KinkyTwits - My ColdFusion And jQuery Powered Twitter Client
Posted October 6, 2008 at 9:10 AM
Last week, I had mentioned on Twitter that I was gonna try to build my own Twitter Client for yucks (trying to attain true Geek status). I came up with "KinkyTwits". I put a good 12 or 13 hours into this over the weekend and I think I came up with some cool stuff. It's definitely rough and the code really needs to be organized much better, but it's working as a really basic Twitter client.
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The backend is powered by ColdFusion, naturally, and MySQL. The front end is powered by jQuery. The whole thing is basically a single page application (what you see above). I tried to build this using a lot of Twitter feedback that I saw over the last few weeks. In particular, I got the feeling that people wanted:
- Filtering based on patterns
- Smart Groups
- Snoozing
I tried to include all of that in this initial beta.
There's a lot of things that it doesn't have yet like TweetPics and URL shortening. But, I don't think those things would be too complicated to add. I am gonna continue working on this, see how it performs. If anyone wants the code, let me know.
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Reader Comments
Looks cool, Ben. I'm curious, are you running the back-end on a web server? I'm guessing so, because you say it's ColdFusion powered.
I've thought of doing something similar, but always come back to the idea that this approach could be a potential scaling issue if the app were to get popular.
Do you know if other AIR clients like TweetDeck and Twhirl use a back-end server, or if they interface directly with the Twitter API?
Posted by Adam Tuttle on Oct 6, 2008 at 9:42 AM
I meant to include this in my previous comment: I've liked the grouping of TweetDeck, but it's always felt a little clunky to me. I'd love to try yours out for a while. Can you send me a copy?
Posted by Adam Tuttle on Oct 6, 2008 at 9:45 AM
@Adam,
Yeah, it is running off a server. I thought about this for a while and I came to the conclusion that that was the way to go. For starters, its just a personal client, so I wouldn't except this to be run as a service for a large group of people (but I guess that could change).
But, mostly, what I like is that CF and MySQL act as the go-between. Meaning, the HTML/jQuery interface only feeds from the MySQL database. It *never* touches Twitter directly (except to post a status). The action of pulling Status feeds from Twitter and caching them locally is totally asynchronous to the main application. This allows me to apply all the filtering and grouping and organization. Sure, I suppose I could do that on the fly in there interface or during the call, but I would rather not.
Posted by Ben Nadel on Oct 6, 2008 at 9:52 AM
@Adam,
Sure, I'lll send you a copy.
Posted by Ben Nadel on Oct 6, 2008 at 9:52 AM
Hey! Nice work so far! Meets my needs directly.
Was wondering if I could take you up on your offer and get the code?
I'm trying to get my Wife's "Moms Club" up on twitter, and the real issue they have is they want the ability to have sub-groups (so they can include/not include certain other moms from certain tweets -- go figure). Your "groups" functionality looks to cover this issue nicely!
Thought I might take what you've done so far, and run with it!
Perhaps you could zip up the code and send it to the listed email address (or maybe you have a "package" link you could point me to or SVN repository?)
I could pay you if need be! Do you have an Amazon wish list?
BTW - have you noticed lately how all the online "social" issues resolve around they ability to _filter_ your relationships? I guess Clay Shirky nail it.
Posted by Robert Myers on Oct 6, 2008 at 10:02 AM
@Robert,
I'll shoot you a copy. It's really rough right now. There is no session management or anything. It's really just a proof of concept right now. My Twitter login is actually hard-coded right in my Application.cfc file. I really wanted to see if this concept was even worth pursing. Now that I think it is, I will go back and refactor, make session management, etc.
That's said, I'll send a copy :)
Posted by Ben Nadel on Oct 6, 2008 at 10:05 AM
You wrote:
"But, mostly, what I like is that CF and MySQL act as the go-between. Meaning, the HTML/jQuery interface only feeds from the MySQL database."
If I understand you correctly, indirectly you cover the issue of Twitter taking back the "trac" abilities. Recording the stream (in your mySql) allows to gain back some of that capturing of the "firehose" stream for searching and aggregation.
That's a benefit!
Posted by Robert Myers on Oct 6, 2008 at 10:09 AM
Hi Ben
This is fantastic, and as usual it holds your distinctive style on the page.
Please could I have a look at the source code?
Many thanks,
Matt
Posted by Matt Gifford on Oct 6, 2008 at 10:16 AM
@Matt,
Thanks man. I'll send it along.
Posted by Ben Nadel on Oct 6, 2008 at 10:32 AM
@Robert,
I'm not exactly sure what you;re saying, but yes, the firehose of Twitter statuses is copied to my local MySQL server, which is what feeds the interface. This actually helps me to simplify the filtering process greatly as I am really, behind the scenes, duplicating the Tweets for each group.
Posted by Ben Nadel on Oct 6, 2008 at 10:43 AM
Heck, if you are giving out the code I would love to take a look :-) I have been meaning to sign up for twitter so I cnow have a good excuse!
Posted by Simon Free on Oct 6, 2008 at 11:33 AM
Nice Ben!
Ive been working on a Twitter CF app for a few months now: TweepleTwak.com
Posted by JOSH CARRICO on Oct 6, 2008 at 11:34 AM
Some people have asked about the "multiple query" setting for this app. I am a huge fan of inserting and selecting in the same CFQuery tag. This needs to be set up in the MySQL data source in the ColdFusion administrator. See this post for more details:
http://www.bennadel.com/index.cfm?dax=blog:1209.view
Posted by Ben Nadel on Oct 6, 2008 at 11:39 AM
Fantastic !!!
Please could I have a look at the source code?
Many thanks,
Abul
Posted by Abul on Oct 6, 2008 at 1:50 PM
@Abul,
Thanks man. I'm gonna make some updates at lunch (add some debugging). I'll send you an update later today.
Posted by Ben Nadel on Oct 6, 2008 at 1:51 PM
Just realized that General and Direct messages are handled in COMPLETELY different ways, including totally different response format. It's lunch time, gonna see if I can karate shop these updates!
Posted by Ben Nadel on Oct 6, 2008 at 2:53 PM
@Abul et al,
I was able to update the app on my lunch break (and re-emailed to you). I fixed the Direct messages and added local logging for errors.
Posted by Ben Nadel on Oct 6, 2008 at 3:22 PM
Just a general note of caution:
Do not run my Twitter client along side your old one. This will eat up your API allowance very quickly! Regardless of mine, you should only ever use one Twitter client.
I learned that the hardway when I was developing and I exceeded my limit in about half an hour (rather than an hour). I was burning the candle at both ends.
Posted by Ben Nadel on Oct 6, 2008 at 4:04 PM
I saw your Tweets over the weekend and wondered if you would be sharing the code. Nice job Ben. Pretty cool! Gotta love jQuery + ColdFusion.
Posted by Steve Withington on Oct 6, 2008 at 4:24 PM
@Steve,
I make no claims on the code, but if you want to see it, just let me know. It's been a lot of fun, thanks.
Posted by Ben Nadel on Oct 6, 2008 at 4:30 PM
Interesting! Now, if only there was a way to "mute" certain twitters, at least until after a certain event . . .
Posted by Lola LB on Oct 7, 2008 at 9:13 AM
@Lola,
You can "snooze" a user. Every time you click their "snooze" link, it increases their snooze length by another hour (with no limit to how many times it can be clicked). When a user is snoozed, their tweets get auto-filtered into the Snoozed group and do not show in the General Tweets.
I am working on updating my Groups to allow you to add Users to them, rather than just regex filters.
Posted by Ben Nadel on Oct 7, 2008 at 9:46 AM
@Ben,
Well if your in the sharing mood, sure! I'd love to see what you cooked up. Thanks!
Posted by Steve Withington on Oct 7, 2008 at 11:15 AM
@Steve,
I'll send it over.
Posted by Ben Nadel on Oct 7, 2008 at 11:17 AM
Nice work! Now, if I could just get something that slick on my Windows Mobile....
Oh and love the app name. :)
Posted by MCG on Oct 7, 2008 at 9:16 PM
Hello,
Looks very nice, could I get a copy of the code source please...
Thanks
Posted by Chad Moreno on Oct 18, 2008 at 3:21 PM
