The Twitter Tools plugin for Movable Type enables you to easily and automatically share your MT entries on Twitter. The plugin pushes tweets directly to Twitter immediately when entries are published, avoiding the delays of other services. Future versions of the plugin will add additional Twitter integration features.
Post New Entries to Twitter Within Seconds of Publishing
There are a number of free services out there that will automatically share your entries to your Twitter stream. In most cases, these services work by periodically checking your blog's RSS feed for new entries to post. While this works, it means a time lag or delay before new items get posted to Twitter. The delays get worse and more frequent when these services become popular. TwitterFeed has over 1,000,000 users -- because they have so many RSS feeds to check, it can often be a long time before they get around to yours. The Twitter Tools plugin solves this delay problem by pushing the tweets directly from MT, immediately, when the entry is published.
How it Works
The plugin is pretty simple. After installing the plugin, you authorize MT to auto-tweet when new entries are published. After that, every new entry gets tweeted quickly and directly and automatically.
Other optional features include:
- Add a prefix to tweet (such as "New Post:")
- Automatically add hashtags to a tweets for a blog
- Automatically use Entry tags as hashtags
- URL Shortening using the URL shortener of your choice (including Bit.ly, Awe.sm, Supr, YOURLS, TinyURL, and more). (yes, you can enter your own shortener API key and yes, Bit.ly Pro domains 'just work')
Twitter Tools Pro
With Twitter Tools Pro, you get the following extra features:
- Post to both blog and author Twitter feeds at the same time. This is great for multi-author blogs, or if you want to post to both your person Twitter account and to your blog's Twitter account.
- Optional Filters can be used to only tweet entries with specific Categories or Tags
- Optional customized Tweet text for each entry (the default is the Entry title).
- Option to use your own Twitter App, enabling you to customize the "via" text and link shown in Tweet metadata
- More features are work-in-progress, including importing tweets and more.
Template Tags
Twitter Tools includes one new template tag:
- <mt:EntryTwitterShortURL> - Outputs the short URL created when the entry was tweeted (using the URL shortener of your choice). You can use this template tag to display the short URL to your readers and/or integrate it into Twitter share links or Tweet Buttons -- great for analytics, as your readers use the the same short URL as you do. Note: if the entry was not tweeted by Twitter Tools, this tag will output an empty string. This tag also works on PHP-dynamic templates.
Requirements
All required modules are included in the download file for Twitter Tools. See installation steps below.
Installation
- Download and extract the zip file, then upload the contents of the 'plugins' directory into the 'plugins' directory of your Movable Type installation (often /cgi-bin/mt/plugins/).
- Upload the contents of the 'extlib' directory into the 'extlib' directory of your Movable Type installation (often /cgi-bin/mt/extlib/).
- Upload the contents of the 'mt-static' directory into the 'mt-static' directory used by your Movable Type installation.
- Go to the blog-level plugin settings for Twitter Tools and click the Signin with Twitter button to authorize your blog to post to Twitter.
- Return to the settings once again and click the "Auto-tweet" setting to enable auto-posting to Twitter, and adjust other settings as desired.
- (Optional for Pro) Authors can also connect their MT author profile with a Twitter account by choosing the "Twitter Account" item from the left menu of their user profile. Note that entries will be posted to Twitter only if "auto-tweet" is enabled in blog settings for the plugin.
Get Twitter Tools Pro
Get Twitter Tools
Twitter Tools is free for non-commercial use:
Download Now
Downloads: 384
As always, comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome.
Future versions of Twitter Tools may include other integration features such as importing Tweets into a blog and more. Suggestions are welcome.
Follow @mthacks on Twitter for updates and other MT and Twitter hacks.
Comments (51)
Hi-
I've just tried moving over from MT-Twitter to this, but I can't get it to work. I am actually publishing my posts through an external editor (MarsEdit on the Mac), so it doesn't surprise me that posts through the editor don't get tweeted, but at least with MT-Twitter, when I saved the entry through the actual MT web-based settings, it worked fine. With Twitter Tools, this isn't happening. Is there any way to turn this on?
If this can be settled, great. If so, I do have a further suggestion -- it would be useful to have a "tweet this" checkbox on the entry editing screen, like MT-Twitter. Given my workflow, I want to tweet for the initial posting, but not edits. (But perhaps this is related to the fact that my initial posts are not through the web app, as well?)
Thanks in any event!
Andrew
Posted by Andrew Jaffe | September 11, 2010 2:44 PM
Posted on September 11, 2010 14:44
Hi
I just installed the Twitter tool and somehow my links aren't going thru the bit.ly shortner.
Cheers
Tim
Posted by matheus | September 13, 2010 2:42 PM
Posted on September 13, 2010 14:42
I just installed the Twitter tool and somehow my links aren't going thru the bit.ly shortner
Posted by شات دلع | September 18, 2010 7:22 AM
Posted on September 18, 2010 07:22
But perhaps this is related to the fact that my initial posts are not through the web app, as well?)
Thanks in any event
Posted by طيور الجنه | September 18, 2010 7:44 AM
Posted on September 18, 2010 07:44
4.Go to the blog-level plugin settings for Twitter Tools and click the Signin with Twitter button to authorize your blog to post to Twitter
Posted by صور الاغراء جيهان المصري | September 18, 2010 7:54 AM
Posted on September 18, 2010 07:54
it would be useful to have a "tweet this" checkbox on the entry editing screen, like MT
Posted by شوربه وخل | September 18, 2010 7:55 AM
Posted on September 18, 2010 07:55
just installed the Twitter tool and somehow my links aren't going thru the bit.ly shortner
Posted by خواطر 6 | September 18, 2010 7:57 AM
Posted on September 18, 2010 07:57
When I read this web discussion I thought MT Hacks's commenters just have to view this: http://hubpages.com/hub/rent-a-laptop-rentals . I just don't get renting a netbook at all! The fees for renting a notebook even for a couple of weeks is going to charge you as much as just going online and buying the unit!
Posted by Bhanu Tiwari | September 18, 2010 4:59 PM
Posted on September 18, 2010 16:59
why it is not work for me ???
Posted by miumiu | September 28, 2010 11:27 PM
Posted on September 28, 2010 23:27
An error occurs between installation steps 3 & 4 above (I'm using MT 5.031). The error crashes the entire plugin interface. The message is this: "failed loading package TwitterTools::App::CMS for routine TwitterTools::App::CMS::blog_config_template: Can't locate object method "new" via package "JSON::XS""
I noticed that there is an entire /twittertools/app/ subdirectory within the /twittertools/lib/ directory. I tried moving that /app/ directory around, but to no avail.
Hope to see this working soon.
sarudama
Posted by sarudama | October 15, 2010 9:45 PM
Posted on October 15, 2010 21:45
Some really great photos here. I'd never even heard of 8-bit music before so thanks for enlightening me! Jim.
will be fresh in my ears as long as i live.
Posted by شات وناسه دردشة وناسه | October 23, 2010 2:42 AM
Posted on October 23, 2010 02:42
Some really great photos here. I'd never even heard of 8-bit music before so thanks for enlightening me! Jim.
will be fresh in my ears as long as i live.
شات وناسه
Posted by سعودي كول | November 8, 2010 7:31 AM
Posted on November 8, 2010 07:31
Get this message:
Can't use string ("EntryTwitterShortURL: $TwitterTo") as a HASH ref while "strict refs" in use
after installing using the instructions given. When you have a fix, I'd love to know about it.
Posted byPam 
|
November 12, 2010 11:53 PM
Posted on November 12, 2010 23:53
I'd love to know about it
Posted by دردشه سعوديه | November 24, 2010 12:06 AM
Posted on November 24, 2010 00:06
will be fresh in my ears as long as i live
Posted by سعودي كام | November 24, 2010 12:07 AM
Posted on November 24, 2010 00:07
HAW to know about it
Posted by غلا روحي | November 24, 2010 12:08 AM
Posted on November 24, 2010 00:08
I'd love to know about it
Posted by سعودي توب | November 24, 2010 12:09 AM
Posted on November 24, 2010 00:09
know about it
Posted by سعودي كول | November 24, 2010 12:10 AM
Posted on November 24, 2010 00:10
know about it
Posted by دردشه صوتيه | November 27, 2010 8:11 PM
Posted on November 27, 2010 20:11
know about it
Posted by شات صوتي | November 27, 2010 8:11 PM
Posted on November 27, 2010 20:11
know about it
Posted by غلا روحي | November 27, 2010 8:12 PM
Posted on November 27, 2010 20:12
know about it
Posted by سعودي توب | November 27, 2010 8:13 PM
Posted on November 27, 2010 20:13
Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)
Posted by تجنن | December 5, 2010 3:05 PM
Posted on December 5, 2010 15:05
know about it
Posted by منتديات | January 4, 2011 10:03 PM
Posted on January 4, 2011 22:03
Tried to install this, and when I went to login via Twitter, I got this error msg:
"Can't locate object method "default_header" via package "LWP::UserAgent""
Any ideas?
Posted byJoe 
|
January 25, 2011 2:47 PM
Posted on January 25, 2011 14:47
Fixed it - something must have gotten hosed during the upload to the extlib area.
Posted byJoe 
|
January 25, 2011 3:04 PM
Posted on January 25, 2011 15:04
I got it working - it posted a test post to Twitter. I then went and deleted that post. Any subsequent attempts to post don't get posted to Twitter. I double checked the authentication on both sides, it all looks OK, it's just not posting. Don't know why.
Posted byJoe 
|
January 25, 2011 4:03 PM
Posted on January 25, 2011 16:03
I tried again later in the night and I did get one through, so it seems to be inconsistent. can you think of any reason why it's not posting 100% of the posts? Is there spam filter thing, where if you try posting too many in a short period, it blocks them?
Posted byJoe 
|
January 25, 2011 9:59 PM
Posted on January 25, 2011 21:59
Joe, it should post all the entries. However, note that if you delete a tweet for an entry, and then re-save the same entry, it won't tweet it again -- were you testing with the same entry or with new entries? The plugin "remembers" the entries that have been tweeted and won't try to tweet them again, even if they have been deleted from Twitter.
Posted by Mark Carey
|
January 26, 2011 9:46 AM
Posted on January 26, 2011 09:46
Hmm.. Yeah, the tests were mostly the same. I changed them somewhat (making the title different by one word or something, but the body was the same). I'll try and keep an eye on that going forward and see what it does.
Posted byJoe 
|
January 26, 2011 10:00 AM
Posted on January 26, 2011 10:00
mensaje informativo y enriquecido con una gran cantidad de información de calidad que me ayudan mucho.
Posted by Newport Beach Refrigerator Repair | January 31, 2011 6:52 PM
Posted on January 31, 2011 18:52
Sauber! Der Beitrag ist wirklich sehr hilfreich. Hab ihn soeben zu den favoriten hinzugefügt. Besten Dank Auf wiedersehen
Posted by Martina Meier | February 7, 2011 5:56 AM
Posted on February 7, 2011 05:56
Sauber! Der Beitrag ist wirklich sehr hilfreich. Hab ihn soeben zu den favoriten
Posted by كلام | February 8, 2011 1:57 AM
Posted on February 8, 2011 01:57
Jo bin auch der Meinung! Macht weiter so.
Posted by Reisefreak | February 10, 2011 9:10 AM
Posted on February 10, 2011 09:10
Jo bin auch der Meinung! Macht weiter so.
Posted by شات الجنوب | March 1, 2011 2:07 PM
Posted on March 1, 2011 14:07
Sosyetenin zayıflama sırrı olarak gündeme gelen Altın Çilek dünyanın lif oranı en yüksek meyvesidir. En yakın rakibinden 3,5 kat daha fazla lif içeren yapısı onu dünya zayıflama sektörünün gözdesi yapmıştır. Bu lifli özelliği sayesinde net bir tokluk hissi sağlamakla birlikte en önemli özelliği vücuttan su kaybetmeden, kasları değil yağları hedef alarak kısa zamanda yüksek ve sürekli kilo kaybı sağlamasıdır
altin çilek
Posted by altin çilek | March 4, 2011 7:52 PM
Posted on March 4, 2011 19:52
What do you guys think is the top Twitter tool? Tweet Attacks is probably awesome, but I haven't tried that yet.
Posted by Jane Drozdowicz | March 8, 2011 7:58 AM
Posted on March 8, 2011 07:58
I will have to go back over it but I hope it helps, trying to create a site but so hard to get anyone to find it when they don’t know who you are
Posted by onlineticketspot | March 9, 2011 7:53 AM
Posted on March 9, 2011 07:53
Tried to install this, and when I went to login via Twitter, I got this error msg:
Posted by الخيال | June 9, 2011 9:49 PM
Posted on June 9, 2011 21:49
will have to go back over it but I hope it helps, trying to create a site but so hard to get anyone to find it when they don’t know who you are
Posted by مشاهدة افلام | July 10, 2011 12:04 PM
Posted on July 10, 2011 12:04
Looks cool! Wish it came in IE or straight Chrome.
Posted by سعودي كام | July 29, 2011 6:16 AM
Posted on July 29, 2011 06:16
can't wait for this in Chrome! I'll never go back to IE or Firefox!!
Posted by Paintless Dent Removal Dude | August 29, 2011 7:34 PM
Posted on August 29, 2011 19:34
Using it in Chrome would be great, I stick to Firefox right now but using IE is a big NO from my side.
Posted by Paintless Dent Repair | September 26, 2011 7:33 AM
Posted on September 26, 2011 07:33
OK ONOIK
Posted by سعودي انحراف | October 27, 2011 2:14 AM
Posted on October 27, 2011 02:14
OK NAWAFFFF
Posted by دلعني | October 27, 2011 2:15 AM
Posted on October 27, 2011 02:15
ok nawaf
Posted by دلعني | October 30, 2011 8:12 AM
Posted on October 30, 2011 08:12
Thanx this great work !
Posted by Anlık Borsa | November 11, 2011 7:38 PM
Posted on November 11, 2011 19:38
Looks cool! Wish it came in IE or straight Chrome.
Posted by افلام اون لاين | December 5, 2011 9:59 AM
Posted on December 5, 2011 09:59
Fixed it - something must have gotten hosed during the upload to the extlib area.
Posted by افلام اجنبية اون لاين | December 5, 2011 10:01 AM
Posted on December 5, 2011 10:01
For some reason - it doesn't seem to shorten my URL with bit.ly. Any idea why? Is the plugin obsolete or am I doing something wrong? Do I need a Bit.ly Pro account or something?
Posted by Neil | December 23, 2011 8:13 PM
Posted on December 23, 2011 20:13
I just installed the Twitter tool and somehow my links aren't going thru the bit.ly shortner
Posted by Bodrum Rehber | December 25, 2011 2:45 PM
Posted on December 25, 2011 14:45