neatComponents allows to you easily update your Twitter status at www.twitter.com

The Twitter Status Update is an action which can be added to components which support Events – for example the Data Entry Form.

Typical usage example You have a Blog, which is based on a Form, and every time you post a new blog entry, you would like the system to make a Tweet.

Usage

To add a Twitter Status Update to an event:

Go to the Events tab for the component, and right-click in the Event tree where you want the tweet action to take place, and select New / Action / Twitter status update

The New Twitter Status Update will be added to the event tree. Right click this, and choose Properties.

This shows the configuration dialog, which has three fields to configure:
Username – of the Twitter account
Password – of the Twitter account
Status – the contents of the status update

The values for each of these can either be:
- entered directly in this dialog, or
- taken from a Form field – if the component is a Data Entry form or Form, or
- taken from a the first record returned by a query, defined on the query tab of the dialog.

Tip: For a simple scenario, enter the Username and Password directly in the dialog, and take the Status from the Form

When are Tweets sent?

Tweets are sent when configured – ie immediately upon the Form is submitted, or after a delay if you have configured one in the event tree.

• Tweets may take a minute or two to show up on Twitter.
• If Twitter is offline and unable to receive the Tweet, the system will retry every ten minutes until it is received.
• If Twitter refuse the message – for example if invalid Username and Password details are given, the Status is empty or it is a duplicate of the previous Tweet, it is silently discarded.

Sending multiple Tweets

You can configure an event to trigger multiple Tweets to be sent. Simply add multiple Twitter Status Update actions to the event tree. Unless you want them all to appear at the same time you should separate them out with delays.

Content truncation

Tweets are limited to 140 characters, including spaces. The system will truncate longer tweets to this length, however as this may compromise the meaning or break links, you should ensure the content is not too long.