Shows the tweets from a Twitter account of your choosing. The Twitter building block is a great way of keeping in touch with your fans. It allows them to react to your tweets and/or retweet them directly in the app. The Twitters account in question will follow the design settings of your app.
You can either choose to display tweets from a specified Twitter account or a list of tweets that contain certain buzzwords or hashtags.
Contents
Adding the Twitter building block
- Click on Add block.
- Select the Twitter block and click Next.
- Enter your Twitter name. If entered correctly, you will see a preview of the Twitter page.
- Click Next.
- Fill in the name of the block.
- Click on the icon if you want to change the image used in the menu.
- When you’re done, click Finish.
Configuring the Twitter building block
The "Twitter" building block editor consists of two editing screens; "Settings", and "Designer."
The settings in the "Settings" editing screen determine how your block will function, and the settings in the "Designer" screen determine its aesthetics.
Settings
There are several aspects of your "Twitter" block that can be changed in this screen; the name of the block, the icon (or image) that will be used in the app menu, and the top image for the "Twitter" screen.
Should the need arise to keep the users of your published app from using this portion of the app, then you can always make use of the "Activated" sliding selector.
Slide the selector to "OFF" to keep users from seeing the "Twitter" block. Now you can continue developing your app without worrying about users coming upon areas that you haven't finished developing as of yet. Once you are satisfied with your progress, slide the selector back to "ON" to publish this portion of your app.
You can do several things under the "Account Information" section of the Twitter settings. You can choose to edit or switch the account you're using in this building block or delete it entirely to use only Buzzwords as a search criteria for tweets displayed in your app. Be aware that using buzzwords will ultimately give you less control over what is displayed in your app.
- Using multiple Twitter accounts is possible by separating them with a semi-colon.
- Using multiple buzzwords is possible by separating these with a comma.
- Using accounts and buzzwords at the same time shows all tweets from those accounts and all tweets containing those buzzwords. This may be a lot.
You can also choose whether users of the app are prompted to follow you on Twitter the first time they open Twitter in your app. To do this, slide the "Ask user to follow" option to "Yes."
Design
The "Designer" screen allows your to make highly detailed changes to your building block. "Designer" gives the developer a remarkable amount of freedom to adjust everything exactly as he or she would like it. "Designer" is not available to all users. If you'd like to know more about how "Designer" works, click here.