Spaz: Customizable Twitter Tool

With Twitter as a tool for social blogging and a fact of web life for others, tools such as Spaz help make Twitter more accessible. Built with Adobe AIR and easy to install (very), Spaz is an open source Twitter tool letting you communicate and track on the popular social platform. It works with Mac, PC, and Linux and has the ability to work in concert with Identi.ca and Ping.fm. Now, let’s take a closer look.

Following the quick download and sign in, Spaz will open up on the desktop in a minimal black box with a large panel in its center. Seven navigational icons are on the top for the various functions of Twitter, and a grey button reading “Spaz” will be on top. That’s all there is to Spaz, but it’s all we’ll need. We’ll enter our Twitter account details through the wrench and hammer icon to get started. This is also where we can enter our details for other services (like Identi.ca), and make customizations to the application, but before we talk about how much we can customize Spaz, which is a lot, let’s get to the main function of Spaz.

Spaz is, despite all the bells and whistles that an open system offers, about communicating. So starting from the first icon on our left (several orange speech clouds atop one another) we can open our Twitter timeline. This is where all of our posts show in sequence. The button beside this one (a single speech cloud), gives you a list of all the tweets you’ve sent, either as a reply or a post. The button following that (an globe icon) is the public timeline. As Twitterers know, the public timeline is where it all happens - it’s the main screen where all the feeds of people in Twitter appear as they are written - on a timeline. With Spaz the timeline appears longer than it does with Twitter, in a long line of posts extending down the page with buttons to mark tweets as favorites or reply, either by direct messaging (only private to that person) or openly(for the world to see). Next to that is a button in the shape of a magnifying glass for searching Twitter. The search function, powered by Summize, looks for both name and keywords, and returns fifty of the latest results from that search. To the right of the magnifying glass button are icons with and eye and person with a hat, which are quick links to Friends and Followers, respectively.

So far what we’ve seen are only slight differences in function between the website Twitter and Spaz, yet Spaz has more to offer. Through a range of keyboard shortcuts, any function that calls for a button or click is as easy as a keystroke, including reloading, and making text bold and italic. This is useful for the heavy user, reducing the time necessary to be active in the network. That in of itself would be enough for some users, but the customization options with Spaz are also enticing. Spaz is open source, which means that it is as customizable as your expertise allows. One of the most accessible ways to modify it is through CSS, a style guide for the Spaz engine. Utilizing CSS you can change the dimensions, presentation, fonts, and colors of Spaz so that it is exactly how you would like. Since some users may not be comfortable coding style sheets for the application, the Spaz website has some drop in codes for customizing, including an attractive checkerboard layout that puts all of the tweets in a checkerboard rather than the list.

The downside to Spaz is that has not been made with the novice in mind, and the most interesting customizations may be beyond reach. In addition, there are features that are not as easy to find, such as the url shortner and toggling tweets not directed at you are hidden under the Spaz button menu. When looking at a timeline, rolling over a person will give you a box with all the details you would want (including a clip of their last post), but there is no way to follow them from inside Spaz. Instead Spaz opens your browse and sends you to Twitter itself. These are relatively small problems, and Spaz’s quick performance and steady updates (it updated in the middle of this review) make it a useful tool for the heavy Twitter user. To find Spaz or applications like it try the Listio search Twitter+desktop.

Previously in this series: What is Twitter? An Explanation Of Microblogging
Next in this series: Twitterific: Twitter Client For Mac

Application: Spaz
Listio Profile: http://www.listio.com/web20/app/Spaz/
Website: http://www.funkatron.com/spaz

Spaz is a Twitter client that lets you post, reply, track, and find the Twitter traffic you're addicted to. It's also open source, which means that not only is constantly improving, but it is highly customizable. Through CSS, code, or the settings, users can make the Twitter tool they want with Spa... Learn more

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Tags: communicate, css, customize, desktop, microblog, post, tools, Twitter
Posted in: Twitter Tools | Respond
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