matro's dashboard

The tweaks made to this in version 1.1.1 definitely help. This isn't just about what looks better though. It can be a technical issue regarding readability (through as this rebuttal notes, this isn't a black & white issue).

I think what makes this particular case a a bit jarring for me is that the dominant design of this app is dark text on a light background. To have a selected tweet be an inverse of this is visually startling. It's certainly effective in that it draws attention to the selection, but it really does make said tweet more difficult to read.

Again, the changes made in 1.1.1 help, but I think it's also missing the point.

As much as I like having short URLs expanded inline, I think there are merits to not obfuscating the shortened URLs themselves. Seeing people post them is an excellent way to discover new (and better!) URL shortening services.

I also think there's merit to the current UI. Mouse-hover events can be incredibly annoying and will easily get in the way. On-click events, however, will only be triggered when the software unequivocally knows the user's intent. Maybe if the current pop-up interaction model were to happen in the same screen area as Tweetie's main window (rather than in the middle of the screen, where it can get lost on larger monitors), it wouldn't feel so awkward... or maybe if it was an inline "lightbox" kind of pop-up rather than a separate pop-up window?

Expanding tiny URLs inline is excellent (to show at least the target domain), and I definitely like the idea of showing the full and complete URL as a mouse-hover. This could be quite awesome. – matro, on May 04, 2009 21:31

Having been a Twitter-groups junkie for awhile now, here are some of my thoughts...

In certain use-cases, the "multiple accounts" workaround to build follow-groups actually works quite well. An example would be for following any Twitter streams that are one-way streets (such as @woot or a webhost's status notifier). What you get when you do this workaround is a fragmentation of your Twitter identity and conversations, but this really doesn't matter when you're just passively consuming content on a one-way street. If you're following any users that fit this, then suck it up and try the multiple-account workaround. You'll find that Tweetie's UI is creepily good at handling multiple accounts, including in this use-case.

However, I completely agree that some kind of tool for grouping followees in a single account would be a very good feature. That was the only reason I used TweetDeck (which is otherwise a horrible Twitter client), and than Nambu. Depending on how you use Twitter (remember, not everyone uses it in the same way you do!), there is a need out there for splitting the firehose into smaller streams. I like staying sane as much as the next person.

It should be noted that client-side grouping doesn't scale. At all. Tweetie really is an option for a serious Twitter user, @Jim, if they're using multiple computers (and implement the separate accounts workaround), and Nambu/TweetDeck really aren't. Again, it depends how you choose to use Twitter. And I must say from experience that it absolutely sucks trying to maintain group settings across multiple instances of those apps. Now, if a client were to sync such settings between multiple instances, or if Twitter's API & core service supported groups, this wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately, they don't. Until they do, we hack.

That said, I really would love to see @atebits implement some kind of client-side grouping tool in Tweetie until these hacks aren't necessary. I'm very excited to see the UI genius evident across this app be applied to groups, and I sincerely hope this feature is in Tweetie's future.

Subtle is definitely better. It's also worth noting that, especially in a predominantly dark text on light background UI, having a selected tweet be light-on-dark is a little hard on the eyes.

The old highlighting method implemented with higher contrast would be worth trying. Best of both worlds!