Jul 09 2009
Posting to Twitter from Flash using Tiny Url
I had to find a way to post a link to twitter directly from Flash. Twitter has its own API but then they expect us to collect username and password.
If you don’t want to collect usernames and passwords on your site and still manage to post stuff to twitter directly there is a way to do. Since I wanted a tiny url link included as well so had to integrate Tiny Url along with twitter.
It turned out to be really easy and here is how,
import flash.net.navigateToURL;
import flash.net.URLLoader;
import flash.net.URLRequest;
import flash.net.URLLoaderDataFormat;
shareBlog.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK,postToTwitter);
function postToTwitter(event:MouseEvent):void{
tinyLoader.load(new URLRequest('http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=http://nayansavla.com/blog?p=253' ));
}
var tinyLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
tinyLoader.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.TEXT;
tinyLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE,gotTinyURL);
function gotTinyURL(event:Event):void{
trace(tinyLoader.data);
var reqString:String = 'http://twitter.com/home?status=Check this out ' + encodeURIComponent(tinyLoader.data);
navigateToURL(new URLRequest(reqString),"_blank");
}
The first thing is to get a tinyurl link and they have a api for it, the best thing is they also have a crossdomain.xml so we don’t have to worry about getting the response back within Flash.
Since it returns just the url, I have set the dataFormat for my URLLoader to be text so that it gets stored in the data property and i can use it directly.
Now when we get our tinyurl back its time to post it to twitter. Twitter API doesn’t mention this one possibility where you can submit any message as a post var and the main page captures it, if you are already logged in then it will populate the share screen.
Its a neat little way, if you don’t want to deal with usernames and passwords on your website.
The swf file is embedded above, if you click this button then we call tinyurl, get the link and then open a new window for twitter. If no window opens, it might be because of popup blocker. To avoid popups from Flash i have written another post, Avoiding Popup Blockers
Download the fla file here.
exactly what i was looking for!
but the link to the download is:
http://http//nayansavla.com/uploads/flash/twitterupload/example.fla
so people cant download it
Hi Glenn,
thank you for pointing it out to me. its fixed now.
Nayan
Hi!
I´m Nany, flash developer from Netestudio, a Brazillian internet agency. And I want to tank you so much for you help!
I hope I could help you some day…
Thanks!
Hi Nany,
I am glad this post was useful to you.
Regards,
Nayan
The reason your having problems with popup blockers is because you’re calling navigateToURL from a function that isn’t a MouseEvent. An easier way to avoid popup blockers would be to simply perform the get tiny url prior to user interaction, store the new url in a variable and then use the new url when the user clicks the button.
thank you for sharing.
however its doesn’t work with “&” character in the url. any idea ?
regards
Chian
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