• If you are interested in helping with Spaz development, introduce yourself on the spaz-users group and let us know how you can help!
• If you have an idea for a new development task, post it on the spaz-users group so we can talk about it before adding it, please.

Thanks!

Screen Name Suggestion/Tab-completion

Lead: Funkatron

Status: Mostly Functional

This was first implemented in 0.3.7.1-SVN11. It works, but can be a little quirky. Uses a modified version of the tag suggestion plugin for jQuery.

Switchable Sound Sets

Lead: Kibitzer

Implement switchable sound sets, much as switchable themes already exist. It requires:

• addition to the prefs, displaying a list of soundsets;
• a little rework on the sound code so it loads sounds from the selected set;
• a place to store both distributed and user-created soundsets (i.e. the program dir and the app data store).

Spellchecking

Lead: Kibitzer

To do the inline marking of misspellings will require a switch to some kind of “rich” editor, and I dunno how well that will work. Another possibility would be to use a SWF textbox there, but that would move us outside pure HTML/JS, and I’m not super about that. -funkatron

That’s cool, but I’m not sure a rich editor is required. (caveat: i might be talking thru my arse here, need to investigate further.) There are potential problems because the way I’m thinking of doing it requires a service like Google Spell (which I believe is no longer available) or Yahoo Spell, or a link to a backend pspell page — potentially significant extra traffic. What I hope to do is present this as a PoC for evaluation, rather than a finished feature. As an aside, could be a good first plugin using the proposed plugin architecture.

Maybe some kind of local instance of Aspell might be useful in this case - though I have no idea on implementation. Not to pick nits, but it looks like pspell hasn’t been updated since 2001. - cspruck (above paragraph not mine)

Theme Examples

Lead: Kibitzer

Create a wiki page outlining how to make themes. A (possibly) simple one to start would be to use the default them but move the entry box to the top of the page.

Custom keyboard shortcuts

Lead:

At least set up a user-editable config file that lets a user remap keyboard shortcuts - funkatron

Notification popup positioning

Lead:

This is really just an issue of making a pref and a UI for the pref — the code already supports setting which corner notifications appear in. - funkatron

Fill-in “favorite” star when clicked

Lead:

This should be pretty easy to do — would just be something done depending on response from server when request is sent. - funkatron

Friends network “map”

Lead:

A cool idea to show relationships between friends of yours. Would require a fair bit of work on the rendering side, though. Data retrieval might be limited because of API limits. Requires further investigation - funkatron

Upon reading this description, I thought of TweetWheel, but we might want to rethink the implementation, as it could get pretty unwieldy within Spaz (unless we just did something like triggering that URL in a browser and passing your username to it). I haven’t looked at the source yet, though. As it is, it took me several refreshes to get it to process and render (due to Twitter-lag, I imagine) and I only have 26 people at the moment - who knows what it does with 100+ followees - cspruck

Plugins system

Lead: Funkatron

A proof of concept has already been developed for this. Initially the only plugin hook would be for processing tweets (things like linking hashtags come to mind).

URL-shortening service switcher

Lead:

The URL-shortening service stuff in Spaz is actually very modular. Although currently only Snipr can be used, the code for tinyURL still exists, and the two can be swapped very easily. Realistically there’s only a preference UI to be created, and a little code to read all the possible engines, that is needed.

kibitzer — request from user group for “http://ri.ms/”

“Mute” user

Lead: kibitzer

I’d find it useful to temporarily block a user’s updates — “mute” them. For example, some ppl when attending a conference constantly tweet updates, tagged for the conference. For myself, I generally am uninterested in such stuff — it just clutters my timeline.

More refined version: block tweets with tags, such as #wds08

You’re getting something like this?

ERROR: 400 error - Exceeded request limit. Response from Twitter:
{"error":"Rate limit exceeded. Clients may not make more than 70
requests per hour.","request":"\/statuses\/user_timeline.json?
_=1200445136765"}

Twitter accounts can send no more than 70 requests to the Twitter API per hour — yes, that’s per account. If you’re seeing this error, that’s what happened. There are a number of possible reasons:

• You are running multiple Twitter clients. Are you testing another Twitter client? Using a web service that requires you to log-in to Twitter? It might cause you to exceed the limit without meaning to. (This doesn’t happen with the Twitter website, which bypasses the API entirely)

• You really have exceeded the limit. Try raising the Refresh Interval in Preferences. The default is 3 minutes and it’s right up to the edge: 60/3 = 20 refreshes, and you have 3 requests per refresh on the main timeline, which gives you 60 requests per hour. Try making it 5 minutes instead.

• Twitter is borked. We’ve seen some behaviors where users get 400 errors right after starting Spaz, or hours after a rate limit block should have expired, and other developers report the same thing. You should contact Twitter support if you are certain it’s not one of the above issues.

One suggestion that has worked for many people is to change your password. This will keep any apps you’ve forgotten about from making API calls, and sometimes seems to have “unstuck” users whose blocks weren’t going away. If you change your password and the problem persists for more than a couple hours, contact Twitter support!

I’m running Vista, and Spaz opens links in IE even though I chose another browser (like Firefox) as my default. How do I fix this?

This is actually a bug in AIR, and Adobe shares a method for solving this in their release notes for AIR 1.0:

To workaround this problem, go to Start > Default Programs > Set Program Access and Computer Defaults, expand Custom, select the radio button next to the application you want to set as the system-wide default browser (for example, Mozilla Firefox) and apply the setting.

Why doesn’t Spaz save my username and password under the AIR Linux alpha?

The AIR Linux alpha does not support the EncryptedLocalStore part of the AIR API, which is what Spaz uses to store your credentials securely. This is a known issue noted by Adobe in their release notes, and will surely be fixed in a future AIR update.

Spaz doesn’t do what I want!

File a new feature request on the Google Code project site for Spaz: http://code.google.com/p/spaz/issues/list. Or, download the source and contribute a patch!

I found a bug! Should I let you know?

Yep, file an issue on the Google Code project site for Spaz: http://code.google.com/p/spaz/issues/list

If you reeealy wants to help, turn on debug mode (located in Preferences, the last tab on the right) and restart. From then on, your Documents/My Documents directory should keep a running log of the mysterious goings-on that go on within Spaz. It’s called spaz-debug.log. If Spaz misbehaves, sending a copy of this arcane file when logging a bug in Google Code should be perty useful to the team.

Oh, and thanks.

Where can I get help with Spaz?

Check the Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/spaz-users. Here, you’ll find other Spaz users, discussions on feature suggestions and helpful hints on problem resolution.

Can I change how Spaz looks?

Sure! If you’re a dab hand at CSS — or even just fairly OK — you can make new Spaz themes. See this theme creation primer.

Can I change the sounds Spaz uses?

Not right now. If you do, you’ll likely experience problems with Spaz startup. For example on Windows, Spaz starts but doesn’t initialise the window. It seems to be an AIR thing; somehow it checks the contents of files it already knows about, like the sounds. A way around this is in the works — or so says @kibitzer.

What’s with the app’s name? It’s really offensive!!

Sorry! I’m aware of the association it has in the UK, but certainly did not have it in mind when I named the app. I might feel differently if it was a commercial application, but changing the name isn’t something I’m interested in doing.

I might consider putting in a pref to disable reporting of the app to Twitter, though, if users were interested in that. You can also download and modify the source code as you wish http://code.google.com/p/spaz.

Spaz sometimes screams at me! What’s that about?

Wilhelm!

If you send a tweet of exactly 140 characters, Twitter makes a certain sound. The equivalent in Spaz is the “Wilhelm!” noise — the scream. If you don’t like it you should be able to just swap in a new mp3 called “wilhelm.mp3” — but it seems AIR doesn’t let you. And down the road, it’ll be easier to swap in new sounds.

I thought Spaz supported multiple Twitter accounts?

That was a feature of the old version written in REALbasic. It was a “fast user switching” feature that let you choose a user from a dropdown and quickly switch between them. It didn’t let you post once to multiple accounts, and it didn’t let you read messages received by multiple accounts in the same timeline.

It may come back in future versions of Spaz.

Do you let people beta test?

Test versions of Spaz are frequently announced on the spaz-users group. If you want to try out new versions, subscribe to that list.

We use Markdown Extra + SmartyPants for formatting, plus the ExpressionEngine wiki syntax.

• New To Twitter?

• Frequently Asked Questions

• Spaz Preferences

• Keyboard Shortcuts

• Customizing Spaz

  • Themes
  • CSS Hacks
  • Sound Sets

• Coding and Development

  • Development tasks

• Screencasts

Spaz as of v0.3.9.4 allows users to override their theme CSS formatting with their own CSS code. This gives the user the ability to customize the interface as they wish without creating a whole new theme.

How do I know what selectors I should use?

A couple ways:

1. Turn on debugging and use the “Inspect” feature of the AIR Introspector. It works a lot like Firebug.
2. Check the theme.css file for the default (“spaz”) theme. It is nicely formatted to match the hierarchy of the HTML, so it should be fairly clear.
3. Ask questions on the spaz-users Google group.

I don’t know CSS. How do I use this?

You probably will want to stick to using the CSS hacks listed on this page. Just paste them into the CSS Edit window.

I broke Spaz’s interface by messing with User CSS. What do I do?

Your best bet is to delete the user.css file.

If you’re running Spaz 0.4.3.4 or higher:

1. start up Spaz
2. press
   • Windows/Linux: CTRL+SHIFT+,
   • OS X: CMD+SHIFT+,
3. The user preferences folder should now be open. If not, use the “manual” method below.
4. Close Spaz
5. Delete the user.css file
6. Start Spaz

If you’re running Spaz 0.4.3.3 or lower:

1. Close Spaz.
2. Open the user prefs folder. Finding this varies a bit between OSes:
   • Windows XP: File:SpazUserPrefsFolder WinXP.png
   • Windows Vista: coming soon
   • OS X: File:SpazUserPrefsFolder OSX.png
3. Delete the user.css file.
4. Start Spaz

Editing User CSS

First, click the “Edit User CSS” button in the Preferences > Interface section.

Then, enter CSS code into the CSS Edit popup, and click “Save” to apply.

CSS Hacks

“Checkerboard” message layout

Requires Version 0.4.3.3 or higher!

div.timeline-entry {
display:inline;
float:left;
clear:right;
width:200px;
height:140px;
border:none;
margin:0 auto 0 auto;
text-align:left;
-khtml-border-radius:10px;
-webkit-box-shadow: 0px 2px 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5);
margin:5px;
}

.TabbedPanelsContent {
text-align:center;
position:absolute;
top:67px;
left: 10px;
right: 10px;
bottom:90px;
  overflow:auto;
background:#999988;
border-top:3px solid #333300;
border-bottom:3px solid #333300;
}

div.timeline {
position:static;
text-align:center;
border:none;
background:transparent;
top:auto;
bottom:auto;
left:auto;
right:auto;
padding:none;
margin:auto;
width:90%;
overflow-y:hidden;
}

#timeline-prefs {
text-align:left;
background-color:#FFF;
}

Message box on top

Requires Version 0.4.3.3 or higher!

#timeline-tabs {
   top:115px;
}

#header {
    height:200px
}

div.timeline {
     top:132px;
     bottom:28px;
}

#entryform {
     top:100px;
bottom:auto;
}

#entrybox {
margin-left:10px;
margin-right:10px;
-khtml-border-radius:5px;
}
#entrystats {
left:15px;
}
#updateButton {
display:none;
}

#statusbar {
     padding-top:3px
}

Shrink read messages

/* messages marked as read are shrunk vertically; restored when selected */
.read { max-height:7px; overflow:hidden; padding:2px }
.ui-selected {max-height:175px }

Adjust message text size

/* Adjust message text size. Use any valid unit (px/pt/em/%) */
.status-text {font-size:12pt;}

Rounded Rects/bubbles

#container {
background-color:transparent;
}

#header {
height:40px;
-khtml-border-radius:8px;
}

#timeline-tabs, .TabbedPanelsTabGroup {
top:45px;
}

.TabbedPanelsTab {
padding:2px;
margin-right:2px;
-khtml-border-radius:1px;
}

.TabbedPanelsContentVisible {
background-color:#555555;
position:absolute;
top:69px;
left: 10px;
right: 10px;
bottom:95px;
-khtml-border-radius:8px;

}

div.timeline { border-width:0;
background:transparent;
top: 5px;
left: 5px;
right: 5px;
bottom:5px;
-khtml-border-radius:0px;
}

div.timeline-entry {
-khtml-border-radius:8px;
border:0;
margin:3px;
}

.TabbedPanelsTabSelected {border-bottom-width:0;}

#entrybox {
-khtml-border-radius:8px;
}

#statusbar {
padding: 4px 6px;
bottom:5px;
-khtml-border-radius:8px;
}

Preferences change the way Spaz looks, feels and works.

Account Information

Enter your Twitter username and password. Spaz needs to know them so it can post and receive Twitter updates. It’s saved (securely) so you don’t have to re-enter it every time.

Interface

User CSS: Lets you override parts of the currently loaded CSS, to add to or enhance the way that theme performs. (see CSS Hacks for more information) There are two ways to attach User CSS:

• Load from file: Click this button to choose a CSS file on your local computer.

• Edit User CSS: Click this button to open a separate window in which ti enter User CSS.

Theme: Use the drop-down box to pick one of the pre-packaged themes. The theme is loaded immediately.

Opacity: Affects how “see-through” Spaz is. 100% is not at all see-through, 0% is completely see-through (i.e. Spaz disappears!)

Parse Markdown in messages: Markdown is a “lightweight markup scheme”, a way of putting things like bold text into a text message. Tick this box if you want to see such effects. Note that you won’t see them unless someone else has used Markdown in their tweets.

You can find out more about Markdown at the official Markdown site.

Minimize to Systray: When ticked, minimizes Spaz to the System Tray rather than the Task Bar (when you click the Minimize button). See this Wikipedia article about the Task Bar for info about System Trays and Task Bars.

These are Windows-specific terms, although MacOS and Linux have the same concepts. What should I call them?

Minimize when in background: When ticked and you switch to another application, causes Spaz to automatically minimize to the Task Bar or System Tray (depending on the Minimize to Systray setting).

Restore when in foreground: I have no idea what this does. Is it the obverse of Minimize when in background setting?

Show notifications: When ticked, new tweets are shown briefly in a bubble of their own outside of Spaz. They appear whether or not Spaz is minimized.

Scroll to top on refresh: Tick this if you’d like Spaz to automatically return to the top of the tweet list (the most recent ones) every time it check for new entries.

Sound

Play sounds: Tick if you want Spaz to play sounds, untick if you don’t. Spaz plays sounds when:

• it starts up
• it closes down
• new tweets are received
• you send a tweet
• you send a “twoosh” (a tweet of exactly 140 characters)

Upgrades

Check on startup: Tick if you want Spaz to check for a new version of itself every time it starts. This will check only for stable versions.

Check for test versions: Tick if you want Spaz to check for a new non-stable (experimental) version of itself every time it starts. Experimental versions are announced on the Spaz User Group along with a list of changes / fixes.

Check Now: Click this button to have Spaz check for a new version right now.

Networking

Refresh interval: Spaz checks for Twitter updates every so often; this preference controls how often it checks. The default is 3 minutes.

Get rate from Twitter: Click this button to have Spaz set the Refresh interval by asking Twitter how many requests per hour are allowed.

Auto-adjust refresh interval: Tick if you want Spaz to automatically get the rate per hour, and set the Refresh interval, every time it starts.

Enable HTTP auth handling: If you are using a proxy that requires HTTP BASIC authentication, you may need to enable this option to enter your proxy username and password.

Debugging

Enabled: Tick if you want to turn on trace mode in Spaz. Trace mode dumps information about internal processing to a file called “spaz-debug.log”. The file is created in your “documents directory”. On Windows, this is the My Documents directory. On Mac OS, it is /Users/userName/Documents.

Dump HTML: Click this button dump Spaz’s main HTML document to disk. Like the trace, this can be very useful for diagnosing problems. When you click, Spaz opens a file dialog so you can enter the name and location of the resulting file. Once it has a name, Spaz dumps the file and sends progress message boxes. It’s not done until the “close stream” message box appears.

2008/08/04 (kibitzer) — this probably won’t work because it appears AIR checks the integrity of files in an app’s install package.

TODO…

• Spaz sound events
• Default sound set
• creating a new sound set

Keyboard shortcuts Note: Windows users should use CTRL instead of CMD

keystroke = command

• CMD+B = Markdown: bold

• CMD+I = Markdown: italic

• CMD+U = Markdown: link»

• CMD+R = Markdown: code

• CMD+F = toggle between showing all tweets and only replies & direct messages

• CMD+SHIFT+M = Mark all messages as read in current view

• ↑ or J or CMD+J = select next message

• ↓ or K or CMD+K = select previous message

• CMD+↓ = select next dm

• CMD+↑ = select previous dm

• CMD+SHIFT+↓ = select next reply

• CMD+SHIFT+↑ = select previous reply

• CMD+END = select last message

• CMD+HOME = select first message

• F5 = reload current view

• SHIFT+F5 = clear and reload current view

• CMD+SHIFT+A = open shorten link window

• CMD+T = jump to message entry box

• CMD+SHIFT+2 = respond to sender of currently selected message

• CMD+, = View Preferences

• CMD+{1-6} = Switch to tab 1-6

If you’re new to Twitter, try checking out Twitter’s Knowledge Books, including their FAQ. It doesn’t take long to read and will answer most of your questions.

If you have more questions, come join us on the Spaz User’s Group.

If you’re new to Twitter, try checking out Twitter’s Knowledge Books, including their FAQ. It doesn’t take long to read and will answer most of your questions.

If you have more questions, come join us on the Spaz User’s Group.

http://help.twitter.com/index.php?pg=kb

(screencasts captured with Jing)