Parakeet Twitter Client for Emacs

Parakeet is a simple Twitter client for Emacs. There are other Twitter clients for Emacs out there and they are pretty nice, but none of them worked with the SOCKS proxy that I have to deal with at work. I wrote this client both as an excerise in learning Elisp and to get something together that I could use from the office.

Requirements

You'll need to have the json.el library available for Parakeet to work. You'll also need to have curl in your path. If you are on a UNIX-like system, you probably already do.

Installation

Installation isn't too bad. Check this project out, preferably into your Emacs configuration folder. Mine is called ".emacs.d" and keep all of my Lisp files in "site-lisp".

cd ~/.emacs.d/site-lisp
git clone git://github.com/cmiles74/Parakeet.git parakeet

You can then add the following to your main Emacs configuration file:

(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/site-lisp/parakeet")
(load "~/.emacs.d/site-lisp/parakeet/autoload.el")

The autoload.el file will load in Parakeet and set up the default key bindings.

Lastly, you'll want to tell parakeet your username and password. Add the following (substituting in your own information) to the bottom of your Emacs configuration file.

(custom-set-variables '(parakeet-twitter-user "your user name"))
(custom-set-variables '(parakeet-twitter-password "your
    password"))

That's all there is to it.

Usage

Using Parakeet is easy! To post to your Twitter feed...

C-c ' p u

That's press the "control" key and "c" together, then type apostrophe, "p" and "u". A new window will appear and you can type your status in. While you are crafting that perfect tweet, you can check and see how long it is by typing...

C-c l

The length of your tweet will appear in the minibuffer. If your tweet is too long, Parakeet will let you know.

Once you are happy with your status, type...

C-c C-c

That's the "control" key and "c", then the "control" key and "c" again. Parakeet will post your status and then close the window.

If you want to post a region of text, Parakeet can do that, too:

C-c ' p U

You can also view your friend's tweets and the public feed.

C-c ' p p   View the public Twitter feed
C-c ' p f   View your friend Twitter feed

When you are viewing the feeds, you can press "C-n" and "C-p" to move up and down a tweet at a time. If you want to view more tweets, move to a line and press the return key to view more tweets from that person.

C-n   Move to the next tweet
C-p   Move to the previous tweet
RET   View recent tweets from the user at point

If you want to see the time line of a specific user, you can do that as well.

C-c 'p n    View a specific person's Twitter feed

You will be prompted for a screen name (i.e. "cmiles74", not "Christopher Miles").

Advanced Usage

Whenever Parakeet opens a new window for you to type your status into, it switches to Parakeet mode, activates auto-fill mode and flyspell mode. You can customize this behavior if you wish. Customize the variable...

parakeet-mode-edit-initialize-fns

This variable should contain a list of functions to invoke (without any arguments) every time Parakeet readies a new user-input window.

Future Plans

Well, I have some plans and this is really the barest bones of what a Twitter client should be. I'd like to add some functions for viewing just one account's feed as well as functions for re-tweeting, replying and direct messaging. Functions to automatically shorten URL's (using a service like Bit.ly) are also high on my to-do list.

If you use Parakeet and have a feature you'd like, drop me an e-mail. ;)

Feedback Appreciated

If you notice any problems or have any recommendations, please let me know!