4 October 2009
Twit-update
Filed under Wordpress
I found myself updating some posts somewhat frequently. This isn’t necessarily a good thing to do as the RSS feed doesn’t show updates.
A more blog-type thing to do would be to constantly make new posts and link back and forth trough them in a weak attempt at SEO. This isn’t really my thing because one I like my information organised instead of scattered and two I’m not a blogger.
Fiddlig with the built-in wordpress RSS seemed a bit daunting to me so I started lookig for alternatives. Then it dawned on me that there’s such a thing as Twitter. Personally I don’t use it, but practically it can store small amounts of information, and people like it.
This was the heart of twit-update.
The lungs and the rest of the cardiovascular system of twit-update was a nice clean bit of code.
The bones and muscles moving and supporting it were today’s work crippled as much as possible by windows vista(which froze on me even as I was writing this)
Odd biology metaphors aside I’ll save this post now then edit it later with the link to the plugin itself to prove its workingness.
It obviously didn’t work exactly as planned, so I’ll be tweaking more before release. You can see it in its current glory here.
How to use:
- Type in your twitter login data
- Set the notifications options
- Set the notification messages
- Save
As an example for notifications I currently use:
I [a] have posted a post named [n] at these temporal coordonates: [o]. You may find it here: [url]
and
[n] was just edited. It was last edited on [l] and posted on [o]. It currently has [c] comments. Go take a look. [url]
You could also make some notes in the excerpt section as to why you edited and send them off to twitter. Sky’s the limit.
Known issues:
Previewing a post triggers the new post messageNotifications are sent for pages tooSaving drafts triggers new post message
These seem to have gotten fixed. Please let me know if there are still issues.
Changelog
004-Switched to the new way of storing options. Might be compatible with wordpressMU. Need volunteer to find out.
003-Security update restricting acces to plugin settings. Please update if you have a multi-user blog.
002-more tags, bug fixes and a sidebar widget
001-there should be increased compatibility with PHP 4 now
000-release
Any suggestions, questions and feedback are very much appreciated.
Download here
2009-10-04 :: Andrew
5 October 2009 @ 4:08 pm
Hi, just installed twit-update but received an error when activating:
Plugin could not be activated because it triggered a fatal error.
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_OBJECT_OPERATOR in /home/*****/*****/wp-content/plugins/twit-update/twit_main.php on line 30.
Any ideas? Would really like to use this.
Thanks
[Reply]
Andrew Reply:
October 5th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Hello, I’m sorry to hear you’re having issues. Is your server running PHP version 4 by any chance?
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5 October 2009 @ 7:38 pm
I’m having the same issue, and yes my server is using PHP 4.4.9
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Andrew Reply:
October 5th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Thanks for letting me know.
It should be fixed now. You can download the new version as soon as it updates on wordpress.org in a few moments.
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JD Reply:
October 5th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Ok, seems to work now. Thanks for the speedy update!
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Andrew Reply:
October 5th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
You’re welcome, I’m glad it worked.
Please let me know if you find more bugs or have suggestions.
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5 October 2009 @ 9:05 pm
Will this work with WP version 2.8.4 ?
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Andrew Reply:
October 5th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
I don’t see why not. It most likely works with most versions, I only tested it on one though.
Feel free to try it out and let me know if it works.
[Reply]
5 October 2009 @ 11:23 pm
[...] checking if my freshly installed Twit-update plugin works. If all is well it should have added a new tweet to my [...]
5 October 2009 @ 11:23 pm
[...] Twit-update [...]
6 October 2009 @ 12:26 am
[...] Twit-update [...]
6 October 2009 @ 11:22 am
[...] Twit-update [...]
6 October 2009 @ 5:00 pm
If I use ‘Quickpress’ in the wordpress dashboard, it doesn’t post to my twitter. Same thing if I post through the wordpress iPhone app.
Those two are where I post from the most, so would be very useful.
Thanks
[Reply]
Andrew Reply:
October 6th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Thanks for letting me know!
There are a number of issues I’ve found with the current code. I’ll write up a fix which I’m hoping will fix your problems as well, and include it in the next release within the next few days at most.
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JD Reply:
October 6th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Sounds good, I look forward to it.
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Andrew Reply:
October 7th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
I’ve tested quickpress with the new version of the plugin and it seems to work. I don’t have an iPhone so I can’t test the app unfortunately. Please let me know if it works.
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JD Reply:
October 7th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
That worked man, Thanks!
Great job!
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Andrew Reply:
October 7th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Awsome!
Let me know if anything else comes up.
6 October 2009 @ 8:34 pm
Hi, it would be nice if I could let it ignore adding new pages or doing page updates. Other than that, a fine plugin!
[Reply]
Andrew Reply:
October 6th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
I’m not sure what you mean. There are options for disabling both of those in the admin panel. Have you tried them and found that they don’t work?
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twit-update/screenshots/
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Htbaa Reply:
October 6th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
I think those work, what I meant is:
I want to use Twitter to update people of new blog-posts.
But not when I add a new static page.
[Reply]
Andrew Reply:
October 6th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
I wasn’t aware it did that actually. Thanks a lot for letting me know!
I’ll need to look into this a bit and do some old-fashioned detective work, but I think I can get it to run smoothly in no time.
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Htbaa Reply:
October 6th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
By the way, shouldn’t new posts be tweeted only when publishing it? A tweet gets posted even when saving it as a draft.
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Andrew Reply:
October 6th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Yup that’s right that’s what should happen. I’ve been looking for the cause of that extra notification. I’ve added this to the known issues. Thanks again.
7 October 2009 @ 2:25 am
Thank you for the plugin
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7 October 2009 @ 4:40 am
Can’t save my settings on Wordpress 2.8.4. I get an “error: option page not found” message.
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Andrew Reply:
October 7th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
That’s odd. Are you sure you uploaded the whole plugin folder to your wordpress? You only really need twit_main.php and twit_options.php so make sure they are both uploaded.
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Duane Poncy Reply:
October 7th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
I installed it automatically via the Wordpress interface. My site is on a WPMU installation, could that be the problem?
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Andrew Reply:
October 7th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
I’ll have to be honest and admit I haven’t worked with wordpress MU so I’m not sure.
I suspect I know what the problem is though. I’ll try to write up a fix for it today or tomorrow at the latest. Since I’m working blind without access to a wordpress MU instalation it either might or might not work.
Fingers crossed
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Andrew Reply:
October 10th, 2009 at 1:46 am
Think v004 will do the trick. Let me know how it works.
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11 October 2009 @ 4:03 pm
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_OBJECT_OPERATOR in ‘\wordpress\wp-content\plugins\twit-update\twit_main.php on line 32 ‘
latest version of your plugin w/latest version of wp 2.8
sorry, I wanted to use
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Andrew Reply:
October 11th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
That’s an error on my side, comes with working on several machines. It seems I’ve uploaded the incorrect file. It should refresh on the wordpress.org site in 15 minutes at most. If you redownload it it should work.
I’m terribly sorry for this.
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14 October 2009 @ 12:35 am
works great for me!
thanks a lot!
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14 October 2009 @ 1:54 am
great plug-in.
i’m not using widgets, what do I add manually to the sidebar to get the plug-in on the page? any inf would be great.
thanks
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Andrew Reply:
October 14th, 2009 at 9:36 am
You can get one of twitter’s widgets and paste the html code in your sidebar.
http://twitter.com/goodies/widgets
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16 October 2009 @ 3:25 pm
Hello from Russia!
Can I quote a post in your blog with the link to you?
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Andrew Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Hello!
As long as you quote some of it, link back and give credit It isn’t really a problem.
What did you have in mind?
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18 October 2009 @ 5:15 am
I made post today and I am just wondering. I haven’t see my post in twitter. The other day it was working fine.
Please let know why happened this on my twit update.
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Andrew Reply:
October 18th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
That’s odd. Have you checked that the new post message isn’t too large? If you add too many tags and text it may exceed twitter’s limits.
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21 October 2009 @ 8:38 pm
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for the previous help. I had one more question. I schedule posts on my site a night in advance. I noticed that when I do that the message is not sent to twitter. Is it supposed to work for scheduled posts?
Thanks
[Reply]
Andrew Reply:
October 21st, 2009 at 8:45 pm
That’s actually a very good question.
Since it doesn’t work for you I’ll assume it isn’t supposed to happen. However that’s functionality I will most definitely try to add in the next version. I’m unsure when I’ll have time to tinker with it, if not by the weekend then prolly sometime next week.
Thanks a lot for bringing this to my attention
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21 October 2009 @ 11:33 pm
So, your plug-in works fantastically if I’m just posting a regular blog. However, I use ComicPress to manage my webcomic, and while it doesn’t post when I save the draft to be published at 00:00 Wednesdays, it never updated my Twitter feed. Is this a conflict with ComicPress? with publishing later? or…?
[Reply]
Andrew Reply:
October 21st, 2009 at 11:44 pm
Hello Emma
It’s not a comicpress conflict that I know of. The plugin doesn’t post to twitter when scheduled posts post themselves.
So yes, unfortunately the issue is with publishing later.
However I hope to have this taken care of as soon as possible. Thanks for letting me know.
[Reply]
27 October 2009 @ 3:36 am
Does it work with URL shorteners such as bit.ly or does it just put the regular blog URL?
Because my URLs tend to be long, and so are my post titles, so probably there’ll be no space for everything in the post.
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Andrew Reply:
October 27th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Hello
It uses this format for the URLs: http://software.o-o.ro/?p=177 this one is the url for this post. Unless your blog default URL is really long it shouldn’t be a problem.
Twitter might shorten them by default if it all gets too long but I’m not sure.
I’ll look into integrating url shorteners when I have some free time.
Thanks
[Reply]
30 October 2009 @ 9:05 pm
If I schedule a post, the tweet won’t update…is there a work around or will a new version include this…or am I doing something wrong (which could be the case!)
Thanks!
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Andrew Reply:
October 30th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
I’m aware of the issue. The new version will include it:D (hopefully this weekend)
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Htbaa Reply:
July 8th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Hi Andrew,
I just encountered the same “issue”. Did you ever get to it or is it a scraped feature?
[Reply]
6 November 2009 @ 9:08 pm
Hi,
I have installed the plugin but I can’t find where you fill in the personal info as you have spoken about in the readme file. Was it supposed to popup? I do have the twit-widget on the site but nothing is happening with it. Can you assist?
[Reply]
Andrew Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Heya
In the admin menu under settings you should have a button “twit update”. If you click it it should take you to the options page (first image from here http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twit-update/screenshots/)
You then fill out your info and click save.
Once you do that the widget should start working too.
Let me know if you have any more trouble.
[Reply]
19 December 2009 @ 2:19 pm
[...] - Twit-update [...]
3 July 2010 @ 4:13 pm
Hi, this is my fist wordpress blog and my first plugin. I’ve just installed twit-update but I receive an error when I publish a new post on worpress:
PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined function curl_init() in E:\inetpub\wwwroot\riflessioniaruotalibera.it\wp-content\plugins\twit-update\twit_main.php on line 54
What can I do? Thanks a lot!
chiara
[Reply]
Andrew Reply:
July 5th, 2010 at 1:27 am
Is curl installed on your server? It needs to be in order for the plugin to function.
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15 July 2010 @ 4:39 pm
Why I am having this error?
Fatal error: Call to undefined function curl_init() in /home/xtremebu/public_html/wp-content/plugins/twit-update/twit_main.php on line 54
[Reply]
15 July 2010 @ 4:39 pm
I tried to update my post but I got that error
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Andrew Reply:
July 15th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
It’s because curl isn’t installed (or enabled) on your server. You should ask your host to install/ enable it.
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