Twitterrific 3 is out

When the 'guilty pleasures' conversation starts late at night here at the TUAW home office (located in scenic Leominster, MA) I always raise my hand for Twitter -- a great way to keep up with friends and colleagues across the country, and watching the World Series last week with the tweets of Red Sox Nation popping up on my screen was a surprisingly compelling experience, like an erudite and very terse version of a favorite sports bar.

Of course, a good bit of credit for the popularity of Twitter with Mac users must go to Twitterrific, the Iconfactory's stellar client for Twitter. Twitterrific is so identified with the service that many confuse the bluebird icon for Twitter's official logo. Now updated to version 3, Twitterrific adds a slew of new features (and a new price). The app now displays @replies and direct messages separately and in color, includes tweet deletion and filtering, a Dock tweet count, AppleScript support, and more (full list in the bottom half of the post). All this improvement comes at a cost, however: Twitterrific is now an advertising-supported app (1 ad an hour), or pay $14.95 for an ad-free experience.

By the way, if you want to get TUAW tweets and @reply to us with tips and comments, add TUAW to your Twitter friend list and rock on.

from iconfactory.com

Version 3.0 - November 1st, 2007

New Features

• Twitterrific now handles multiple sources of tweets in the list. Normal timeline updates are gray while replies to you (@yourusername) are colored orange. Your direct messages are displayed in blue with a letter icon.
• An AppleScript scripting dictionary was added thanks to a contribution from Grayson Hansard at From Concentrate Software. Please refer to the TwitterrificScriptDemo.scpt file for more information on how to access Twitterrific from your AppleScript.
• The dialogs for connection errors have been replaced with a message in the tweet list that explains the last error (only one error is displayed.) To turn this feature off, uncheck "Show errors in tweet list" in the System panel of the configuration window.
• If you are using the Dock instead of the menubar, the Dock icon now contains an unread message count. The count will be displayed in orange if any new tweets have arrived since the window was last opened. The menubar icon will also be removed if you are using the Dock to control Twitterrific.
• The volume of the bird sounds used to alert you to new tweets is now adjustable using the Sound > Sound Effects panel in System Preferences.
• Improved configuration interface for updating status with chat clients. There was some confusion about how this feature worked in the last release, so we tuned up the user interface. Also, some users were getting "Where is application?" errors, so you must now choose the chat application you want to use.
• You can now select any tweet in the list and use ⌘C to copy its URL to the clipboard.
• If you post something by accident, you can now delete the tweet: just select it in the list and press ⌘⌫. You cannot delete someone else's tweet.
• The arrow keys can now be used to open URLs from the tweet list: the right arrow opens all links in the tweet and the left arrow opens the user's "with others" page.
• Added a warning dialog when there are no tweets to download from Twitter. This will help new users who are just getting started.
• Two new power user preferences were added: tweetScreenNameFilter and tweetTextFilter. These preferences allow you to filter out tweets based on either a tweet's screen name or the text in the message. See the Read Me file for more information on how to configure and use them.
• Screen names in tweets (@name) are now linked to the user's page at Twitter.
• A power user preference for Sonic Twoosh Technology™ was added to let you know when your tweet is "extra special."
• Development of Twitterrific is now being funded in part by advertisements from The DECK. You can still use Twitterrific free of charge, but for every hour you run you'll be shown a single ad. Registering the software for $14.95 eliminates all advertising and helps support future development and improvements.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed some rendering issues when displaying the tweet list in Leopard.
• If the tweet window is displayed, but not active, the hotkey will now make the window active instead of closing it.
• Fixed a bug with < and > appearing as &gt; and &lt; in the user name.
• Some characters in passwords can be a problem when Twitterrific tries to communicate with Twitter. A warning dialog will be displayed if you use non-alphanumeric characters in your password.

Known Issues

• Changing logins (with ⌘L) sometimes hangs on Leopard due to a bug with sheets in the new OS. The workaround is to turn off automatic login in the System tab of the configuration window, quit Twitterrific, and then restart to login with a different account.
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