Presentation mode, shortening URLs, and more!

In the Apple spirit (Snow Leopard) we have been working on refining Twitterfall recently, improving some of the backend, optimising the code, and improving some of the user interface and experience. We have a few cool things to share with you today.



Firstly, Presentation Mode. We try to focus on all use cases when improving Twitterfall, and we know that a lot of people love to use Twitterfall at conferences to display the back channel, but sometimes 'Hide Panels' just isn't enough - you want to show JUST the tweets, in big text, and nothing else. That's why we've added 'Presentation Mode' to the list of themes, which automatically hides the panels, removes the top panel, and makes the text nice and big. Perfect for projecting onto a big screen.

Next, and possibly the most obvious, we have revamped a lot of the default theme. Now we have new icons, a cleaner look, and we've removed the performance-sucking translucent PNGs that were really reducing the visual performance of Twitterfall. Now, by default, everyone can enjoy a much smoother Twitterfall experience. We're open to suggestions and comments about the new theme, and of course all the old themes are still present (minus 'Simple', which this theme is replacing). Transitions to the new theme should be painless.


My favourite new addition, is the built in URL shortener. Now when composing a new tweet, reply, DM, or retweet, you have the option of shortening your URLs for maximum tweet-length efficiency, and without having to leave Twitterfall! The replacements are performed 'in-place', which means you just have to type your tweet out as normal, and then hit 'Shorten URLs'. We're considering this in 'beta', as we're still ironing out any bugs, but we're really excited to provide this feature, and hope you find it useful. Currently we support is.gd and have no plans to support any others, but we'll see how it goes.

   
Click here to download:
Presentation_mode_shortening_U.zip (31 KB)

Finally, there have been numerous little bug fixes and adjustments:

 - General optimisations, our CSS selectors are now way more optimal.
 - Added a '200' fall size as per request 
 - Links to both screencasts when you click the 'Screencast' link.
 - Reduction of the top panel for a more streamlined view
 - Optimisation of removal of tweets from the bottom of the page.

Don't forget if you find any bugs, let us know via email, or the @twfall Twitter account. Enjoy!

 

Comments (3)

Jun 22, 2009
DavidDMuir said...
The addition of a presentation mode is brilliant. Would have loved this for the backchannel we set up at a recent conference. Only suggestion would be to add a line at the top beside the Exit button where users could enter something like: "To see your Twitter messages on this screen add #appleRTC to your Tweet."

I feel guilty even mentioning this suggestion because you have already made a great product even better!

Jun 22, 2009
Twitterfall said...
No, thank you for the suggestion! It's a good idea, I'll write it on our list and you might see it implemented soon :-)
Jul 23, 2009
Philip Campbell said...
Yeah i really like the stuff your doing with twitterfall - keep it up! :)

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Twitterfall is a great way of viewing the latest 'tweets' of upcoming trends and custom searches on the micro-blogging site Twitter. Updates fall from the top of the page in near-realtime.