#ifixedrepliesmyselfthanks
Posted on May 13th, 2009 in braindump
Okay. Couple people have asked about tweaking Twhirl to display the timeline with @replies as it did a couple of days ago, and it’s a little too fiddly to walk through in 140 characters. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, this post isn’t for you, have a nice day, thanks for stopping by.)
You’re going to need: a desktop Twitter app that can filter twitter results into your timeline, a plaintext list of the usernames of the people you’re following, and the ability to cut and paste. For the app, I’m using Twirl. I haven’t really looked at any others, but I assume the functionality isn’t Twirl exclusive.
All right. Look at the bottom of your Twirl client. See that little magnifying glass icon on the right? That’s the search function. Click that, and you should get the option to use one of two searches — TweetScan and Twitter Search. I have no idea if TweetScan uses the same syntax, so I went with Twitter Search.
Here’s where the copy/paste comes in. You’re going to need to plug all of your twitter contacts onto the search function using this syntax:
from:username
That’s why I recommended a plaintext file — I just ran a simple replace on my list to go ahead and plug in the "OR from:" syntax in so I could c/p/rinse/repeat. The "OR" part of that replace is because I know that’s a LOT of searches for many of you. Twhirl will let you plug in five at a time using the OR syntax like so:
from:jill OR from:userbob OR from:jiiminycricket OR from:chattybitch OR from:tada
You want to use the OR syntax here because AND will try to match a post made by multiple people, and those don’t exist. Basically, what you’re doing here is bypassing Twitter’s new filtering. Although the Twitter client will look at your contacts @replies and filter out the ones to people you’re not following, those @replies will still show up in the public timeline. so when you search for EVERY Twitter send from:userbob, you’re going to get EVERY twittersend — even the @replies.
For each set of five usernames you plug into the search fucntion, hit the magnifying glass icon to perform the search, and then a little "activate" button will appear at the top of the screen. Go ahead and hit that button, and you’ll get two tick boxes back at the bottom of the screen. "add to home" and "notify." These are the magic tick boxes that will make sure these new searches get folded right into your frontpage timeline.
Don’t worry, Twhirl is smart enough to filter duplicates, so you’re not going to get @replies and TWO versions of normal comments on the main timeline.
So go ahead and hit the "New Search" button at the top of the search screen and repeat that process, five usernames at a time, for the rest of your list. Then, if you want instant gratification, restart your Twhirl client and watch the @replies magically filter into your timeline.
(Note: on startup, Twirl loads searches, then @replies to YOU, then everything else. It’s going to take just a little bit longer to load than usual from now on, but that delay should JUST happen at startup. As @replies filter in, your client should operate as usual.)
"But Ariana," you may be saying, "I’m following 3000 people! Do I really have to copypaste 600 times?"
Well, no, you really don’t. In fact, I don’t actually know if Twhirl will handle that many searches. But now may very well be the time to ask yourself if you REALLY follow 3000 people. Do you REALLY need to see @replies from all of them? It may be time for you to apply your own mental filter to your list: are there people you really want to read EVERYTHING they say, and some you really kinda just scan? It’s your call. Like I said, I don’t know where Twirl maxes out, so you’re welcome to try adding them all. Me, I follow 37 people, and I’m genuinely interested in and speak to all of them on a regular basis, so It was ridiculously simple for me. Your mileage may, as they say, vary.
"Hey Ariana," you may also be asking, "this looks really fucking easy. Do you think Twhirl may plug this functionality into a future release?"
I dunno! I don’t even know, at this point, if it’s going to be an issue past the weekend. Twitter may roll back to the previous functionality and this may all be moot by Monday. But it’s certainly a really simple fix from the user end, so yeah, I’d expect we’ll see the functionality rolled into a simpler tickbox in future desktop client releases. Not rocket science, is what I’m saying. But in the meantime, here’s your workaround.
Tada.



