ThinkTwit

Obtaining a Twitter authentication key

1. 01Go to https://dev.twitter.com/apps/new
2. 02Login using your standard Twitter credentials
3. 03Complete the form:

1. 04Name: ThinkTwit – [site name]
2. 05Description: ThinkTwit plugin
3. 06Website: [url of your website]
4. 07Callback URL: [url of your website]

1. 08Make a note of your “Consumer key” and “Consumer secret”

Installing plugin

1. 09Unpack the zip file and upload the thinktwit folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory, or download through the Plugins menu in WordPress
2. 10Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress
3. 11Navigate to Settings->ThinkTwit from the WordPress Dashboard
4. 12Enter the “Consumer key” and “Consumer secret” obtained earlier and save your settings

Updates are automatic. Click on Upgrade Automatically if prompted from the admin menu. If you ever have to manually upgrade, simply replace the files with those from the new version.

Configuring widget

1. 13Go to Appearance and then Widgets and drag ThinkTwit to your sidebar
2. 14Fill in the options as required and then save

Configuring shortcode

ThinkTwit can be used in any page or post, or anywhere else configured to use shortcodes, using the following syntax:

[thinktwit widget_id=0 usernames="stephenpickett" hashtags="thinktwit" hashtag_filter=0 username_suffix=" said: " limit=5 max_days=7 update_frequency=-1 show_username="username" show_avatar=1 show_published=1 show_follow=1 links_new_window=1 no_cache=0 live_update_freq=0 debug=0 time_this_happened="This happened " time_less_min="less than a minute ago" time_min="about a minute ago" time_more_mins=" minutes ago" time_1_hour="about an hour ago" time_2_hours="a couple of hours ago" time_precise_hours="about =x= hours ago" time_1_day="a day ago" time_2_days="almost 2 days ago" time_many_days=" days ago" time_no_recent="There have been no recent tweets" ]

Configuring Output Anywhere

ThinkTwit can be called within templates and other areas where you can use PHP using the following syntax:

<?php $args = array( 'widget_id' => 0, 'usernames' => "stephenpickett", 'hashtags' => "thinktwit", 'hashtag_filter' => 0, 'username_suffix' => " said: ", 'limit' => 5, 'max_days' => 7, 'update_frequency' => 0, 'show_username' => "name", 'show_avatar' => 1, 'show_published' => 1, 'show_follow' => 1, 'links_new_window' => 1, 'no_cache' => 0, 'live_update_freq' => 0, 'debug' => 0, 'time_this_happened' => "This happened ", 'time_less_min' => "less than a minute ago", 'time_min' => "about a minute ago", 'time_more_mins' => " minutes ago", 'time_1_hour' => "about an hour ago", 'time_2_hours' => "a couple of hours ago", 'time_precise_hours' => "about =x= hours ago", 'time_1_day' => "a day ago", 'time_2_days' => "almost 2 days ago", 'time_many_days' => " days ago", 'time_no_recent' => "There have been no recent tweets"); echo ThinkTwit::output_anywhere($args); ?>

Shortcode/Output Anywhere Parameters

widget_id : integer – You should give this a unique id for caching or styling.

usernames : string – The list of Twitter usernames to output tweets for.

hashtags : string – The list of hashtags to output tweets for.

hashtag_filter : string – 1 indicates that usernames AND hashtags must both exist in a tweet, 0 indicates that either can exist.

username_suffix : string – The text that should appear after a username e.g. ” said: “.

limit : int – The maximum number of tweets to display.

max_days : int – The maximum age in days of the tweets to be displayed.

update_frequency : int – Minus 1 indicates live (uncached), minus 2 indicates paused, 0 indicates live (cached), and anything else indicates the number of hours between getting updates from Twitter.

show_username : string – None indicates no username should be shown, name indicates the user’s full name should be shown and username indicates the user’s username should be shown.

show_avatar : boolean – Indicates whether the Twitter user’s avatar should be displayed – 1 for true and 0 for false.

show_published : boolean – Indicates whether the time the tweet was made should be displayed e.g. “This happened a day ago” – 1 for true and 0 for false.

show_follow : boolean – Indicates whether or not to show a “Follow @username” link for each username.

links_new_window : boolean – Indicates whether links should be opened in a new window – 1 for true and 0 for false.

no_cache : boolean – Indicates whether or not to use no-caching – 1 for true and 0 for false.

live_update_freq : int – The frequency of live updates (zero for off).

debug : boolean – Indicates whether to turn on debugging mode – 1 for true and 0 for false.

time_this_happened : string – Time prefix (default: “This happened”).

time_less_min : string – Time less than 1 minute (default: “less than a minute ago”).

time_min : string – Time approximately 1 minute ago (default: “about a minute ago”).

time_more_mins : string – Time more than 1 minute ago (default: ” minutes ago”).

time_1_hour : string – Time approximately 1 hour ago (default: “about an hour ago”).

time_2_hours : string – Time approximately 2 hours ago (default: “a couple of hours ago”).

time_precise_hours : string – Time more than 2 hours ago (default: “about =x= hours ago”). NOTE: =x= should be used to insert the number of hours.

time_1_day : string – Time approximately 1 day ago (default: “a day ago”).

time_2_days : string – Time approximately 2 days ago (default: “almost 2 days ago”).

time_many_days : string – Time more than 2 days ago (default: ” days ago”).

time_no_recent : string – Output when there are no tweets to display (default: “There have been no recent tweets”).

NOTE: You can leave out any parameter to use the default, but be aware to change the unique id if you are using Output Anywhere in more than one place.

When I add the widget I cannot expand the menus, what is wrong?

There is a known issue where the ThinkTwit sub menus will not expand after you add a widget for the first time. Please simply reload the widgets page and it will now work going forwards.

How many tweets will be shown?

This is determined by your settings within the widget or your custom call. The default is set to 5.

How long back will tweets be shown for?

If using the update frequency “Live (uncached)” ThinkTwit will show tweets that have occurred as far back as “max days” (up to the last 7 days, due to restrictions in the Twitter API). However, any other option will utilise ThinkTwit’s own cache and will therefore display anything within the cache (up to “max days”). The exception to this is when the “Paused” option is selected – this will retain tweets (and display those tweets) indefinitely (until the update frequency is changed from “Paused”).

What will happen if I haven’t tweeted in the last 7 days?

If you aren’t caching tweets then a message will be shown stating: “There have been no tweets for the past 7 days”, but if you are caching tweets then it will simply show the tweets stored in the cache, even if they are older than 7 days. This message can be customised within the settings.

How can I style ThinkTwit?

ThinkTwit uses the widget API so should be styled correctly by your theme. It has some default CSS but you may, however, wish to turn this off (in the ThinkTwit Settings) and add your own. If so you should find the following information handy:

• ThinkTwit essentially outputs tweets as a list
• The list container can be accessed using ol.thinkTwitTweets
• All tweets can be accessed using ol.thinkTwitTweets li.thinkTwitTweet
• Individual tweets can be accessed using ol.thinkTwitTweets #tweet-n where n is the number of the tweet
• Odd and even tweets can be accessed using ol.thinkTwitTweets li.thinkTwitOdd and ol.thinkTwitTweets li.thinkTwitEven accordingly
• The author within a tweet can be accessed using ol.thinkTwitTweets li.thinkTwitTweet a.thinkTwitAuthor
• The author suffix within a tweet can be accessed using ol.thinkTwitTweets li.thinkTwitTweet a.thinkTwitSuffix
• The content of a tweet can be accessed using ol.thinkTwitTweets li.thinkTwitTweet a.thinkTwitContent
• The published time within a tweet can be accessed using ol.thinkTwitTweets li.thinkTwitTweet span.thinkTwitPublished
• The “no tweets” message can be accessed using ol.thinkTwitTweets li.thinkTwitNoTweets
• The AJAX error message (“Error: Unable to display tweets”) can be accessed using `p.thinkTwitError’

NOTE: Be sure to use the id to access each style in order to over-write the default CSS.

How do I stop caching in caching engines such as WP Super Cache?

Turn on no-caching in the widget settings.

How does no-caching work?

Instead of outputting HTML it outputs Javascript. The Javascript uses AJAX (via jQuery) to make a call to a method that returns the HTML which is then inserted in to the correct location.

I’m using no-caching but nothing appears below the title

Your theme is probably not setup properly. AJAX requires a location to insert the returned data from the server-side call. ThinkTwit puts it in to the div that contains the widget. A WordPress theme written correctly should output a unique id for each widget that is output. Inform the developer of your theme to have the following (or something similar) in their register_sidebar function:

'before_widget' => '<div id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">' I’m getting strange errors or no output

You may need to clear and rebuild your cache – please use the Clear Cache button within Settings -> ThinkTwit in the Admin area, and then reload the page containing ThinkTwit. Otherwise please re-install – see uninstall instructions .

How do I prevent use of nofollow tags in my URLs?

You can apply a filter – see the following URL for an example:

http://digwp.com/2010/02/remove-nofollow-attributes-from-post-content/

What are the options “Show when published” and “Update frequency”?

Show when published – indicates whether the time the tweet was made is shown e.g. “This happened 1 day ago” Update frequency – indicates how often Twitter should be contacted to get a list of tweets. Use this to turn on or off caching, and to decide how often to update the cache

Why aren’t my avatar images showing?

The uploads/thinktwit/avatars folder may not exist or it may not be writeable (this folder is required for caching avatars). Check that your WordPress installation has the write permissions to the uploads folder.

How often do avatars get updated?

Once every 24 hours (assuming a request is made in this period). This value is not currently configurable.

Why do I constantly see the message “There have been no recent tweets”?

It is likely that you have not entered your Twitter API credentials. Please see the Installation tab for more details and check your PHP error log for any errors (such as incorrect authentication or rate limiting with Twitter).

Where can I see ThinkTwit errors?

You can look in the normal error log for your PHP setup. By default this is the error_log file within the root server of your WordPress installation but this may differ for each installation so if you are unsure please ask your server administrator.

Why do I keep seeing the following error “ThinkTwit error: Twitter responded with an unexpected error – [message=Rate limit exceeded, code=88]”?

This means that you are making too many requests to Twitter. If you are not using caching you should turn this on, and if you are already using it then you should decrease the frequency that requests are made e.g. change update frequency from “Live (cached)” to “Hourly”.

What is live updates and how does it work?

Live updates allow periodic updates to the user’s screen every set number of seconds i.e. if this was set to 10 seconds then every 10 seconds a call would be made to ThinkTwit to request any new Tweets. To use this feature you must have no-caching turned on.

NOTE: Even though you may be have a high frequency set this does not mean you will definitely get new tweets within that frequency. This is dependent upon the frequency of updates that you have set in the update frequency for that widget, shortcode or your Output Anywhere call. If you are using caching then the call will be made to the ThinkTwit cache and not Twitter itself – it is recommended that you use caching and not live calls if using live updates or else you may find yourself blocked from Twitter.