Chronicon starts by showing the public timeline of messages on the configured service. The default service is http://api.twitter.com. You can change this to match your preferences, see the Network section of Configuration.
There are two login methods available in Chronicon. Which one you use depends largely on your service provider. Most StatusNet providers use Basic Authentication, while Twitter prefers OAuth.
Basic Authentication asks you for a user name and password. Enter those from your microblogging service. Be aware that Chronicon does not store your password.
OAuth is "An open protocol to allow secure API authorization in a simple and standard method from desktop and web applications", according to http://oauth.net. How secure and how convenient it is remains for history to decide, as this is a fairly recent standard. It also remains to be seen how many versions of this standard will arise.
Chronicon supports OAuth with the login_type configuration item.
When in oauth mode, selecting Login from the Start/Stop menu brings up a Web Login window. In this window, enter your user name and your password for the microblogging service. Check the contents of the window to make sure it is the right service.
You will need to grant access to Chronicon on the web page in the Web Login window. Read the instruction in the window, and on the web page displayed inside.
Note that Chronicon does not store your service password. Whatever you enter on the web page in the Web Login window goes to the service provider.
After you have authorized Chronicon to access the service, you will be given a PIN. Chronicon will try to read the PIN on the authorization response. You can also copy the PIN from the web page reply, and paste it into the Your PIN field on the Web Login window.
Auto Login uses the authentication from the last successful OAuth login. Be aware that this information could have expired as a policy of the service provider. Also, if you have logged in using Chronicon from another computer, or from another phone, the authentication may be outdated.
Click on the avatar image of a message in the timeline to get the Status Item detail window.
You can send new messages by typing them in the text input field above the timeline list. The input field will expand when you start typing.
You can also click on the Type button before you start typing.
To send the message as typed (except for automatic link shortening, see below), click on the Send Update button.
Microblogging services impose draconian limits on message sizes (typically 140 bytes) while otherwise being quite liberal with the use of bandwidth. Because of this, shortening links has become popular, and many services are available help.
Chronicon supports automatic link shortening using one of these services available at http://bit.ly. If you want automatic link shortening, you need an account there. At the time of this writing, these accounts are available at no cost. See the Shortening Service section below.
A more generic configuration, supporting arbitrary shortening services, is planned for a future release.
Selecting email composes an email message consisting of the current message in the Status Item window, and hands it to your email program. You can then supply a destination email, and edit the message body and subject in your normal email client.
You can re-tweet a message exactly as it is, or send your own message based on the content of the current message in the Status Item window.
You can send direct messages to the sender of the message you are viewing in the Status Item detail window. Note that not all users allow direct messages to be sent too them.
You can save messages as text. Chronicon makes up a file name based on the sender of the message and the message id. You can of course change that name.
You can only delete your own messages. Note also that a deleted message will not dissapear right away from your local timeline view - Chronicon shows status items as it found them, not as they are currently in the server databases.
You can change how Chronicon behaves in several ways.
The savedir item contains the directory where the last saved message was written. You can change this so that the next time you save a message, the dialog will start in a particular directory. However be aware that saving a file will set this item, to the directory that you saved the file in.
The service item contains the web address of the microblogging service used. The default for this is http://api.twitter.com/1. Note that this is more than just a web site address, there is a trailing path portion. All of it needs to be correct.
The Shortening service setup is currently done by providing two configuration items, which you obtain from the http://bit.ly service:
bitly_user is the user name at the shortening service
bitly_key is the user identification key
You can change the Qt window style used for Chronicon to match your taste, or to match what is available on your system.
The timers section of the Configuration contains these values:
The pollperiod item allows you to change how often Chronicon checks for new messages. The value is expressed in milliseconds. So a value of 180000 means that 180 seconds will pass between successive pulls of the service. Note that polling faster than once a minute is usually not useful, unless you have a special service provider that updates very fast.
The notifydelay item allows you to change how long a notification popup stays on your desktop. The value is expressed in milliseconds.
There are several configurable items in this category. Keep in mind that these items are used only for displaying things within Chronicon. Nothing in here affects messages that you send out.
HTML/CSS style settings can be cryptic, so be careful what you change here. Slight misspellings in keywords will cause CSS to ignore what you did. Forgetting to close brackets can affect styled text that is completely unrelated to what you are trying to do.
This section contains configuration items useful for the OAuth web login function.
The User Agent String field useragentstring is what tells the service website what kind of formatting to use for the authorization web page. The default setting suggests to use formatting for a mobile phone, which uses a conveniently small window.
To build and run Chronicon, the current version uses:
C++
Gcc
Qt4.6 or later , including these parts:
Xml
WebKit
Network
Gui
qca2 — a Qt module providing cryptographic services
qca-ossl — a plugin providing openssl support for QCA2
If you are trying to build Chronicon from source, you will need the devel version of these modules. Some Linux distros can be very slow in making current versions of modules available.
Applicable local and export laws may affect which cryptographic tools you can use.
It’s pretty straightforward. Please read the README file that comes with the source code.
This is free open source software, hence the usual licensing. And the usual warranty, or lack thereof:
Copyright © 2010 Bernd Stramm All Rights Reserved