. Let's see how to use this excellent piece of software, and how to make most out of it.
Twhirl is a very flexible twitter client with lots of configurable features to fine tune the software according to your needs.
Main Features of Twhirl
1. Multiple Accounts Management
2. Complete Timeline Management
3. Configurable Update Options
4. Auto-Hiding Input Panel
5. Keyboard Shortcuts
6. Auto-Updation To Newer Versions
7. Timeline Filtering
8. System Tray Support
9. Configurable Notifications
10. Multiple Color Schemes (Skins)
11. Fine Tuning Twitter API Usage
12. Integrated Twitpic Support (For posting Images)
13. Cross-Platform Twitter Update (Pownce and Jaiku)
and much more...
Tweaking Basic Settings
After installing twhirl you may want to tweak some basic settings to suit your needs. Let's start with the most common and essential tweaks.
Before we go ahead, we must get familiar with the 'Configuration' button (shown above) that will be used the most while customizing and tweaking twhirl settings. Configuration button is recognized by a spanner icon associated with it.
Changing Color Schemes
Twhirl comes with amazing color schemes (skins) that gives a new look to this wonderful twitter client. At the time of this writing, version 0.8.6 supports 15 color schemes including the default skin.
For several months I used the default color scheme, until one day I started exploring all twhirl features. Now my favorite color scheme is 'On The Beach', and I am almost addicted to it. To the change the skin, go to 'Configuration -> Open Accounts -> Colors (tab)', and select the desired skin from the list. After selecting your favorite color scheme, do not forget to press 'Change color scheme' button.
Tweaking Opacity Settings
Normally, twhirl window has 65% opacity when not in focus, which can be very uncomfortable if you have weak eyesight. To change opacity settings go to 'Configuration -> Visual (tab)' and adjust the desired percentage of opacity as per your requirements.
There are two conditions available for applying opacity to twhirl.
1. when inactive
2. always
My preferred setting is 100% opacity with 'always' condition on. This ensures maximum visibility no matter twhirl window is in focus or not.
Optimizing Twitter API Usage
Now, I would not advice to play with twitter API usage settings unless you are not sure what you are doing. At the time of this writing, twitter allows a maximum of 70 requests (API calls) per hour. Earlier it was 100, but recently twitter has further reduced this limit to avoid mis-use and to reduce overload on their servers. To adjust API usage settings go to 'Configuration -> Network (tab)'.
By default, twhirl keeps the maximum requests of up to 40/hour, which can be increased if you have large number of active followers and if you actively get engaged with them. Still, do not increase the request limit beyond 60, so that 10 requests are reserved for twhirl in case it needs to make additional calls to resolve server errors or similar queries. I would strongly advice not to uncheck 'follow reduced API limits' option. In case your account crosses the API usage limit frequently for long time, guys at twitter can suspend your account.
Changing ReTweet Structure
Whenever we retweet, a pre-configured tweet structure is used to display the retweet. The default structure is as follows:
Retweeting @original_sender: actual_tweet
The two format specifiers are used in creating retweet structure are viz., %s and %t.
%s - is replaced by a reference to original sender
%t - is replaced by the actual tweet
To modify retweet structure go to 'Configuration -> General (tab)'. The first tweak you can do is to replace 'Retweeting' by 'RT', which is now widely used as a short form of retweet. This modification saves more characters for tweet text. You can select other retweet formats from the drop down list as shown above. In case you do not any like of the above formats, you can type in your own format in the text box. For example: %s said %t, %t - %s, %s - %t or just about any combination you want.
Notification Adjustments
These are another important set of adjustments that govern how different notifications will behave when using twhirl. For configuring notification settings go to 'Configuration -> Notify (tab)'.
Adjusting Audile Alerts - The very first adjustment that you may like to do is to increase or decrease the notification volume. When tweets are received (regular, direct, replies), a bell is played by twhirl. If you are on ear-pieces or you multi-task, you may want to increase the volume so that you can pay attention to the received tweets.
Simply drag the slider left or right to decrease or increase the volume as per your requirements. If you want audible alerts only on direct messages or replies, you can check the 'only play sound on directs/replies' option.
Configuring Notification Windows - Whenever a tweet is received by twhirl, it is shown in a rectangular notification window. By default, if twhirl recieves more than 3 tweets in a single call, it displays the summary of received tweets in a single notification window. You can override this behavior by unchecking the 'show summary for more than 3 tweets' option.
Twhirl can display a maximum of 60 notification windows at a time (20 messages, 20 directs, 20 replies) that can cover your whole desktop. If you are using multiple accounts in twhirl, each one having large active community then these notification windows can be a source of disturbance. The best way to deal with this situation is to check the 'enqueue notifications' option. Once this option is turned on, all notifications are queued and displayed one after another.
Configuring Language Settings - Version 0.8.6 of twhirl supports up to 4 popular languages. By default, twhirl activates English language interface after installation. To change the language go to 'Configuration -> Open Accounts -> Language (tab)'.
Apart from English, German, Italian and Spanish language support is also available. Twhirl engineers are working hard to add some Asian languages including Chinese and Japanese.
In next part of this series, we will look at all the tweeting options and buttons on main twhirl window.
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