TwitterFox - Firefox extension for Twitter

TwitterFox is a Firefox extension that notifies you of your friends' tweets of Twitter. (previously known as TwitterNotifier)

This extension adds a tiny icon on the status bar that notifies you when your friends update their tweets. Also it has a small text input field to update your tweets.

New feature of Version 1.7

• Implemented new tweet input box
• Added favorite function
• Added tr-TR, ru-RU locales
• Adjusted balloon popup position

Complete change logs of TwitterFox

Install TwitterFox

If you want to get updates of TwitterFox, feel free to follow TwitterFox's twitter @TwitterFox. If you have a problem, please send a reply or a direct message to @TwitterFox via Twitter, or feel free to send me a e-mail to kazuho plus GMail.

For theme users: TwitterFox doesn't work with Aero Fox, iFox smooth 3 and so on. Please DO NOT USE with this extension with Fx3 theme. See also:

---

Table of Contents

1. How to use
2. FAQ / Known issues
3. Contact / How to Report a Bug
4. License & Source code
5. Change log

---

How to use

Click the status bar icon to setup

Click Add account button then enter your user name (or e-mail address) and password in an appeared dialog.

Notify friends' status with small balloon

When your friends update their tweets, you can see a small balloon popup on right-bottom corner in a browser window. You can change network polling interval and popup display interval on the preference panel. TwitterFox only checks your direct messages every other access of getting replies/timeline.

Note: TwitterFox may change the network polling interval when TwitterFox received rate limit exceeded error from the Twitter servers. See also: rate limit control

If you click an icon of your friend, TwitterFox opens the friend's page in a new tab. If you already opened the page in the other tab, TwitterFox switches to the tab.

There is a reply button on right-top corner of the popup. If you click the button, You can reply a message to the friend.

View last 40 tweets and update yours

When you click the small icon on the statusbar, you can see a TwitterFox window on right-bottom corner of the browser. You can see last 40 messages and an input text box. If you want to update your message, enter your message in the box. You can insert current URL of browser's tab with insert URL icon.

You can open and close this window with keyboard shortcut.

TwitterFox automatically closes the window when you click the friends icon, hyperlink in a message or TwitterFox logo. If you don't want to close the window automatically, you can change this behavior with preference panel.

Encode / decode tinyURL

If you don't like click tinyURL, just hover on tinyURL. TwitterFox decodes tinyURL to original URL. Also, TwitterFox encode your long URL to tinyURL before post to Twitter.

Click TwitterFox small logo on left-top of the window, or double click twitter icon on statusbar, go to your twitter home.

View replies and direct message

TwitterFox retrieves replies and direct messages from Twitter. You can see reply messages even you don't follow them and can see direct message in Recent tab. Replies and Messages tab provide you a specific view which only contains replies or direct messages. You can change the tabs with tab key navigation.

Multi account

You can set multiple accounts on preference panel and change accounts with context menu of status bar icon or click account name on top of TwitterFox popup window.

Handle browser cookie

Recently, twitter changed cookie spec and TwitterFox no longer supports overwrite browser cookie. This means, you cannot change your account using TwitterFox's multi-account feature.

Keyboard shortcut

TAB

Change TwitterFox's tab

Ctrl+Shift+L (for Mac user: Command+Shift+L)

Insert current tab's URL into the input message box.

Ctrl+Shift+P (for Mac user: Command+Shift+P)

Open/close TwitterFox window.

For Firebug users

Several extensions, for example Firebug, have assigned Ctrl+Shift+P and Ctrl+Shift+L for their functions. If you use them, you should re-assign shortcut key with preference panel.

Sound notification

You can set your favorite sound file for notification of timeline updates. You can use a WAV file or an AIFF file (Mac only). TwitterFox doesn't contain sound files. You should pick a sound file yourself.

---

FAQ / Known issues

TwitterFox icon turns red

Perhaps you know that Twitter server is unstable sometimes and when TwitterFox can't get data from the server and/or received wrong data or status, the status icon turns red.

I've got "Rate limit exceeded. Clients may not make more than 70 requests per hour" message. What does this mean?

Twitter allows API clients to access to their server 70 times per hour. If you use more than 2 twitter clients, or restart Firefox often, or select Update tweets menu often, you may get this message with red status icon.

Also, from time to time, Twitter lower rate limit to preserve their server load for several reasons.

Can I use SSL for get tweets?

There's no longer SSL option because TwitterFox always uses SSL to get your tweets.

Can I see a timestamp of a message in the timeline

You can see the timestamp with tooltip when you hover your mouse on the message.

I can't use keyboard shortcut

Several Firefox extensions have assigned keyboard shortcuts for their functions. You can change a key assignment of this extension with preference panel.

I want to translate TwitterFox or fix translations

Please find TwitterFox on BabelZilla. You can translate TwitterFox messages in browser. Please note, don't send me an e-mail with translation texts. I won't accept any translation via e-mail. I only accept translations from BabelZilla.

TwitterFox window closes when I click somewhere else of the window on Firefox 3

This issue happens only on Firefox 3 beta4 or earlier version on Windows platform. Please update to Firefox 3 beta5, RC1 or later version.

When TwitterFox opens a balloon, Firefox brings up front of all windows

This is an issue of Firefox 3 beta4. It will be fixed in beta5 or later on Windows platform.

When TwitterFox opens a balloon or a window, TwitterFox steals focus of entire windows

This issue is caused by Firefox bug on Linux platform. See bug:434372

Firefox window doesn't open using with Aero Fox skin

TwitterFox conflicts with Aero Fox. Please don't use these 2 extensions at same time. Your browser won't start up.

If you have trouble with this situation, remove extensions manually. See Profiles.

TwitterFox popup/window is behind content window

On Firefox 2, TwitterFox popup/window may be behind content window sometimes. This is limitation of Firefox 2. Also some extensions may cause this issue (e.g. Split Browser). This issue is resolved on Firefox 3.

I have to enter twitter account information when I start Firefox

TwitterFox uses Firefox's password manager. If you clear saved password when you close Firefox (This settings is in "Preference > Privacy > Private Data"), it means you also clear TwitterFox account information when you close Firefox.

TwitterFox doesn't work anyway

If TwitterFox doesn't work and you think you set all settings correctly and Twitter server is well, please check the other extensions. Some extensions conflict with TwitterFox (e.g. Google Gears may conflict TwitterFox). Disable the other extensions and see how TwitterFox works. Also, if you found a conflict, please report me.

---

Contact / How to Report a Bug

Please follow then send reply to @TwitterFox or my personal twitter account @naan

If you have any troubles or requests, feel free to send me a e-mail to kazuho plus GMail.

If you get some troubles, or you think there is a bug of TwitterFox, please report me the situation. But before send me an e-mail, please correct several information to help debug easy.

First of all, correct platform information and version number of Firefox and TwitterFox.

Second, turn TwitterFox on to debug mode. Enter about:config in address bar then enter twitter in a filer field. You can see several preference variables of TwitterFox. Turn extensions.twitternotifier.debug true to enable debug logging.

Next, enter java in the filter field then turn javascript.options.showInConsole true to enable to output JavaScript error in Error Console.

Then open Tools -> Error Console. You can see several debug logs of TwitterFox.

Error console looks like this.

The error console contains all error and warning messages from your browser. Perhaps you have a lot of error and warning messages when you open the console. Efficient way to debug is:

1. Close all tab then open blank page
2. Choose Logout from context menu of TwitterFox (right click on TwitterFox icon)
3. Clear all error log
4. Login with TwitterFox
5. Check the Error Console (if the console doesn't have any log, perhaps you miss some settings in about:config)

At last, report me the detail of your problem with following information:

• Browser version and platform (e.g. Firefox 2.0.0.12 on Mac OS 10.5.2)
• TwitterFox version
• Debug logs

---

License & Source code

TwitterFox is licensed under MPL/1.1. You can download source codes from svn repository:

$ svn co http://naan.net/svn/trunk/twitternotifier

Change log

Change log of TwitterFox