Turpial is a micro blogging, desktop client for Twitter. It integrates with your Linux desktop to provide notifications for new tweets by making use of NotifyOSD (bubble messages). Turpial provides easy options for using all required Twitter features including managing your tweets, replying to messages and tweets, adding tweets to favorites, uploading images, etc. You can choose from a range of available URL shortening and image uploading service supported by Turipial. Unlike other famous Twitter clients like TweetDeck an Pidgin, Turpial relies more on being a compact and less complicated application.
You can install Turpial in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric ocelot and Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin, from the PPA given below.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:effie-jayx/turpial sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install turpial
To get started, login and authorize the Turpial application.
Once done, enter the given Pin number in the box below to proceed further.
Once logged in, you are displayed with your Twitter Timeline, followed by tabs showing the Replies and Directs message tabs. You can reply, retweet, add a tweet to favorites, open a URL (from within a tweet), mention, follow/un-follow users via right-click context menu.
The buttons located adjacent to Timeline (at the bottom of the interface) allow you to edit your profile settings, add favorites, search Twitter, follow users, open the tweet box, upload a picture and edit application settings.
NotifyOSD, bubble messages pop-up each time you login (displaying your unread tweets and the number of followers and the people you are following), when there is a new tweet, direct message, or when someone mentions you (in a tweet).
From the Preferences section, you can select a time frame, after which the bubble messages should appear. You can also enable Turpial to start with system startup, configure proxy settings and select URL shortening and image uploading services.
The available URL shortening services include:
- smlk.es
- su.pr
- j.mp
- tr.im
- goog.gl
- cli.gs
- is.gd
- zi.ma
- ur1.ca
- bit.ly
- tinyurl
Similarly, the images can be uploaded to Plixi, img.ly, Posterous, Img.ur, MobyPicture, Twitgoo, TwitPic and Yfrog.
You can download the source package from the developer’s website, as well as installation instructions for:
- Ubuntu
- Debian
- Fedora
- ArchLinux