Is there a Delphi client for Twitter and Facebook updates?

7/11/2009 1:31:02 AM #

I would love to see a native windows app, I hate those non-standard air apps, but... is there any Delphi community left?

Eber Irigoyen |

7/11/2009 2:23:22 AM #

I'm using a bash script I wrote, something along these lines:

t=$(mktemp)

wget --keep-session-cookies --http-user=<user> --http-password=<passwd> \

    http://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline.xml -O - >$t 2>/dev/null

name=$(mktemp)

hquery -q '//screen_name' <$t | dos2unix >$name

text=$(mktemp)

hquery -q '//text' <$t | dos2unix >$text

# other fields as necessary

paste $name $text | tac | sed 'a

' | fold -s

rm $t $name $text

... running on Cygwin bash, where 'hquery' is a little utility I wrote that takes an XPath expression and prints the text content of nodes (elements or attributes) with that content (written in .NET, so works on Linux, Mac and Solaris with Mono). hquery uses HtmlAgilityPack for lenient parsing of any html or xml-like structured text.

Another script calling this one with an output redirect, that uses a loop, sleep, and diff can then notify upon changes.

For updates, there's another script, using Twitter's HTTP-post API, but still using HTTP authentication and poking directly using wget.

Was just a fun experiment in seeing how far I could get with command-line etc., but having it available in the console has encouraged me to post a lot more often. Very easy to work with, the Twitter API.

Barry Kelly |

7/11/2009 2:37:05 AM #

Jim Mckeeth and a few others are working on a Delphi Twitter client. I don't know how far along they are yet.

J.D. Mullin |

7/11/2009 9:57:49 AM #

To complete the information that J.D. Mullin conveyed:

Jim McKeeth has started a theme named http://www.delphi.org/2009/03/24-delphi-projects/">Delphi Projects on the http://delphi.org">Podcast at Delphi.org. The first project is http://dwitterphi.assembla.org">Dwitterphi and it's a Twitter client. It's been stalled for a while, but I have from good sources that it's going to have a major come back.

I've been busy doing http://dweetta.assembla.com">Dweetta which is a Twitter lib for both Delphi and Free-Pascal and also a Simple Client to test the lib's functionality. It's at about 60% complete and the Simple client can already read and send updates. I would really appreciate some help on getting this job done, since I'm stuck on the oAuth debacle ATM.

Cheers,
Gus

Gustavo Carreno |

7/11/2009 10:00:21 AM #

Correction to the above, the Dwitterphi link is wrong. Here is the right one: http://dwitterphi.assembla.com">Dwitterphi

Gustavo Carreno |

7/12/2009 5:15:49 PM #

Thanks guys for the comments!

And thanks Gustavo, though there seems to be rather a dearth of information there but I will check back. I'll admit I was surprised when Googled for Delphi clients for these services and didn't find anything as I recall Delphi days when things like this would have been implemented almost immediately. It's been two years now since I left CodeGear and my work is all C# .NET these days though occasionally links to my blog lead me back into the Delphi community.

Steve Trefethen |

7/13/2009 8:49:40 AM #

Hi Steve,

You know what, those were exactly my thoughts when I went digging into the Twitter Api Wiki: What, no Delphi lib/client/whatever?!?!?!?!?!?

So I took action and started Dweetta.

I was a bit sad but after taking action I felt good since I could now be the one to contribute instead of being the "leecher".

I also recall http://www.marcocantu.com/">Marco Cantu having some code for Twitter from the Live! Sessions. Not a client but some use of the API itself. Might be worth having a look also.

Cheers,
Gus

Gustavo Carreno |

7/13/2009 8:30:25 PM #

Hi Gustavo,
  Interesting. Of course, the same could be said for the Facebook API, something I actually discussed with Delphi R&D back when I created a Starter Kit for FB in C# (after I left BORL). Of course, the same could also be said for RSS/ATOM, Google's API's, Flickr API's, MS web API's etc. My thinking at the time was in a different direction two years ago than classic Win32 development especially considering I'd already spent significant time working on the ASP.NET designer.

I wanted to see Delphi embrace these major web API's but that just wasn't going to be the direction and appears still isn't. Attending the www.stevetrefethen.com/.../...ssionsIAttended.aspx">Google Developers Conference two years ago was a serious eye opener in many ways not least of which was the fact I was the only person from Borland to attend what was a free conference. On a related note one of my most popular blog posts by far is related to using Google Maps.

Steve Trefethen |

7/14/2009 8:46:14 AM #

Hi Steve,

Hummm, yeah. I think you just put into words what I've been feeling for a while, but did not dare admit it.
The Delphi community is not as powerful as it was. I still remember when going to any Delphi related site one would have an overabundance of all kinds of libs for the full spectrum of the "hip" technologies. Now one has to struggle to find a little example on how to use it with Delphi and there are no tools at all.

I'm probably painting a very gloomy picture, and maybe it's going to pick up, but at the moment it's how I feel. I do have hope!!
Embarcadero seems to be much more efficient than BORL and it looks like Delphi is going to get it's past glory back.

Cheers,
Gus

Gustavo Carreno |

7/15/2009 3:19:30 PM #

Using the Twitter API from .NET and other languages is a no-brainer, especially with how easy it is to deserialize a JSON stream from twitter right into a list of objects. With Delphi it isn't nearly as easy. Even if you use a third party component to parse the JSON, you still have to dig out each attribute manually. I'm anxiously waiting for better RTTI support for serialization and deserialization.

J.D. Mullin |

7/21/2009 8:17:05 AM #

I guess most developers still using Delphi are now working on different kind of applications, and don't bother much about Facebook, Twitter or the like. Frankly, I do not use them, and I am working on applications that are in a pretty different league.

Kent Morwath |

7/24/2009 2:05:28 PM #

As someone who does both .NET and Delphi Win32 programming, I can see where it would be easier to handle the Twitter API with a .NET client.  I do think you'll get an application with a smaller footprint if you do it with Delphi.  I wouldn't mind contributing to a Delphi client, I need to see which one I could provide the most help with.

Chris Miller |

8/30/2009 11:19:26 PM #

Hi,

Related to this topic, today I've released Twitter Checker.

Today I have released Twitter Checker.

Twitter Checker is a small application that checks your Twitter account and popups a ballon tooltip when one of your friends tweets. It's useful for people who are starting with twitter and don't want to have a full twitter client open all day but want to know when their friends tweet.

It's written using Delphi 2009. It's freeware and Open Source.

Application and source code can be downloaded here.

http://tekblues.com/?page_id=171

Regards

Javier Rojas Goñi

Javier Rojas Goñi |

1/16/2010 4:40:45 AM #

@Chris Miller: Apart from being a Delphi/FreePascal Twitter lib, Dweetta will also boast a simple client to test the lib capabilities. Would you be interested in giving a hand on Dweetta? Here's the link: http://dweetta.assembla.com.

Thanks.

Gustavo Carreno |