Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2011-01-12 02:03 pm
azurelunatic) wrote2011-01-12 02:03 pm
Doing It Right: hacking out a spec for a native DW twitter importer
This is what I have so far; of course it's drafty (sketchy? something?) as all hell, but I figured I should have it out of my brain and onto bits that others can see and chatter about. Going to run through other places too.
Twitter-importer for DW, a spec [draft].
Must authenticate to Twitter properly.
Must collect all tweets, whether from a locked or unlocked account. (Twitter account being locked should not entirely prevent from public posting, because some people are merely locked to keep out the spambots.) Should collect retweets too, if possible the whole thing [oldschool misses the trailing characters].
Should be able to set a security for all Twitter entries that is distinct from the minimum security; some people prefer to post their Twitter imports to a custom security group even if their minimum is public. (Locked twitter account and locked entries would maintain security for people who need it.)
Must be able to have timestamps or no timestamps. Must be able to have linkback to original tweet, or no link back. (would be nice to have optional links for in-reply-to, location, and other doodads, but those seem like they'd be harder to get.)
Should be able to set tags (suggest "twitter"). (This will help with paid users' filtering.)
Should be able to set userpic (if they have a userpic called "twitter", maybe have it pre-selected for them?)
Mine counts the day's tweets. I like that. Lets you know what you're in for.
Should be able to customize the subject, with variables to insert the date if you want to, in your exact preferred configuration.
Should be able to cut tweets, either all of them entirely, or after some small reasonable number. My service does 5; LJ's does 10. Either of these are reasonable.
Should be able to customize the cut text.
Should be able to customize the posting time in a way that does not kill the server. Exact time seems like something that too many people would try for the same time, and things would bog down. Though a reasonable effort should be made to a) have the things post at the same time for the same person, and b) get the tweets of a particular span, most popular likely to be the whole day's twittery.
Should be robust enough to try again if Twitter failwhales for any reason while attempting to fetch.
Should be able to choose whether to import all tweets, or only tweets that lack an in-reply-to. (without in-reply-to is good for not having half-a-conversation, but bad if what you wanted to do was archive it all for your own use).
Might want to import from more than one Twitter account? (paid feature)
Should expand as many as possible shortened URLs, to prevent the failure of a shortening site from making your old links useless.
[separate-but-related, having Twitter taking over the Latest page would not do at all; if it ever threatens to dominate, it should be split out or something.]
Twitter-importer for DW, a spec [draft].
Must authenticate to Twitter properly.
Must collect all tweets, whether from a locked or unlocked account. (Twitter account being locked should not entirely prevent from public posting, because some people are merely locked to keep out the spambots.) Should collect retweets too, if possible the whole thing [oldschool misses the trailing characters].
Should be able to set a security for all Twitter entries that is distinct from the minimum security; some people prefer to post their Twitter imports to a custom security group even if their minimum is public. (Locked twitter account and locked entries would maintain security for people who need it.)
Must be able to have timestamps or no timestamps. Must be able to have linkback to original tweet, or no link back. (would be nice to have optional links for in-reply-to, location, and other doodads, but those seem like they'd be harder to get.)
Should be able to set tags (suggest "twitter"). (This will help with paid users' filtering.)
Should be able to set userpic (if they have a userpic called "twitter", maybe have it pre-selected for them?)
Mine counts the day's tweets. I like that. Lets you know what you're in for.
Should be able to customize the subject, with variables to insert the date if you want to, in your exact preferred configuration.
Should be able to cut tweets, either all of them entirely, or after some small reasonable number. My service does 5; LJ's does 10. Either of these are reasonable.
Should be able to customize the cut text.
Should be able to customize the posting time in a way that does not kill the server. Exact time seems like something that too many people would try for the same time, and things would bog down. Though a reasonable effort should be made to a) have the things post at the same time for the same person, and b) get the tweets of a particular span, most popular likely to be the whole day's twittery.
Should be robust enough to try again if Twitter failwhales for any reason while attempting to fetch.
Should be able to choose whether to import all tweets, or only tweets that lack an in-reply-to. (without in-reply-to is good for not having half-a-conversation, but bad if what you wanted to do was archive it all for your own use).
Might want to import from more than one Twitter account? (paid feature)
Should expand as many as possible shortened URLs, to prevent the failure of a shortening site from making your old links useless.
[separate-but-related, having Twitter taking over the Latest page would not do at all; if it ever threatens to dominate, it should be split out or something.]
no subject
I like the way you think. I would think that the way to have that easily would be to not disallow duplicate import-accounts set up for the same twitter user, and then to have different settings on each import-account: one pulling only the not-conversations and posting public, and one pulling the whole thing and posting in one's choice of filter.