Just a day after releasing 1.7.0, I present the DestroyTwitter 1.7.1 Beta update. It fixes a handful of bugs that occurred in the previous version. I’m happy to say they were fixed quickly and easily, hence the fast turnaround. I also added a couple features like the Remember login credentials preference. Restart for the update and enjoy!

Last month, I spent a good two weeks flying to Chicago, San Francisco and New York City, meeting with Leo Burnett, Adobe, and Google. Leo Burnett showed interest for their Energy Pool, Adobe for their Experience Design (XD) team, and Google for their Creative Lab. Throughout each meeting, I soaked in as much as I could about each group and ultimately decided to join Adobe.

Working with Adobe, I will develop Adobe AIR apps full-time. I will work out of Baltimore for this next year, flying out to SF from time to time, and then take the trek out to the west coast. I am incredibly excited about working with Adobe and am ecstatic that I’ll be able to continue working on my applications.

But there’s more. Adobe is in the process of licensing DestroyTwitter. This means I’ll be working on the app full-time with the support and resources of the company. Not only that, I’ll be working on other exciting projects at the same time. Since DestroyTwitter is the product of free time between school and work, I can only imagine what it will become with considerably more focus. Stay tuned.

Since fixing the Twitpocalypse bug in DestroyTwitter 1.6.4 Beta, a new problem has arisen regarding notifications—they aren’t showing up. This is only for some people, so it might not be happening to you. If it is, you can correct the issue with a simple text editor. Go into the Documents/DestroyToday/DestroyTwitter folder. Inside that is a folder with your username. Inside that is a notifications.xml file. Open it, and change all the values to zero (0). If you have the issue, some values, if not all, will be NaN. Save the file and open DestroyTwitter. Here’s what the final file should look like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<mostRecent>
	<home>0</home>
	<replies>0</replies>
	<messages>0</messages>
	<groups>0</groups>
	<search>0</search>
</mostRecent>

I put in a request for Twitter API whitelisting last night and was greeted with this email today. There are a few ideas/features I need to test heavily and 20,000 API calls/hour should suffice. Mr. Tweet pointed me to a new set of Twitter API methods that are still alpha, but certainly show a lot of promise. I’m thinking there will be a DestroyTwitter update sometime this week. It all depends on whether I can get this one major feature finished in time. I’m keeping this one close to the chest, but it’s a goody. Stay tuned.

There’s just a small update to DestroyTwitter today. A number of issues needed be sorted out sooner than later, so here we go. Before I get to the fixes, I added yFrog and TinyURL support. I had the extra space for another URL shortener and TinyURL keeps it oldschool. I’m also introducing a new feature called Restore, which inserts a tweet that was lost via close or escape into the Compose panel. There’s also now a Clear button in the Compose panel as well. I fixed the “=” URL linking issue and “http://http://” issue with Digg and migre.me URL shorteners. I also fixed the “newer” paging issue and the dismissal of Exclude keywords. That’s honestly all of it, so go out and get to updating. And if you like using DestroyTwitter as much as I like developing it, please donate and show the love.

I decided to squeeze in this last update before leaving for Aruba. It fixes the four bugs found in 1.6.1. Those bugs include the infamous “Older” bug, links including “?” and “:” (MobyPicture), Flickr URLs with hyphenated usernames, and the URL Preview appearance. I’ve also added a last minute feature, migre.me support. Enjoy it, amigos!

Download the update here.

I’ll be graduating in about 5 hours, but I’m taking this time to release the most recent build of DestroyTwitter. My family and I have “five tickets to paradise—pack your bags, we’re leaving” the day after tomorrow! Anyone who watches The Office will understand that one. We’re heading to Aruba, which means no technology allowed. I’m excited, to say the least, because I haven’t had this sort of break in a long while and the timing couldn’t be better. DestroyTwitter 1.6.1 Beta fixes many, many, many bugs caused by the last release. At the same time, it includes a handful of new updates.

One of the biggest improvements this time around is the new Groups UI. I really wasn’t happy with what I had designed before. It wasn’t as thought out as the rest of the app, so it needed to change. This new UI splits the panel in two to make room for keywords. The lists of both the users and keywords have scrollbars, so readability now stands a chance.

I’ve also added the much requested hotkeys to Groups. To open the Select Group panel, use command+G (Mac) and control+G (PC). To open the Edit Group panel, use command+shift+G (Mac) and control+shift+G (PC). While editing a group, shift+U prompts the Quick Friend Lookup to add friends and shift+K opens the keyword prompt to add keywords. Since the previous release, I changed the “G” hotkey, which adds the user of the selected tweet, to shift+G. There’s currently an AIR bug with OS X that triggers the “G” key when command+tab is used.

Regarding scrollbars, the Quick Friend Lookup is now equipped with one. Selecting friends couldn’t be easier. This also helps Groups because you can simply arrow down the list of all users and hit enter on the ones you want.

I love in-app image viewing in DestroyTwitter. I love it so much that it’s now extended to Flickr, TweetPhoto, MobyPicture, yFrog, img.ly, and Radar. As more and more services allow grabbing photos through their API, I’ll be sure to add them all.

While we’re talking about Services, I added the Digg URL shortener as well as TweetPhoto and img.ly.

This last feature is a favorite of mine. Whenever you have the URL of a Flickr photo in the clipboard, DestroyTwitter will automatically shorten it to Flickr’s flic.kr address. This gives everyone so much more room to work with and hopefully encourages the use of Flickr—one of my favorite websites.

Finally, onto the list of fixes and B-list features. Many Groups bugs were fixed, including the ones preventing more than 20 users and randomly adding the user to the group. I fixed the reply action in the Notification window for direct messages as well as the inability to save your own tweets. A few new hotkeys have been added, including command+[ (Mac) and control+[ (PC) for older, command+] (Mac) and control+] (PC) for newer, and command+shift+] (Mac) and control+shift+] (PC) for most recent. The CPU usage in DestroyTwitter is greatly improved, now using 4 levels of speeds to optimize responsiveness while in the foreground and soundly sit idle while in the background. The “event:url=” copy to clipboard bug has been fixed and link highlighting has been improved. Lastly, words prefixed with “$” link to Stocktwits.com.

That’s all there is. I’m off to graduate, but if you want to contribute and help me pay off my tuition bills, feel free to donate. Every penny is much appreciated.

Today is finally here and I couldn’t be more relieved. DestroyTwitter 1.6 Beta is complete and available to download. It’s been weeks in the making and through nonstop testing for the past few days. The most requested feature of DestroyTwitter’s lifetime is here, Groups.

Groups joins the workspace aside Search and Saved. It runs off the Home canvas, so any tweet retrieved by Home is inserted in the Groups database. Because of this, Groups can be paged through instantly without using any API calls. Clicking the “Groups” header or plus sign next to it prompts the Select Group panel. Clicking the group name prompts the Edit Group panel.

The Select Group panel is initially empty with the option to create a new group. Clicking “create new” starts a new group and prompts the Edit Group panel.

Here you can rename the group and add/delete users. All group editing occurs in realtime. This means anytime you add or delete a user, the canvas refreshes to show the change.

Instead of entering usernames by hand, you can add a user to the current group by pressing the G key with a tweet selected.

To make way for the Groups canvas, I condensed the Messages and Sent canvas into one, single-stream canvas. This saves both memory and API calls.

Rules have been greatly improved to allow combining Include or Exclude with Links. Keywords have also been added to allow any word or phrase to be either included or excluded. This works for literal words and phrases as well as regular expressions.

Finally, multiple image services are now available in the Preferences canvas. Because TwitPic can be unstable at times, Twitgoo, Posterous and Mobypicture can be used instead.

This release brings many new features along with a handful of bug fixes. I hope everyone enjoys it. I’ve had a great time developing DestroyTwitter and it’ll be nice to sit back for a while. I’m graduating in two weeks, so until then I will be hard at work, finishing up my time at MICA. If you love DestroyTwitter as much as I love making it, feel free to donate. It will certainly help pay the tuition bills.

Today marks the launch of DestroyTwitter 1.5.3 Beta. The previous release was rushed as a result of Twitter changing their API without notifying anyone. Because of that rush, the release wasn’t tested thoroughly and contained a few bugs. This update fixes a lot of those issues and adds a handful of new features. Be sure to take a look through the changelog to see a list of fixes.

In 1.5.2, I introduced a custom window chrome. Since then, I’ve added a drop shadow to the window and made the chrome a preference. It’s disabled by default, so if you liked it from before, be sure to enable it.

Two new features that I’ll be using a lot relate closely to links. Because I needed to create a custom protocol for links without http, right-click-copying resulted in a url prepended with “url=”. To avoid this and make copying a link twice as fast, shift-clicking any link will automatically copy it to the clipboard. Along with that is a feature I’ve been meaning to introduce for quite a while. Alt-clicking (PC) or Option-clicking (Mac) previews a URL before opening it in the default browser. This is especially handy for shortened URLs.

In 1.5.2, I transitioned from is.gd to tr.im. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, tr.im decided not to work, rendering in-app URL shortening useless. As a result, I add a preference to choose between tr.im, bit.ly and is.gd in case one fails.

That’s about it. There is a long list of fixes, so be sure to check them all out. And, as always, if you love using DestroyTwitter as much as I love developing it, feel free to donate.

Exactly one week after launching DestroyTwitter.com alongside DestroyTwitter’s ability to install custom themes, the theme count has surpassed 200. I couldn’t be happier with the response to this new feature. The themes being designed are awesome. Some of them make me have second thoughts about using the Destroy Today theme! If you haven’t checked out the site yet, get over there right now. It’s filled with downloads, news, and, of course, themes! Also, take check out the full-size theme collage.