Embedded Timeline - More customization? (Specifically: CSS customization)

LaxmanRaoVL · 2013-06-17T10:20:54.000Z

 
 
  
	twttr.ready(function (twttr) {
	/*twttr.widgets.load();*/
	window.twttr = (function (d,s,id) {
	      var t, js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
	      if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js=d.createElement(s);
	      js.id=id;
	      js.src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"; 
	      fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
	      return window.twttr || (t = { _e: [], ready: function(f){ t._e.push(f) } });
	    }(document, "script", "twitter-wjs"));
twttr.widgets.createTimeline(
      '346553456301076480',
      document.getElementById('timeline'),
      function (el) {
        console.log("Embedded a timeline.")
      },
      {
        width: '290',
        height: '440',
        related: 'wcngtindia2013,2013Agile',
      	chrome:'nofooter', 
      	count:'true',
      	screen_name:'AgileInBusiness',
      	hashtag:'#2013Agile',
      });
});
</script>

Check this sample widget!!!!!!!

betterleftanick · 2013-06-17T11:46:09.000Z

I’ve also abandoned all support for twitter integration on my designs.

The fact I can’t even edit the fonts is awful enough on it’s own, Plus it now breaks my validation with W3C which is important to some of my customers.

All in all it’s a poor show from twitter.

betterleftanick · 2013-06-17T11:50:30.000Z

Additionally we now need access to each individual twitter account to even use the widget.

This really is a poor show.

Twitter Widget… Stifling creativity.

ukwebdev · 2013-06-17T12:29:09.000Z

I am really surprised by this, the ability to show tweets and keep them in style with the other content of a page seems a fairly simple thing to expect.

I think it is a bad decision, but as it is free then there isn’t much to complain about.

Hopefully someone will find a way to allow more customisation, at the moment i have taken away the feed completely. it looks silly having the same avatar alongside each tweet, and i don’t want to show retweets or replies either.

Boooo twitter, Booo.

OtvosG · 2013-06-17T13:39:05.000Z

FINALLY… manged to get some styles ! huuhh… https://dev.twitter.com/docs/embedded-timelines but frustrating if u have a more advanced style.

Thor_worx · 2013-06-17T14:21:33.000Z

^^^^^ This one is HUGE. My clients should NOT be the ones having to go in and create widgets for me (as their webmaster) to then implement on their sites.

Never mind requiring all of my clients to create developer accounts in order to display their twitter timeline via a WordPress widget.

I’m surprised there is not more discussion about this.

BeckercOCIT · 2013-06-17T15:36:40.000Z

Just want to make sure that the 520px width limit is on your radar and wondering if you might give us an eta on when you will relax it?

We are weighing our options and will wait for a short period to see if this is addressed (while we look into fixing other pain points that were using jquery plugins that chose to ‘toss in the towel’

acharyabhupi · 2013-06-17T19:40:57.000Z

How do i remove the twitter avatar from the embedded timelines?

MadfatterInc · 2013-06-18T19:38:36.000Z

I’m joining the chorus of voices here expressing great disappointment in the way the new API has been implemented. Without resorting to the CSS injections that have been poo-pooed by Ben, we really need a way to customize the font colour and size etc.

I also have two sites that need the timeline to fit into 165px of space which is 15px less than the widget allows and so breaks the design.

There must be 1000’s of websites with broken twitter feeds right now.

longoe · 2013-06-18T19:54:10.000Z

I’ve just implemented the new widget for embed timelines. It’s very frustrating (not to say totally anti-design) to limit the width and the height of the timeline. The only goal achieved is either not to use the widget or get a very very bad looking in the websites.

buccidesign · 2013-06-18T23:44:18.000Z

got some angry client calls over this and now i’m forced to replace an elegantly created twitter timeline feed with the default twitter feed.

thanks for nothing twitter, you’ve possibly lost me a couple of clients.

KamillaCC · 2013-06-19T07:34:02.000Z

I can’t believe, that Twitter did this! It’s always good to update a product, but with fewer possibilities
for the client and simply worse???

Had to remove the tweets from my webpage. Had such a beautiful design before, but I would have to

clear avatars
clear names (not usernames)
change the font size
… and so on.
Don’t know how to do these things without real effort. Was so easy before.

Untill Twitter is able to fix this, I’ll insert my tweets MANUALLY to my page. Really sad. I’m feeling with you professional webdesigners!

AlenaAppian · 2013-06-20T00:59:03.000Z

Can anyone shed light on this? I need to remove the avatars or get rid of re-tweets in any type of timeline…

ulearnuk · 2013-06-20T07:06:48.000Z

API 1.1 continues to be a DEGRADE not UPGRADE
We need sizing, avatar removal, fontsize&colour options added - the current customization features are too crude. Time to get proactive I’d say, we’ve promoted Twitter innovations, now its time to reciprocate please!

StuartArtl · 2013-06-20T12:09:55.000Z

Come on twitter, this is an absolute #FAIL I have clients who use this for announcements on their community sites and they are now all broken. The communities are crumbling as I type. I was also about to use a twitter feed in a large b2b ecommerce website but this has now been scrapped due to poor customisation options. Well done.

StevenCombes · 2013-06-20T15:48:58.000Z

“it’s very important you be aware of the risk and inevitable maintenance burden you’re setting yourselves up for by injecting CSS into the widget”

I’d like to go one step further and say that we should be aware of the risk and inevitable maintenance burden we’re setting ourselves up for by simply using the Twitter widget.

Moving forward I will no longer be implementing Twitter widgets on any sites I build at the risk of eventually finding that I no longer have the ability to style elements to look consistent with the sites I design. I would have (begrudgingly) continued to use the widget if I at least had the ability to recreate the beautifully styled Twitter widgets that my clients were thrilled to incorporate into their websites. The style control left in 1.1 is simply not enough.

The Twitter site itself is a beautiful example of good design practice. Your team has the ability to style it and change it however you feel appropriate - and you do a great job at this. Stripping us designers and developers of our ability to do so on our own (and client’s) sites is hypocritical.

Ben Ward - I appreciate your attention to this community (and thread) to keep us up to date.

revjoeyreed · 2013-06-20T19:36:50.000Z

As a freelancing duffer, I set up sites for churches and non-profits on my own time. I’m not taking business away from developers, because if I didn’t do it, they just wouldn’t have a site.

There are a lot of us folks who are site builders who don’t code and develop in our day jobs.

Twitter’s API fiasco is hitting the amateur developer just as hard, if not harder. We don’t have the time to put into this. None of us do.

No cheers, Twitter.

michaellinder · 2013-06-20T20:26:03.000Z

It’s the absolute arrogance of Twitter that’s most irksome, their “We are Twitter. You shall obey” attitude. Want Twitter on your page? It’s the man’s way, or the highway. Anti-social media, if you ask me.

benward · 2013-06-20T21:38:08.000Z

Hi guys,

This is a really interesting point, and just want you to know that we’re discussing how we might be able to make it better. I agree that the widget set-up/ownership situation when working for a client doesn’t fit great with how our settings are organised.

Honestly I have no idea what kind of graceful solution we’ll come up with, there are a few different ways we could go. But right now it’s noted and on the backlog.

For the time being though, the simplest approach to this situation is to use a third Twitter account: Create a new account for your client’s widget, use that account to create and configure the widget, and then hand over that account and the password for it to the client along with the other site deliverables. That way they don’t need to do the configuration themselves, and you don’t need to own the widget config on your own account.

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.

Ben

oriontransfer · 2013-06-20T22:15:25.000Z

Just woke up and found out our twitter stream isn’t working. Now I’m trying to fix it and banging my head against the wall trying to customise it. We had something really nice and minimal before, but now it is impossible to make it look good. Good work on the “upgrade”, twitter.