The TwitBoxSL should be able to give instructions when touched and the "Help" or "About" options are selected, but it is basically very easy to use.
string EMAIL = "your.email.address@somewhere.com"The TwitBoxSL checks with Twitter every minute while you are wearing it for new tweets, and will say them to you as normal chat if it hears any - note that only you will hear this.
Say "/282 (text)" to send (text) as an update to Twitter. You can also include keywords which will be replaced in your post with special URLs. See the Keyword section for details of how this works and how to set it up.
Touch the TwitBoxSL HUD at any time to get a full menu and reminder of these commands, and also to change the Notify option (see below).
| Keyword | Result |
|---|---|
| SLURL | Insert a SLurl to your location |
| SLPOS | Insert your current location in text form e.g. "Caledon 128,128,128" |
| [varies] | User-definable feed keywords |
The TwitBoxSL can respond to different keywords when they are included in your update, and automatically replace them with tinyurls to outside posts. This allows you to quickly refer to pictures, blog posts, videos and so on without having to leave SL, look up the site concerned, make a tinyurl, copy and paste it, and all that malarkey.
As of version 0.2, if you include the word SLURL (in capitals) in your update it will be replaced with a link to a SLurl for your current location.
As of version 0.3, you can define keywords within your own TwitBoxSL which will automatically include a link to the latest post made in a specific RSS or Atom feed. These should be placed within the FEED list, in the format:
"KEYWORD", "http://address.of/feed.rss"
Whenever you include the KEYWORD (it is case sensitive) in an update, it will be replaced by an appropriate tinyurl. For instance, I have the following in my own TwitBoxSL:
list FEEDS = [
"FLICKR", "http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?id=25972087@N00&format=rss_200",
"VIMEO", "http://www.vimeo.com/user:ordinal/clips/rss",
"BLOG", "http://feeds.feedburner.com/engine-proceeding"
];
If I make an update "This is my latest photo - FLICKR", a tweet will be made of the form "This is my latest photo - http://tinyurl.com/blah123" where http://tinyurl.com/blah123 is a link to the most recent image that I have posted on Flickr. (I find this very useful when combined with my Automatic Flickr Applescript). You might wish to include, say, your (or someone else's) Snapzilla feed in this list.
If you don't wish to use this feature, simply don't add or use any keywords. If you wish to test it, by default TwitBoxSL 0.3 comes with the keyword EXAMPLEFEED set to link to the latest Snapzilla picture, so including the word EXAMPLEFEED should link to that.
As of version 0.4, you may include the keyword SLPOS, which will be replaced by your current location on the Grid expressed as, for example, "Caledon 128,128,128" rather than as a SLurl.
Starting with version 0.2, the TwitBoxSL has a menu option called "Notify". Clicking this will give you access to three options: "Quiet", "Private" and "Public".
| Quiet | means that you will not hear any audible notifications. However, you will hear (private) notifications on the standard chat channel. |
| Private | means that you - and only you - will hear a twittering noise when you either receive new tweets or make an update yourself. You will only hear this in an area where localised sound is not restricted to that parcel (changeable via the land options panel). I'm sorry about that, but there is a bug which restricts the use of llPlaySound by HUDs in these areas, and that is the only function I know of which can play sound only for the owner. |
| Public | means that you get private new tweet notifications as above, and also, when making an update, perform a rather demonstrative and noisy display (go here or here to see what this looks like). This is the default, as clearly Second Life does not have enough demonstrative and noisy displays. |
Please note that, by using the TwitBoxSL, you are sending your email and password to my server. I could, in theory, be harvesting and recording all of these, ready to cause a Twitter Holocaust in the near future. I am not doing so and will not be doing so - no information is stored by the script - but this is a possibility which you should be always consider whenever sending any information to a third-party site such as mine.
If you do not wish to run this risk please do not use the TwitBoxSL, or upload my Twitter Control script to your own server and modify the TWITTERPING variable in the TwitBoxSL to point to wherever it is you have it.
If you are passed a copy of the TwitBoxSL from somebody you do not know, I would advise you to inspect the script to see what the TWITTERPING variable is set to. It should always begin with http://ordinalmalaprop.com/twitter/. If in doubt, obtain a new copy directly from me by one of the methods mentioned above.