Android: Interfacing with twitter applications

Below are some code snippets for sending messages to twitter from your application by utilizing a twitter application.

The following code will create a new intent(a request to android for something to happen) for the twidroid application and pass it the message we wish to send. It is important to set the type of the intent as it will fail without it (from at least android 1.5). It will then start the activity and we use a try/catch encase twidroid is not found.

	Intent intent = new Intent("com.twidroid.SendTweet");
	intent.putExtra("com.twidroid.extra.MESSAGE",
	"@stealthcopter Example tweet from android application");
	intent.setType("application/twitter"); 
	try {
		startActivity(intent);
	} 
	catch (ActivityNotFoundException e) {
		/* Handle Exception if Twidroid is not installed */
		Toast.makeText(this, "Twidroid not found.", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
	}

But what if someone has a different twitter application installed? this can be solved by offering the user a choice of application to open.

	Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
	intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT,
	"@stealthcopter Example tweet from android application");
	intent.setType("application/twitter"); 
	try {
		startActivity(Intent.createChooser(intent, null));
	} 
	catch (ActivityNotFoundException e) {
		/* Handle Exception if no suitable apps installed */
		Toast.makeText(this, "No suitable apps found.", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
	}

By combining these two solutions we can make the choice dialog only pop up if the system cannot find the twidroid application. This can be then taken even further by asking the user if they wish to visit the market place to install a twitter application if none is found.

   new AlertDialog.Builder(WordCube.this)
   .setTitle("Get Twitter")
   .setMessage("No twitter Application not found. Goto market and install one now?")
   .setIcon(R.drawable.logo)
   .setNegativeButton(R.string.dialog_no, null)
                   .setPositiveButton(R.string.dialog_yes, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
                public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int whichButton) {
                	intentMarket("market://search?q=twitter");
                }
            })
   .show();

Where intentMarket() is defined a to open up the market and search for the specified application passed to it as a string.

public void intentMarket(String url){
	Intent i = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW); 
	Uri u = Uri.parse(url); 
	i.setData(u); 
	try {
		startActivity(i);
	} catch (ActivityNotFoundException e) {
		toastMessage("Market not found.");
	}
}

Below shows two screenshots from the wordcube application. This application is avaliable for android, see here for more information and download link (or visit market on your android device).

Update: This is now taken into a complete function in this post.