Sleeping Monkey Speaks

A search for twitter and growl integration

I’ve been looking recently for a decent app that I can use in Mac OS X Leopard to keep me up to date with the Twitter notifications of my friends, but I’m quite picky when it comes to apps that I have running on my desktop constantly.

For one thing, it has to be completely unobtrusive, I don’t want to have to have a window open constantly, or an IM client type message window open constantly just so I can see if I have updates. I also don’t want to have to check my dashboard every now and then just to see if someone has updated. I did originally look at a few dashboard Twitter widgets, but having to press F4 and then wait for the widget to update isn’t my idea of smooth.

I like my desktop to be as minimal and clean as possible. If it wasn’t for the fact that I like to see what contacts I have online, I’d even keep Adium’s contact list closed, but as it is, it feels like part of the desktop as it’s not a proper windowed application. But for Twitter, there was nothing there I could see that worked in that way.

Then I got thinking - I use Growl notifications for my Adium conversations, iChat (when I used to use it for Google Talk), FTP connections and transfers, SSH connections and transfers… so wouldn’t it be great if I could also use it for Twitter updates? A bit of Googling found some Ruby scripts, but they required some certain gems I couldn’t find, and besides, I don’t know how to run a Ruby script like that! But a bit more Googling came up with TwitterPost, which works almost exactly as I wanted. It’s an application that has a window, but you don’t have to keep the window open, so it merely sits in the dock as an extra icon. I have two gripes about it though - the dock icon is horrible, and it just seems to stick out like a sore thumb on an otherwise good-looking dock! Plus, the growl notifications may appear, but they don’t disappear unless I click the X, which is just a little irritating.

So, still looking for the perfect one, but for now, TwitterPost will have to do.

*Edit* I’ve redesigned the icon now, so slightly happier! See below!

*Edit again* I’ve now discovered a combo-box in the Growl preference pane that enables me to set whether the notification stays on screen or not. It was set to “Application decides” for TwitterPost - quick change of that to “No” and the only other gripe I had with the software is now solved. Excellent :)

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