Really simple Twitter Feed Widget is a free plugin for WordPress, developed by the Whiletrue.it staff to simplify publishing posts from a Twitter account.
This plugin, once given a Twitter account and the correct Twitter Authentication data (used to access Twitter API 1.1), shows the most recent tweets inside a Sidebar Widget.
The following options are customizable:
- Widget title
- Twitter Username
- Number of tweets shown
- Show/hide date
- Optional “Read more” link, using custom text
- Show/hide links
- Show/hide replies links (@user)
- Skip tweets containing certain text
- UTF-8 coding
Breaking news
The old Twitter API version 1 will be deleted on March 2013.
Starting from the 2.0 release, the plugin is based on the new Twitter API version 1.1, and requires you to create a personal Twitter Application on the dev.twitter.com website. Within your Application, Twitter provides two strings: the Consumer Key and the Consumer Secret. You also need two other strings, the Access Token and the Access Token Secret, that you can get following this guide. Finally, enter all the Authorization string in the widget options box, along with your favorite display settings: your Twitter Widget is now ready and active!
You can use the same Authorization strings for several widgets and multiple website. Just remember to store them in a safe place!
You also need to enable the CURL and OPENSSL extensions in your PHP environment.
Download
Download the plugin from the official WordPress website, clicking on the button:
Credits
- The initial release of the plugin was based on previous work of Max Steel (Web Design Company, Pro Web Design Studios), which was based on Pownce for WordPress widget.
- The release 1.2.3 is based on the work of Frank Gregor.
- The releases 1.3.5 and 1.3.7 are based on the work of Jim Durand.
- Translators: Branco, Slovak (WebHostingGeeks.com), Inspirats – French (rysk-x.com)
Hi there,
I recently updated your ‘Really Simple Twitter’ Plugin for WordPress and now it is giving me the error ‘Twitter Authentication Data is incomplete’. I navigated to the Widget setting and at the top it has four blank labels that weren’t there before the update, these being; Consumer Key, Consumer Secret, Access Token and Access Token Secret. It says above these fields ‘Get them creating your Twitter Application here’ but when I click that it takes me to the dev.twitter page where you go to create applications for Twitter.
Help please!
Thanks in advance!
Hi Alastair,
it’s correct. As stated in the Upgrade notice, due to the recent changes in the Twitter API 1.1, our new plugin release requires you to create a personal Twitter Application on the dev.twitter.com website. Within your Application, Twitter provides two strings: the Consumer Key and the Consumer Secret. You also need two other strings, the Access Token and the Access Token Secret, that you can get following this guide. Finally, enter all the Authorization string in the widget options box, along with your favorite display settings: your Twitter Widget is now ready and active!
You can use the same Authorization strings for several widgets and multiple website. Just remember to store them in a safe place!
You also need to enable the CURL and OPENSSL extensions in your PHP environment.
Please note that the new plugin requirements are forced by the new Twitter API 1.1, so you can roll back to the plugin previous version (available here) but expect it to stop working on March 5, 2013.
WordPress started out as something everyone could manipulate now it’s become a developer’s playground. Sorry but what the hell is CURL and OPENSSL extensions – where are they located and how do I enable them? All of this extra stuff really makes me want to find another plugin but I like this one!!! Besides, I have the feeling they’re going to make me go through the same thing anyway.
Hi JXL, in most cases these extensions are already enabled, otherwhise you should enable them through your hosting Control Panel. Please note that the new plugin requirements are forced by the new Twitter API 1.1, so you can roll back to the plugin previous version (available here) or use another plugin but expect them to stop working on March 5, 2013!!
I created a personal twitter application, and after putting in that info, I don’t get any tweets listed, but only the following:
#, 1970/01/01
I do not know if this is due to the above mentioned CURL/OPENSSL issues. I am not familiar at all with CURL and OPENSSL, nor do I see options involving them in my hosting control panel. The twitter feed worked fine before, so is the changes involving CURL and OPENSSL now mandated by Twitter’s API 1.1?
Hi, your issue is not caused by CURL/OPENSSL support: the plugin raises an error when these libraries are missing. Probably in your case the plugin cached corrupted data and keeps showing it; your Twitter account shows fine when configured in our test environments. Please update the plugin (2.0.3 release is out today), enable the new “Erase cached data” option and load your website again.
I updated the plugin, enabled the “erase cached data” option, and no longer see the “#, 1970/01/01″
Unfortunately I don’t see anything at all aside from the title I gave the feed, even after manually clearing the cache and reloading the webpage.
Hi, this is weird! Can you mail me a screenshot of your widget settings?
The latest update seemed to fix the problem.
Thank you!
Last question. I’d like to title link to open a new window. Tried to do it myself but got fatal error. Thanks for the help!
Hi JXL, to to that enable the “Create links on new window / tab” option.
Updated to v2 and it broke my really simple twitter feed. Don’t want to create a fake application ID. Bogus!
Hi felix, I’m totally with you, but I have to be practical! Please note that the new plugin requirements are forced by the new Twitter API 1.1, so you can roll back to the plugin previous version (available here) or use another plugin but expect them to stop working on March 5, 2013!!
Hi,
First of all, thank you for your work
On my website, I use to hard modify the code to include the retweets. Do you plan to include the option in a future version ?
Absolutely!
Hi, I recently upgraded your plugin and now I get a message that says my Twitter Authentication data is incomplete. I followed the steps, but I’m not sure what you mean by “entering all the Authorization string in the widget options box”. Where exactly do the 4 strings go in the code?
Also, how do I enable the CURL and OPENSSL extensions in my PHP environment?
Sorry, I’m pretty new to this and I’d love some help. Thanks!
Hi Rachel,
the plugin now asks you to enter 4 strings in the widget: Consumer Key, Consumer Secret, Access Token and Access Token Secret.
Once you create your Twitter Application here, you get the first two strings. After that, you can get the other two (Token) strings following this guide.
As for CURL and OPENSSL, don’t mind about it, the plugin stops working if they’re missing; in most cases (like yours) they’re enabled by default.
Hey thanks for the quick reply! So I’ve got the code for Consumer Key as follows. Exactly where do I input the Consumer Key token string, and do I need to type in anything else?
‘name’ => ‘consumer_key’, ‘label’ => ‘Consumer Key’,
‘type’ => ‘text’, ‘default’ => ” ),
Hi Rachel, you can do it right inside the WordPress backend manager. After creating the widget in the “Appearance->Widget” menu, enter the Keys inside the first four “Authentication” form fields.
Hi,
I have updated “Really Simple Twitter Feed Widget” and my Twitter feed doesn’t show anymore.
Message is: “Twitter Authentication data is incomplete”.
I have contacted OptimizePress, they advise me to contact you.
Can you help?
Thank you
VM.
Hi Veronique,
as stated on the plugin page, the old Twitter API version 1 will be deleted on March 2013.
Our plugin, starting from the 2.0 release, is based on the new Twitter API version 1.1, and requires you to create a personal Twitter Application on the dev.twitter.com website. Within your Application, Twitter provides two strings: the Consumer Key and the Consumer Secret. You also need two other strings, the Access Token and the Access Token Secret, that you can get following this guide. Finally, enter all the Authorization string in the widget options box, along with your favorite display settings: your Twitter Widget is now ready and active!
You can use the same Authorization strings for several widgets and multiple website. Just remember to store them in a safe place!
I’d like to place the call for this widget directly into my sidebar.php. Is it
Thanks
Great plugin! Thanks for sharing it. I set it up and it works great. However, in the last ten minutes or so I’ve posted two or three tweets on Twitter and none of them are showing up on my website feed. It still shows the same old tweets from earlier in the day, not the new ones. Any ideas what’s going on? Thanks.
I waited a while and now it looks like the feed is refreshing after all. Apparently it just lags behind a bit?
Hi, the plugin caches the Twitter data for better performance on your site (avoids fetching from Twitter everytime) and to respect Twitter API rate limit.
Hi, I’m testing the plug-in on a local dev website. Looks good (your instructions helped greatly, thanks), but caching appears to be affecting the Twitter feed and the only way I’ve been able to get it to refresh is to change and save Widget options. (Refreshing the browser page, opening another page and even opening the dev site in another browser didn’t refresh the feed.) How often should it refresh and is there a way to tweak the caching?
Regards, Robertf
Hi Robert, the cache timeout is set to 30 minutes (for better performance and to respect Twitter API rate limit) but we plan to lower it to 10 in the next plugin update.
Thanks for the response. Perhaps the cache timeout should be configurable in the next plugin update? Otherwise, very happy with it.
v2.0.3 was working for me. Upgrading to v2.0.4 gives me this error:
Fatal error: Cannot use object of type stdClass as array in /home/videobat/public_html/airtightinteractive.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/really-simple-twitter-feed-widget/really_simple_twitter_widget.php on line 267
Hi Felix, it’s a cache issue. To solve it, enable the “Erase cached data” option, then load the frontend site. If everything is good, disable the “Erase cached data” option and reload the frontend.
that fixed it. thanks!
Also – it would be nice to be able to filter out @replies. Usually if you are displaying tweets on a website, you dont want to display tweets that are directed at a single person. Thanks for the plugin!
Hi Felix, this is coming in the next plugin update, stay tuned!
Hi Felix – thanks for updating this plugin for Twitter API 1.1! It’s a big help to site designers everywhere…
One thing I would love to add is just a simple horizontal rule between tweets in the list. Without any divider, the list can sometimes be difficult to read and tell where one tweet ends and the next begins, especially when one ends with a hyperlink and the next starts with a hyperlinked Twitter user’s handle.
Hi Darrin, you may do it with some CSS, like this:
.really_simple_twitter_widget li:first-child { border-top:0; }
.really_simple_twitter_widget li { border-top:1px solid gray; margin-top:5px; padding-top:5px; }
Of course – I don’t know why I was thinking of putting the into the PHP loop of the plugin. Duh. Thanks!
Hello Giuliano! How are you?
I have been using your great WordPress plugin Really Simple Twitter Widget for a while now, and I really like it for its simplicity and because it just works. Thank you very much for it.
I’d like to send you my Brazilian Portuguese translation for it, if you’d like it. How can I do that? I’ve just done it for version 2.1.
Thank you again and regards from Brazil!
Hi Alexandre, you can email me your Twitter widget translation (I just wrote to you my email address), I’ll include it in the next plugin release.
Thanks for your support!
Hello,
Can you tell me the shortcode for this widget? I can’t seem to find it anywhere.
Thanks!
Cool – thanks for adding ‘ Skip replies’!
Hi, I just activated your twitter feed. All went well with the codes etc. but now it shows up in the sidebar with the title and underneath says “Unable to Get Tweets”. Any thoughts?.
Thanks,
Susan
Hello,
I’ve done all the required steps, but all it shows me is ” Unable to get tweets”. Can somebody help?
Thanks.
I hope you can help. I want to be able to make the Title biger and also adjust the font and size of the Tweets
which code would i need to edit
Hi roger, you can insert in your template style.css file some lines like that:
.widget_reallysimpletwitterwidget .widget-title { font-size: 20px; }
.widget_reallysimpletwitterwidget li { font-size: 13px; font-family: verdana; }
Hi, Have read all the bits about how twitter has forced the use of 1.1, so no need to go over that again.
I have follwed the guides, I have the key, both consumers keys and the access tokens.
I just have no idea where to put them.
I do not do wordpress much, but am forced to get into it now.
Completely frustrated ATM.
Please help me.
Hi Mark, in your Admin screen go to Appearance->Widgets, create a new widget dragging the “Really Simple Twitter” button inside one widget area on the right, then a widget config screen will appear asking for the authentication data and other settings.
Alright, I got it !!!!.
Seems there was a problem with the webhost, and everytime I tried to access the widgets it crashed. Walked away for a hour and when I was able to get in I could easily see what I needed to edit.
Thanks very much
Does the plugin work with Twitter list URLs as well as individual accounts?
Hi. I have uploaded your plugin, copy pasted all the keys and tokens requiered. However, no twits are displayed on my website. I just have information Follow me on Twitter (according to my settings). Why is that?
Hi,
Seems the wigdet does not work anymore. All twitter sercrets and tokens are okay but have no displayed tweets. It just suddenly stopped. Will there be an update to fix that? else i have to look for another widget.
I’ve just installed this and entered all the keys but it just says “Unable to get tweets”
Is this a problem with the plugin? Are you working on resolving it?
I am having problems with the Really Simple Twitter feed not updating – it is currently stuck on tweets posted 2 days ago and there have been several since. If I am logged in it shows the latest tweets, but to those not logged in (i.e. my client’s 300 or so visitors a day) they are old tweets. Any suggestions?