Removing or enhancing LoudTwitter posts on your Reading page

[matgb]

I like Twitter. It's nice, quick and effective, and allows for quick thoughts or short public discussions that can crossover with others. That there are MPs sometimes sat in the House of Commons listening to debates and reading Twitter means I can, if necessary, pass information on nice and easily. Not done it yet, but it might happen.

I also like sharing links and stuff on Twitter, and having my Twitter posts (but not replies) transfer to both my Facebook status and as daily digests. As I'd just stopped doing linkspams and can't be bothered to fix the code, I'm temporarily doing all my links through Twitter as well, it suits me.

I like reading others Twitter digests, ported through LoudTwitter, on my friends listReading Page. I personally dislike it when they're cut, as it stops me doing a quick scan and I'm not likely to open the cut text up as it takes too long. If I don't want to read, I can scroll past.

Given that I like having LoudTwitter posts on my friends page, I've added some code to my journal to make them look a lot better than the default. This is Good.

But I also know that some people, poor misunderstanding types that they are, dislike seeing Twitter posts, completely. Given that some people seem to insist on crossposting all their Tweets, including their halves of ongoing conversations that make little sense, I can understand this, but it's better to just get such people to turn off the option of importing replies, as redatt explains.

But, for those of you that really don't want to read Loudtwitter posts on their friends page, and for those of you that want to enhance the Loudtwitter posts that appear on theirs, I thought I'd share some code.

My enhancement code:
.loudtwitter { background:#000000; colour:#dddddd; -moz-border-radius: 10px; -webkit-border-radius: 10px; border-radius: 10px; list-style: square; } .loudtwitter li { padding-bottom: 5px; border-bottom: 1px dotted; } .loudtwitter li em { color:#ee5; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; } .loudtwitter li em:after { content: "- "; }
And some removal code if you really want it:
.loudtwitter { display: none!important }
Note, I coded it in twenty seconds, it's a simple CSS trick, it only removes the list of tweets, not the whole post, and it was really easy.

To use either, all you need to do is go to CustomCSS on LJ or DW and copy/paste it in
http://www.livejournal.com/customize/options.bml?group=customcss
http://www.dreamwidth.org/customize/options.bml?group=customcss

For those of you that have got into the habit of cutting your tweet imports because some friends wanted it? If they don't want to see them, link them here. Because I'd much rather see them, and helping everyone make their tweets look pretty makes sense to me. Anyone that wants the colours changed to suit their background, feel free to comment.

Comments

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

Perhaps if one feels the need to blog about one's twittering, well, maybe?

Love, C.

[matgb]

Oh, I metablog constantly, the way it all works intrigues me. Plus, people sometimes pay me to know this sort of thing so this sort of post counts as an advert ;-)

[cyprinella]

Much thanks for these!

[emurphy42.livejournal.com]

I linked to this post from here (http://zenith.homelinux.net/software.php), not that I expect that page to have a huge audience.

[matgb]

Heh, there's some good stuff on there—I like the look of uppity. Static incoming links are cool. Not that I actually need the googlejuice these days, but they're still cool.

[autumnyte.livejournal.com]

Came across this on friendsfriends. Thank you very much for sharing these codes. Going to link on my LJ.

[freddiefraggles.livejournal.com]

I like twitter and I like LJ. I don't see the point in putting one onto the other and vice versa. However, it's not so hard just to scroll past, really.

[matgb]

I started using Twitter as a replacement for sms_to_lj which I overused at times. SMS posts while travelling were fun, but too many of them was OTT.

I still prefer it for small thoughts and similar, and it's either tweets or nothing a lot of the time at the moment—the current fuss over Twitter as a site of itself bemuses me, I prefer it as an app that interacts with other sites first and foremost.

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

*knows what the scroll button is for*

[js84.livejournal.com]

I'll give the enhancement code a try when I've got the time. The bullet point format of Loudtwitter looks terrible on my current LJ style.

You could probably also use friend list filtering on Loudtwitter posts if certain people didn't want to read them, but that would have to be effort on the part of the twittererer and not the other way round.

[matgb]

I want my posts to be public. I've never created a posting filter based on people not wanting to read my stuff, it's who I'm comfortable reading it that matters.

If people don't want to read, then the page down button is their friend. If they don't want tweets on their friends page, then they can get rid of them easily. I chose what I read, and I choose who can read what I write.

If it's something some people might find triggery or offensive, I try to cut it, that's then their choice, not mine.

[js84.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the code. The CSS made it look a bit like your LJ but I easily changed the colours.

I've found that while you can turn off replies to other people in Loudtwitter, it still posts tweets if you were the one to start the conversation with them. It would be better if there was the option not to show any tweets that began with the '@' symbol.

[hel]

An option for those who use loudtwitter and are getting complaints (and care about the complaints) might be to LJ cut their loudtwitter posts. It's easy to set up in loud twitter, just put an open cut tag in the 'text before tweets' settings box, and a close cut tag in the 'text after tweets' settings box. screenshot of it here. That way, whatever gets shipped is lj cut, meaning that people who complain about it are being much more unreasonable. (Even tho I ship my tweets, it's still frustrating to have to scroll past several pages of other people's shipped tweets! Especially when it's people I already follow, so I already SAW ALL OF IT! *smile*)

[matgb]

Yup, it's an option.

One I hate, hence I prefer it if people don't want to see tweets they can turn them off. I like just scrolling past friends posts scanning for stuff I missed or links I didn't follow, if it's behind a cut I never bother opening it.

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Very much.

I'm afraid I'm not of the class of people who feels reading Twitter on LJ is a Good Thing, but good luck with convincing people!

[vortex.livejournal.com]

Ditto!

I hate Twitter!
But, then...I said that about Myspace and Facebook as well a few years ago. Now I have accounts on both and I am addicted to myspace apps and facebook chat.

I am bombarded constantly with needless/useless bits of information 24/7 and for this reason I need to scale back and stop adding new stuff, like twitter.

To the OP;
Does your loudtwitter removal code work with the "original" LJ styles?
If I remember correctly, one can't edit css on the original S1 styles, only on S2 or later...

[vortex.livejournal.com]

ps.

I followed a link here from my friend valiskeogh's -) Post (- (http://valiskeogh.livejournal.com/1169602.html)...

[matgb]

I've never used S1 I'm afraid, and have no idea how it works--you need to be able to insert some CSS code, if you can't use CSS, this won't work, but I think there's a way of putting CSS into the overrides, I wouldn't know how.

As it happens, since writing this I've stopped porting my tweets publicly as I've started using the sites differently, I really like Twitter as an essentially public chatroom for when I'm online, but don't really like to 'catch up' on stuff that much, although I do read friends tweet imports if they're doing stuff like linking to posts they've made elsewhere, etc.

I probably need to do an update of this post with some new stuff, the new reading filters on Dreamwidth will berather nice for tagged Twitter posts.

[starry-diadem.livejournal.com]

God, I love you! Other people's Twitters were driving me mad.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

THIS IS THE AWESOME - THANK YOU!

[wyldkyss]

I'll be testing the enhancement, thank you :)

[matgb]

Wow, someone wants the enhancement code? Yowsers. So many many people linking to this post all after the removal code, I was getting depressed. I eam, the enhancement code took effort, the removal code is basic CSS 101.

LMK if you need help with any of it, my /*comments*/ tend to never actually happen.

[wyldkyss]

On a related note, is there a trick to configuring LT over here or are the rumors about it not working on DW currently true?

[matgb]

I haven't actually tried yet—it should work fine if you post by email (which I do to get all the settings), but it might have some problems with the posting API, they're redoing them so they actually conform to standards, but there're some issues apparently.

Trillian's new play, kitthez, AND Tweetmurder

[pingback-bot.livejournal.com]

User kylecassidy referenced to your post from Trillian's new play, kitthez, AND Tweetmurder (http://kylecassidy.livejournal.com/508873.html) saying: [...] having switched from Firefox I lost the Greasemonkey app that automagically deleted twitter posts. Well, Matgb has cleverly figured out a way for you to collapse twitter posts on any browser by customizing your LJ style sheet. It takes 20 ... (http://matgb.livejournal.com/354073.html?format=light) [...]

for friends and enemies of Twitter

[pingback-bot.livejournal.com]

User ironymaiden referenced to your post from for friends and enemies of Twitter (http://ironymaiden.livejournal.com/440457.html) saying: [...] of real time only see what *you* wrote without the contextless replies.) go, lovers and haters, and enjoy (http://matgb.livejournal.com/354073.html?format=light). [...]

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

this is fantastic! i am spreading the word, if you don't mind. thank you so much for figuring this out! :)

[pixelene.livejournal.com]

After googling to find your entry, I found your entry (and some of the responses) very helpful. Thanks!

Would you or any of your readers know of any special code to make LoudTwitter entries friends only without making my whole journal friends only?

(And yes, I do realize that Twitter entries are public anyway.) ;)

[matgb]

Yes—post by email then use the email shortcodes at the top, I currently have mine set to an opt in filter. The shortcodes are all in the LJ FAQs somewhere.

[cesy.livejournal.com]

Do you happen to know if either the custom CSS or the post-by-email trick for security settings work on Twittinesis?

[matgb]

No idea, to both--haven't been online much this last month, have barely seen any Twittinesis posts and my attempt to set up an account there to test failed.

I know it did work for one set of posts I saw, but that was for someone who likes to tweak a lot, when I get back in the mood I'll see if I can play around a bit more.