Due to the simple API of Twitter, the world has seen a huge number of applications being written for it, ranging from simple applications that will just post and show tweets, to applications that guzzle the public timeline and apply all sorts of fancy algorithms, generating very interesting results. Today, we’ll have a look at something on the simpler side, choqoK. Currently at version 1.0 alpha, this is a pretty recent application, and has been adding a lot of features since it was released for the first time in late December, 2008.

A micro-blogging client, it includes support for both Twitter and Identi.ca. Also, being a native KDE application, it behaves really well with the KDE4 desktop, unlike the Adobe AIR applications which I’ve been using till now. As a result, all the KDE goodies like global keyboard shortcuts, configurable to your taste and universal settings are a part of the user experience. The best thing that I discovered about this application, is it’s ability to post the track that I am listening to currently, to either Twitter or Identi.ca. Press a shortcut key, and it brings up a nice dialog box which contains track information. The format of the tweet is customisable, and we can include custom hashtags. In the dialog box, you can add your comments if you want, and hit Enter. Bingo, your current track info is posted! :smile: Also, thanks to the recent Twitpic integration, any tweets which contain links to Twitpic posted photos will automatically pull in photos from Twitpic and show thumbnails of the images :smile:

There are however, a few glitches, because of which I am still sticking to my current Twitter client, DestroyTwitter.

  • Though there are a few keyboard shortcuts, there still arent any to traverse the timeline, cycle through the tabs and do quick replies/retweets. Absence of keyboard shortcuts really slows down my Twitter experience, which is the reason why I prefer DestroyTwitter over other applications.
  • I could not get choqoK to get more than 20 tweets at one time, even though there is a setting which allows me to change this value. The Twitter API allows upto 200 tweets in one request, and is a setting that I am used to now.
  • The last major issue I have with choqoK is that I can see only tab at a time (either the home or replies or the dm inbox/outbox). This means that I have to continuously cycle through the tabs, with a mouse, which is really not efficient according to me. I’d prefer a full screen option, similar to DestroyTwitter or TweetDeck or other clients.

Hence, my issues with choqoK are really just more features that I’d like to see soon in the client. As this is a very recent application, which is under rapid development, I’m gonna keep a close watch on it, and will report the latest changes to the interface.  :smile: Do give it a try!