Adium 1.4 (Beta) now with Twitter support.

Adium 1.4 Beta 1 has been released, and in addition to the tons of networks that Adium currently supports, it now supports Twitter. While this can be useful, as I’ll explain, there are a few drawbacks. But before we delve into that topic, let’s look at what it takes to hook up your Adium beta to Twitter.

You will need the following things:

  • Adium 1.4 B1 or higher. Obtained from beta.adium.im or via the Adium Menu -> Check for Updates (as long as you have betas selected).
  • A Twitter account. Obtainable from Twitter.com

That’s all you’ll need. Now for the steps.

  1. Install or Update to Adium 1.4 Beta 1 (or higher).
  2. Click on Adium (Menu) -> Preferences
  3. Click on ‘Accounts’
  4. Click on the ‘+’ Drop-down.
  5. Select Twitter. A Dialog similar to the one below will appear.
  6. Adium1.4B1-Twitter

  7. Click on ‘Allow Adium Access’. This will bring up a browser to have you login and authorize Adium to access your Twitter account.
  8. Once logged into to Twitter, click on ‘Authorize’.
  9. Close the ‘Browser’ window. And return to Adium.
  10. A Screen like the one below should now be shown. Click on “I’ve allowed Adium Access’.
  11. Click on ‘OK’, and you should be good to go.

It’s a quick few seconds to actually allow Adium access to Twitter.

At first I had some issues with finding where to actually see my timeline, but I was able to find it by doing the following:

  1. Click on one of those your following.
  2. Hit command-I to pull up their information.
  3. Once the information page loads, which stopped working for me after a while, click on the “@” symbol to send a reply to that person.
  4. The timeline should appear, it might be a bit slow to load.

I know there is an easier way, but this is one of the ways that I found to actually pull up the Timeline, which is actually a group chat.

There is one thing to note, as soon as you authorize your Adium installation with Twitter, you might want to change the frequency at which Adium updates your timeline. The default is 10 minutes, while the lowest you can go is 2 minutes. The setting of two minutes is well beneath the Twitter API limit of 80 requests per hour. I wonder if due to signing on, how many requests that takes up. I’d be curious to see.

Now for the drawbacks. There is no semblance of order for your followers. It seems to be haphazard. It’s not in order via signup date, . Secondly, When you connect to Twitter, a new group is created, which includes ALL of those you’re following. So in my case that’s around 500 people. So if you’re following 20,000 this can be rather daunting. Third item that adds to the potential need to wait, is that the Twitter updates do not always update without disconnecting and reconnecting.

There is one feature I would like to see. I’d like to have the ability to have my iTunes song status update Twitter. It could even be an option (ie button) that you have to hit to post your iTunes song to Twitter. The second thing I’d like to see is highlighting of replies, even those that begin with @username.

Now, I’m not saying don’t download the beta, but it might be prudent to wait until beta 2, if not beta 3 before giving the Twitter options a trial. Not that it doesn’t work with everything else besides Twitter, because it does work beautifully. But if you’re wanting to use With Adium now supporting Twitter this makes Adium even more useful. Too bad they don’t have an iPhone OS Application, then this would instantly become the ultimate chat client.

I'm into everything technology related, particularly anything Apple related. I enjoy programming and tend to lean towards server-based technologies over client-based. You can contact me on twitter, via e-mail, or follow me on friendfeed.