I am working on a Twitter Client right now. But I am not working on some Twitter Client – I am working on the ULTIMATE Twitter Client! Right? Well sort of… however we need to define what “ULTIMATE” means in this context ;-) Ask a thousand people and you will probably get thousands different answers. For example here is Guy Kawasaki’s wish list – which by the way is pretty good!
So let’s rephrase this: I am designing the ultimate Twitter Client for Windows which first and foremost I would like to use. And it depends on how far I can push it as a spare time project… Anyway here is the concept:
The main goal for the application called SharedMinds Desktop is to integrate different communication and productivity tools. It will be designed with extensibility in mind and in future come with it’s own plug-in system. However the focus of the first version will be about Twitter integration only:
a) Main Menu
The main menu can be used to show / hide the Tweet view and Twitter Search. It allows interacting with Tweet commands like Reply, Retweet etc.
b) Tweet View
It should be possible to select one account or multiple accounts for “cross account tweeting”. I somehow can’t write without spell checking anymore… So spell checking support will be there right from the beginning! Clicking on “Shorten URLs” will shorten the Tweet URLs all at once.
c) Navigation
Use the navigation pane to … well … to navigate!
d) Account Filter
If you have multiple accounts configured you can select if you like to see Tweets from all accounts or from a specific account only.
e) Different Views
You can view Tweets in different ways: Tweet View, List View, Photo List etc.
f) Tweet Rendering
URLs, #hashtags and usernames should be rendered as clickable hyperlinks.
g) Sorting and Filtering
It should be possible to sort and filter by all visible columns.
h, i) Tweet Preview Pane
The tweet preview pane can be either shown on the right, bottom or it can be turned off. For each URL, #hashtag and username a tab will be added automaticcally and the referenced web page, picture, video, twitter search or user profile is just one click away and can be viewed right there. Pretty cool!
j) Twitter Search
Use the easy to use search editor to construct your Twitter search queries. New search queries can be saved and existing ones can be modified.
k) Organize Searches
After saving your search query it will get a default name and appear as a new node under the search folder. From there you can rename it, change it’s icon or put it into a category folder of your choice.
l, m) List View, Photo List
Twitter Search can be used even without a Twitter account. So there is no account filter for twitter searches.
By selecting List View or Photo List you will be able to customize the view in different ways: apply groupings, filters and choose the columns you like to display. For example it will be possible to choose from a number of different columns: Name, Text, Date, Bio, Friends Count, Followers Count etc.
n) see above.
That’s pretty much it. I hope I can provide a first preview with some of those features in a couple of weeks. You can follow me on Twitter for updates: http://twitter.com/RainerFalle
How does your Ultimate Twitter Client look like? Which features would you like to see?
Tags: design, programming, SharedMinds, twitter, usability Related posts