Colby Palmer - Web apps • Web platform developer • User Interfaces

Here's a bookmarklet to help you tweet links to Web pages from your iPhone using iTweet.net and bit.ly:

Post Link via iTweet

Adding and using this bookmarklet is simple.  Just drag the above link into your Safari bookmarks and sync your iPhone to transfer the bookmarklet to your iPhone.

Then, from any Web page that you would like to post on Twitter, just go to your Bookmarks, locate the "Post via iTweet" bookmarklet and select it.  A new web page will be opened to http://itweet.net, the link will be shortened using bit.ly, and placed in the Post field ready for tweeting.

I thought about putting the original page's title into the tweet as well, but then I realized I would usually rather make up my own caption. However if the general consensus is that adding the page title to the tweet would be more useful, I can make that change - leave your opinion in the comments here, or email me, or contact me on Twitter.

Thanks to Matt Teske for providing the motivation to make this bookmarklet - I will definitely find it useful and I hope you will too.  :-)

itweet twitter bitly link url iphone

Posted on Feb. 9, 2009, 2:55 a.m. Tags: bookmarklet iphone itweet twitter

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iTweet.net user John Haydon made this fantastic "How To" video called Setting Up And Using iTweet.Net and posted it on his blog, CorporateDollar.org.  Nice work John!

The response to iTweet 2's web interface has been truly extraordinary and now WAY surpasses usage of the original iPhone interface.  It is so wonderful to see a larger user community developing and producing great stuff like this video.  Thanks everyone!

Leave comments on this blog, or let's talk on Twitter or Facebook.

Technorati tags: itweet, twitter, video, iphone, howto, diy, web app

Posted on Nov. 15, 2008, 6:19 p.m. Tags: diy howto iphone itweet twitter video webapp

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I've made a couple additions and modifications to iTweet this week, they are lots of fun and add some great functionality!

In the Web interface I've added Statistics to your profile in the top right - so you can see at a glance your number of updates, favorites, following and followers. This updates itself as you tweet, fave and follow.  There is also an "Appearance" preference in the Settings menu - you can keep the default iTweet look OR import your Twitter profile's appearance - background image, font colors, sidebar color and everything!

If you are wondering "where did the nifty follow/notifications/block buttons go?", I have moved them all to the Profile pages to make better use of the API and make these methods more intuitive.  The old method assumed whether you were following a person or not based on the timeline they were found in; this was a little confusing and inconvenient, so I've moved it to the Profile page.  Here the page can tell (via the Twitter API call) whether you are following that person or not, and present the correct options depending on that status.

There's also an "is so-and-so following me?" button so you can see if that person is following you, and a "Twittering Since" date that shows when that person joined Twitter.  That part has been interesting to me as it's neat to see how long someone has been part of the Twitter community.  That data is made available via the Twitter API, although for some reason you can't find that info about a user on twitter.com - another reason to use iTweet!


Leave comments on this blog, or let's talk on Twitter or Facebook.

itweet, twitter, api, iphone

Posted on Oct. 19, 2008, 5:21 a.m. Tags: api iphone itweet twitter

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The Surfin' Safari blog announced SquirrelFish today, a new javascript interpreter for WebKit that is 1.6 times faster than the current interpreter. This is incredible, as Safari is already a super-fast browser, but as John Gruber points out in Daring Fireball, it may mean improved JavaScript support for the iPhone.

If you've read much of this blog, you already know my opinion about the whole "JavaScript on the iPhone really sucks" thing. I was recently reminded of this when translating some jQuery/JSON scripting from the Web to the iPhone. What ran as a fairly simple and speedy app on the Web became unusable on the iPhone, and I had to strip out tons of code to get even basic functions up to speed.

Keep your fingers crossed that SquirrelFish makes it to the iPhone, and soon!  I'm not sure if its release so close to the WWDC conference means it won't be making it to the upgraded "iPhone 2" that everyone is expecting to be announced, or if an iPhone software update will be released after the new iPhones hit the market.  The sooner the better!

The creators of SquirrelFish say this is just the beginning of new breakthroughs in compile times, and it sounds like they've done some very intensive and boring research to create their mutant aquatic rodent.  Thank goodness for the brilliant and patient minds (read: obsessives) who sort these complicated things out so the rest of us can have a better Web experience.

Oh, and yes... as everyone seems to notice, the SquirrelFish logo is way badass. It looks like it may evolve into a StimpyFish in a later release.

Leave comments on this blog, or let's talk on Twitter or Facebook.

Tags: squirrelfish, iphone, javascript, webkit, safari

Posted on June 3, 2008, 9:29 p.m. Tags: iphone javascript safari webkit

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I recently had a client ask me to adjust her site to be iPhone-compatible.  The navigation of this site uses Flash to apply a cosmetic animation on the text, so her site wasn't navigable via iPhone or any other non-Flash equipped device.

At first I thought I would advise her to forget about the slight effect that the Flash provided and change to a non-animated, but fully accessible navigation system.  But I knew she really liked this small detail of the site, so I thought I would try another way.

...are you using swfObject to embed your Flash content, anyway? Because you probably should be.  swfObject is an  XHTML-valid javascript  method of displaying Flash content without using unwieldy <embed> tags.  The script will fill any old <div> with your Flash, and changing the layout is as simple as adjusting the <div> with your style sheet.  It detects Flash player versions and will help a user upgrade or install the Flash player "in-window" if necessary.  It is a fantastic workaround for the annoying IE "Eolas patent dispute" requirement to "activate" Flash content by clicking it once before any buttons are active.

And -- thanks to the way that it degrades gracefully -- swfObject lets you "hide" accessible content behind your Flash.  I often use text describing the Flash content to boost a page's search engine indexability. Though this text is visually replaced by swfobject.js, it remains in the source code when the page renders.

In the case of the iPhone, the Flash is simply not displayed, and whatever originally was in the swfObject-specified <div> shows through. This is where you put a static but more-accessible version of the Flash image. You can include any kind of xhtml, links, images, or even embedded swfs.

In this case I simply made an html-friendly version of the client's site navigation, placed it in the navigation <div> and specified that swfObject would replace that content with the Flash nav where possible.  Voila!  The client sees her subtle Flash nav effect on her home computer, and can use her site from her iPhone as well (with minimal visible difference, as the Flash effect was a rollover effect anyway).

I have also used this trick to "hide" a jpg of a site's logo or header behind a Flash version... this way when viewing on the iPhone, that most important piece of your site (your identity) isn't lost!

swfObject was created by Geoff Stearns.
Click here to download the project from Google Code.

Tags: iphone, swfObject, flash, accessibility, javascript, iphonedev

Posted on Feb. 23, 2008, 5:56 a.m. Tags: flash iphone javascript webkit

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