New Pre-Alpha of Twitter App Polly Available

By , Published October 4, 2011

A new pre-alpha release of multi-column Twitter application Polly has been made available for download. 

“What’s that Green bird icon?”

Polly, which was named by OMG! Ubuntu! readers, is one of the more capable Twitter clients around for Linux despite the apps’ ‘Pre-Alpha’ badge.

Aside from supporting a multiple accounts and a variety of multiple columns/streams, Polly also offers: -

  • Selective account tweeting
  • Image/media uploading
  • Messaging Menu integration
  • Collapsable entry box
  • ‘Context’ view for conversations

And a whole bunch more.

One of my favourite ‘features’ of Polly is that ‘Retweet/Fave/Reply’ buttons are hidden by default; one just needs to hover over a tweet to reveal them.

How to install Polly in Ubuntu

To answer the title above: you shouldn’t. Polly is in active development and should not be considered stable. Only those with insatiable appetites for the latest bleeding edge apps should attempt to install it.

Ubuntu 11.04 and 11.10 users/testers can grab the latest development snapshot of Polly by adding and installing from the ‘Polly Unstable’ PPA: -

  • ppa:conscioususer/polly-unstable

After adding the above PPA to Software Sources, update, search for and then install ‘Polly‘ from the Ubuntu Software Centre.

Related posts:

  1. Schizobird Twitter App Renamed ‘Polly’
  2. Help Choose A New Name For Linux Twitter App ‘Schizobird’
  3. Schizobird – An Ubuntu Twitter Client Optimized for Multiple Accounts
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  • Anonymous

    Anyone got any crackers?

    • Anonymous

      I think she wants some water

  • João Paulo Braga

    Really good, we need a twitter client that works! :)

  • Anonymous

    Pollytastic

  • Conscious User

    Those with EVEN MORE insatiable appetites for the latest bleeding edge apps can try the daily PPA: ppa:conscioususer/polly-daily.

    Thanks for the article, Joey! Though it’s always sad when a mystery ceases to be a mystery. :)

    • zekopeko

       That “Attach Media File” dialog is anemic. Add more spacing around it, make it bigger. Maybe a nice little thumbnail once you’ve selected the pic. Also, “Provider and Path” should probably be “Upload/Post to” and “(Media ) file” or something similar.

      Cheers.

      • Conscious User

        Thanks!

        I like the thumbnail idea. Don’t know if I can do it for videos in a desktop-agnostic way, though.

        • http://forteller.net/ Børge / forteller

          How about drag n drop?

          • Conscious User

            It’s on the list.

        • http://www.corbindavenport.com/ Corbin Davenport

          Is it GTK3?

          • Conscious User

            Not yet, as I was developing during this awkward transition stage and using GTK3 in Natty had some annoying quirks. Will port as soon as I can.

          • Akshat Jain

            Good luck! You will need it very much.

    • http://twitter.com/marcusklaas MarcusKlaasDeVries

      I still refuse to learn what that green bird icon is. Keep the mystery alive, I say!

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeremy-Newton/512458865 Jeremy Newton

        What icon? The green bird? What does that have to do with this article, there’s no green bird in this article!? ;)

  • Bart Willemsen

    The bird just got a bit greener.

  • Sashin Ranasinghe

    Well if it isn’t the little green birdy everyone’s been talking about…

  • http://claimid.com/el-bhm bhm

    Twitter. TV 2.0. More news and garbage you don’t need or care about.

    • http://twitter.com/toxicbits toxicbits

      Depends on whom you follow

    • Akshat Jain

      “Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?”

      • http://claimid.com/el-bhm bhm

        Touche!

      • http://claimid.com/el-bhm bhm

        Touche!

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_YPICAM36WORNHGBRFLV6JORLR4 Tristan Williams

    Polly is AWESOME 

  • Nick Beirne

    I think I saw the green bird icon.

    • https://launchpad.net/~rafalcieslak256 rc

       That’s it. I’m switching to Arch™.

      • Anonymous

        No worries, Polly is already there too.

        • Conscious User

          Are you serious or joking here?

          A volunteer packaged Polly for Fedora, but I don’t know if someone packaged it for Arch.

          • Anonymous

            Serious. http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=52911

          • Conscious User

            Thanks for this info, I wasn’t aware of it at all.

          • Ray Boyer

            May I have a link to the fedora package please?

          • Conscious User

            I was sent this link, but I’m not sure what you should do from there. I’m not a Fedora user:

            http://repos.fedorapeople.org/repos/vinz/polly/

        • https://launchpad.net/~rafalcieslak256 rc

           Guys, I don’t care whether it’s there or not. Just quoting another meme.

          • Conscious User

            I know, but chadberg got me curious.

          • http://twitter.com/marcusklaas MarcusKlaasDeVries

            Seriously though, how does OMGUbuntu manage to get THE GREEN BIRD icon in every article, except for the about THE GREEN BIRD itself O_O

  • http://twitter.com/ryanmacnish Ryan Macnish

    I tried Polly after its name got changed, i thought it was a rather good client back then and i still do, but it just had some bugs that needed ironing out at the time, probably the most annoying one was that it didnt like the Unity Launcher at all. Once a solid stable release gets put out i will give it a good try though.

    • Conscious User

      Did you report any of those bugs?

      And “didn’t like the Unity launcher” is quite vague, can you elaborate?

      • http://mark-y-a.myopenid.com/ Marky

        Probably that launcher bug where the app icon is just a blank. I get this sometimes but a relog fixes it.

        • Conscious User

          First time I hear of this, actually.

          Can you give more details?

          • http://twitter.com/ryanmacnish Ryan Macnish

            Basically, if i chose to keep Polly in the launcher, sometimes it wouldnt do that, sometimes it would but it would add an extra icon of itself and neither would be clickable. Very erratic behaviour.

          • http://twitter.com/ryanmacnish Ryan Macnish

            Basically, if i chose to keep Polly in the launcher, sometimes it wouldnt do that, sometimes it would but it would add an extra icon of itself and neither would be clickable. Very erratic behaviour.

  • solly ntila

    Oh yes I do remember the Green Bird, it is Polly

  • http://twitter.com/jokerdino Barneedhar

    Only two Twitter clients for Ubuntu are really up to the mark. One is Polly and the other is Hotot. The newest version of Gwibber is way better than previous ones but still fall short of perfection. And don’t get me started on those bazillion other Twitter clients. Both the clients I mentioned have their own niche market: Hotot for real time feeds and Polly for multiple accounts support. KTHXBAI

  • http://twitter.com/jokerdino Barneedhar

    ~Please delete this accidental double post~

  • http://twitter.com/pampueror Pablo Ampuero

    Can I use it with other twitter-like networks, like Weibo, for example?

    • Conscious User

      I have plans to support other services, but only after the Twitter support is complete.

      • http://forteller.net/ Børge / forteller

        Would you please consider adding support for StatusNet (mostly used on identi.ca but can be installed on any server) even before you’re 100% contempt with your Twitter support?

        Why? Because SN is Free/Open Source, built on Open Standards, and has a Twitter compatible API. That means that the only thing that needs to be changed to make your code work with SN is to allow the user to enter the API root URL manually. That’s it.

        It’s just as important, if not more, to support and make it possible for people to use FOSS online as off. With so many clients only supporting Twitter and so few supporting FOSS microblogs it’s very hard to choose to use anything but the almost monopoly.

        Thanks! :)

        • Conscious User

          I will probably have to decline this request, as features are already taking more time than I wanted.

        • Ms. Polly

          The good news is hotot, turpial, gwibber, and heybuddy support identi.ca.  :)

  • Anonymous

    Or just use tweetDeck with adobeair which already does all this plus more? 

    • Conscious User

      Sure, why not?

      It’s all a matter of personal taste.

  • http://twitter.com/noushisubs chriz

    Oh I like it! Suggestion: give it a shortcut on the keyboard for faster opening/closing.

    • Conscious User

      The window has Ctrl+w for closing, and the compose box has Ctrl+n for opening/closing.

  • Anonymous

    I love how a story is written about the green bird, but the green bird itself is inexplicably missing.

    • Anonymous

      Why can’t people just call it Polly? This “green bird icon” meme is getting old.

  • http://www.corbindavenport.com/ Corbin Davenport

    I don’t know what the deal ism but Gwibber has issues posting to my Twitter account (@corbindavenport:twitter). It posts updates to my Buzz and Identi.ca accounts, but not Twitter. I’m using Ubuntu 11.10 beta 2 with the latest updates. Can anyone help?

  • Bilal Akhtar

    What’s that green bird icon? I really want that app, would install it JUST for that icon. Can anyone tell me what it is? pl0x!

  • http://twitter.com/aneeshep aneesh

    sdsdsd

  • http://twitter.com/TJLEJEUNE TJL

    Finally, a story about the green bird icon.

  • http://abdallah.cc Abdallah

    I like it ,
     

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