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Show HN: I built a minimal Twitter web app with few rules

86 points by ramkarthikk 6y ago

sidshere 6y ago
Love it.
playpause 6y ago
Great work! FYI there’s a layout bug: if the timeline contains a very long unbreakable string such as a long URL, it busts out of the container and causes the page to extend horizontally well beyond the viewport.
- ramkarthikk 6y ago
  Thank you. Not sure how I didn't hit that scenario the last two days when I built it (maybe long weekend and not many people tweeting?). That can be really annoying, especially in mobile. I will fix it soon.
caseyw 6y ago
Too bad this isn’t the default setup for Twitter! I’d actually use the silly thing in that case
- ramkarthikk 6y ago
  The frustrating part is that even when you change your settings in Twitter to show most recent tweets, it goes back to top tweets in a day or two.
  - jasonv 6y ago
    Is there a TweetDelete like service that resets this setting regularly? I realize it shouldn’t be necessary. I’ve mostly stopped using Twitter, but I ask out of curiosity.
    - ramkarthikk 6y ago
      I'm not aware of one. As @eyelidlessness pointed out in the comment above, it seems to change back randomly, so I think it would be hard to detect when it changes.
  - eyelidlessness 6y ago
    Mine will stick sometimes for weeks or maybe even months. I think it switches when they push out an update, it's totally unpredictable when it will happen. At least on iOS, it usually notifies me that it's switched so I know I need to switch it back.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  It looks pretty much the same as twittering.el - the Emacs package that lets you tweet from your editor. So if you enjoy that kind of aesthetics, the Church of Emacs extends its invitation ;).
- bebna 6y ago
  Perhaps try https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/ https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/ ?
keeptrying 6y ago
I do see retweets. Anyway if getting rid of them? Don’t see anything in settings.
- ramkarthikk 6y ago
  Retweets are always off and cannot be changed, so it should not show retweets in home timeline. It could be a bug I missed. I will take a look. Thank you for the heads up.
  - keeptrying 6y ago
    Example: David Chapman (@Meaningness): RT @michael_nielsen: I mention all this mostly because of the relative lack of attention the media in many countries have paid to successes… reply | retweet | favorite | original
    - bebna 6y ago
      That is the old style Retweet before twitter integrated it, those are regular tweets.
    - ramkarthikk 6y ago
      Ah, thanks. That helps. Checking David's profile, it is the newer style retweet, which shouldn't have showed up.
mraza007 6y ago
Does it support markdown when tweeting
- ramkarthikk 6y ago
  I did not want to request permission to post on behalf of users. With that out of the way, the most minimal way to reply and create new tweets (and even like/retweet) without write permissions is using Twitter's intent feature which opens a (surprisingly) minimal UI for those actions.
jlelse 6y ago
There's also Nitter, which doesn't require sign-in: https://github.com/zedeus/nitter https://github.com/zedeus/nitter
- app4soft 6y ago
  > doesn't require sign-in This is a key why I would prefer to use Nitter.
- elorm 6y ago
  This is pretty sweet. Only fault is I can’t seem to find lists.
  - zedeus 6y ago
    Nitter supports lists the same way Twitter does. Example: https://nitter.net/NASA/lists/Astronauts https://nitter.net/NASA/lists/Astronauts You can sort of create your own too (currently limited to ~25 profiles due to Twitter limitations), like this: https://nitter.net/SpaceX,elonmusk,ID_AA_Carmack https://nitter.net/SpaceX,elonmusk,ID_AA_Carmack
karolisram 6y ago
Nice job, thanks for bringing it to the world! Was looking for something exactly like that a few weeks back.
WillYouFinish 6y ago
Pretty neat! I switch between light and dark mode on all of my devices through the day depending on the lightning situation. I'd love to see the web app to switch automatically, too.
- ramkarthikk 6y ago
  This would be interesting to add. I don't use any JavaScript, so I would have to get the user to set their time zone and the time after which they want to switch.
  - xwx 6y ago
    The prefers-color-scheme CSS media feature could be a way of doing this without requiring any additional action from the user. The spec is still a draft but it has decent browser support. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-color-scheme https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref...
mrzool 6y ago
Just FYI, I would pay for a native iOS app that is polished enough and looks exactly like this.
- g_p 6y ago
  I'd second this. Although from memory (and I didn't re-check this so I might be wrong) Twitter's API has quite strict user limits, in order to prevent third party clients from gaining significant marketshare (and thus spoiling their carefully planned curated feed to raise user engagement, with ads injected throughout). I think that has proved an issue for "alternative" Twitter apps in the past, or at least did for quite a long time.
  - ramkarthikk 6y ago
    Yes, this is a problem, especially if the app becomes huge. They also have some strict rate limits. For ex: The endpoint to get mentions is restricted to 100,000 requests per day, which is very less for a popular app. There are ways to get mentions using their search endpoint which has a more lenient rate limit but it is an inconvenience and a bit hacky.
- ramkarthikk 6y ago
  Thank you for the feedback. I wanted to test the waters with a quick web app before building a mobile app.
- throwaway9482 6y ago
  Check out Tweetlogix. I bought that app, been using it for months now, I like it
janwillemb 6y ago
Didn't Twitter shut down apps like this in the past? I wonder how long this will last.
bpodgursky 6y ago
The lack of replies seems like it would break tweet-threads entirely? Honestly I like reading normal-person replies, but at a bare minimum, I would think you need to include self-replies to get most meaningful content through (at least on clickthrough).
- ramkarthikk 6y ago
  I'm planning to add this as a setting in the next increment.
OctopusSandwich 6y ago
You can get similar results if you mute these words in your settings here: https://twitter.com/settings/muted_keywords https://twitter.com/settings/muted_keywords ActivityTweet , generic_activity_highlights , generic_activity_MomentsBreaking , RankedOrganicTweet , suggest_activity , suggest_activity_feed , suggest_activity_Highlights , suggest_activity_tweet , suggest_grouped_tweet_hashtag , suggest_pyle_tweet , suggest_ranked_organic_tweet , suggest_ranked_timeline_tweet , suggest_recap , suggest_recycled_tweet , suggest_recycled_tweet_inline , suggest_sc_tweet , suggest_timeline_tweet , suggest_who_to_follow , suggestactivitytweet , suggestpyletweet , suggestrecycledtweet_inline

86 points by ramkarthikk 6y ago

Love it.

Great work! FYI there’s a layout bug: if the timeline contains a very long unbreakable string such as a long URL, it busts out of the container and causes the page to extend horizontally well beyond the viewport.

ramkarthikk 6y ago
Thank you. Not sure how I didn't hit that scenario the last two days when I built it (maybe long weekend and not many people tweeting?). That can be really annoying, especially in mobile. I will fix it soon.

caseyw 6y ago

Too bad this isn’t the default setup for Twitter! I’d actually use the silly thing in that case

ramkarthikk 6y ago
The frustrating part is that even when you change your settings in Twitter to show most recent tweets, it goes back to top tweets in a day or two.
- jasonv 6y ago
  Is there a TweetDelete like service that resets this setting regularly? I realize it shouldn’t be necessary. I’ve mostly stopped using Twitter, but I ask out of curiosity.
  - ramkarthikk 6y ago
    I'm not aware of one. As @eyelidlessness pointed out in the comment above, it seems to change back randomly, so I think it would be hard to detect when it changes.
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
  Mine will stick sometimes for weeks or maybe even months. I think it switches when they push out an update, it's totally unpredictable when it will happen. At least on iOS, it usually notifies me that it's switched so I know I need to switch it back.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
It looks pretty much the same as twittering.el - the Emacs package that lets you tweet from your editor. So if you enjoy that kind of aesthetics, the Church of Emacs extends its invitation ;).
bebna 6y ago
Perhaps try https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/ https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/ ?

keeptrying 6y ago

I do see retweets. Anyway if getting rid of them? Don’t see anything in settings.

ramkarthikk 6y ago
Retweets are always off and cannot be changed, so it should not show retweets in home timeline. It could be a bug I missed. I will take a look. Thank you for the heads up.
- keeptrying 6y ago
  Example: David Chapman (@Meaningness): RT @michael_nielsen: I mention all this mostly because of the relative lack of attention the media in many countries have paid to successes… reply | retweet | favorite | original
  - bebna 6y ago
    That is the old style Retweet before twitter integrated it, those are regular tweets.
  - ramkarthikk 6y ago
    Ah, thanks. That helps. Checking David's profile, it is the newer style retweet, which shouldn't have showed up.

mraza007 6y ago

Does it support markdown when tweeting

ramkarthikk 6y ago
I did not want to request permission to post on behalf of users. With that out of the way, the most minimal way to reply and create new tweets (and even like/retweet) without write permissions is using Twitter's intent feature which opens a (surprisingly) minimal UI for those actions.

jlelse 6y ago

There's also Nitter, which doesn't require sign-in: https://github.com/zedeus/nitter https://github.com/zedeus/nitter

app4soft 6y ago
> doesn't require sign-in This is a key why I would prefer to use Nitter.
elorm 6y ago
This is pretty sweet. Only fault is I can’t seem to find lists.
- zedeus 6y ago
  Nitter supports lists the same way Twitter does. Example: https://nitter.net/NASA/lists/Astronauts https://nitter.net/NASA/lists/Astronauts You can sort of create your own too (currently limited to ~25 profiles due to Twitter limitations), like this: https://nitter.net/SpaceX,elonmusk,ID_AA_Carmack https://nitter.net/SpaceX,elonmusk,ID_AA_Carmack

karolisram 6y ago

Nice job, thanks for bringing it to the world! Was looking for something exactly like that a few weeks back.

WillYouFinish 6y ago

Pretty neat! I switch between light and dark mode on all of my devices through the day depending on the lightning situation. I'd love to see the web app to switch automatically, too.

ramkarthikk 6y ago
This would be interesting to add. I don't use any JavaScript, so I would have to get the user to set their time zone and the time after which they want to switch.
- xwx 6y ago
  The prefers-color-scheme CSS media feature could be a way of doing this without requiring any additional action from the user. The spec is still a draft but it has decent browser support. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-color-scheme https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref...

mrzool 6y ago

Just FYI, I would pay for a native iOS app that is polished enough and looks exactly like this.

g_p 6y ago
I'd second this. Although from memory (and I didn't re-check this so I might be wrong) Twitter's API has quite strict user limits, in order to prevent third party clients from gaining significant marketshare (and thus spoiling their carefully planned curated feed to raise user engagement, with ads injected throughout). I think that has proved an issue for "alternative" Twitter apps in the past, or at least did for quite a long time.
- ramkarthikk 6y ago
  Yes, this is a problem, especially if the app becomes huge. They also have some strict rate limits. For ex: The endpoint to get mentions is restricted to 100,000 requests per day, which is very less for a popular app. There are ways to get mentions using their search endpoint which has a more lenient rate limit but it is an inconvenience and a bit hacky.
ramkarthikk 6y ago
Thank you for the feedback. I wanted to test the waters with a quick web app before building a mobile app.
throwaway9482 6y ago
Check out Tweetlogix. I bought that app, been using it for months now, I like it

janwillemb 6y ago

Didn't Twitter shut down apps like this in the past? I wonder how long this will last.

bpodgursky 6y ago

The lack of replies seems like it would break tweet-threads entirely? Honestly I like reading normal-person replies, but at a bare minimum, I would think you need to include self-replies to get most meaningful content through (at least on clickthrough).

ramkarthikk 6y ago
I'm planning to add this as a setting in the next increment.

OctopusSandwich 6y ago

You can get similar results if you mute these words in your settings here: https://twitter.com/settings/muted_keywords https://twitter.com/settings/muted_keywords ActivityTweet , generic_activity_highlights , generic_activity_MomentsBreaking , RankedOrganicTweet , suggest_activity , suggest_activity_feed , suggest_activity_Highlights , suggest_activity_tweet , suggest_grouped_tweet_hashtag , suggest_pyle_tweet , suggest_ranked_organic_tweet , suggest_ranked_timeline_tweet , suggest_recap , suggest_recycled_tweet , suggest_recycled_tweet_inline , suggest_sc_tweet , suggest_timeline_tweet , suggest_who_to_follow , suggestactivitytweet , suggestpyletweet , suggestrecycledtweet_inline