It would be great if it differentiated between the types of unread messages (tweets, mentions, messages) similar to how DockStar (http://ecamm.com/mac/dockstar/) works for Mail.app.

Agreed on this idea. I use this feature in many of my Fluid.app instances and it really helps me keep track of unread emails/rss feeds/etc. without the disruption of growl notifications.

whoops! Well I agree for both!

I also thing this would be wonderful for the status bar icon as well (for those of us who disable the dock icon / people who hide the dock)

Fill the icon with the number of unread tweets, like on Adium, Mail...

This needs to be optional tho, especially once Growl support is added since I usually just read the tweets within growl.

Please make this optional, if the number of items gets too large, I just put off opening it. I really like the 'it's blue, there's new stuff to read' rather than seeing "72 NEW TWEETS, get to it".

i think this option is necessary but should be optional

+1 optional

If implemented I would definitely like this feature to be optional. Numbers just have that effect on me of thinking it's another inbox (even if it's stuff I want to do), I like that tweetie isn't like that

agreed!

+1 for this feature - I use dock counts a lot for other apps.

This is exactly what I wanted to suggest myself. Its the only feature I miss from other twitter clients.

I would like this feature to only show a badge for the number of unread direct messages. These tweets are the ones that require my direct attention, and therefore notification is appropriate.

Please make it optional whether to show the number of unread tweets - I certainly would not want to have this displayed as, for me, it is a meaningless number.

also, give an option to start the view from last unread so we don't have to scroll down to read past tweets.

I dont think I would want a count on the dock icon. I dont really like the dock badge, I think that having the purple bit in the dock icon change colour would be cool. Although, then its just the same as the status bar icon.

I wish it would highlight new tweets somehow as well as tell me how many I have.