-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 45
Built in commands
Speaking of commands, there are also some oysttyer internal commands
you can use. All internal commands start with /. If you enter a bogus
command, oysttyer will complain at you instead of tweeting it, which
cuts down on mildly useless but enormously entertaining tweets like
/quot and /refrehs. If you really want to send a tweet that starts
with a slash, just double slash it (e.g.,
//the ants are my friends/they're blowing in the wind/) and the double
slash will be made a single slash and passed on.
Most commands have a quick abbreviation, which is given in parentheses. Some commands are asynchronous, meaning that you can do stuff in the foreground while the background process does the work, but most are synchronous and will hold your console temporarily until the task is completed.
Commands with a (+) let you specify an optional "count" parameter,
like so: /again +40 oysttyer The count parameter is a request (which
the server is free to ignore, btw) for that number of results, be it
tweets, usernames or whatnot. You may not get that number of results,
but you will never get more than that number. Please note that the
more you request, the harder oysttyer has to work to process it. In
practise it is not advisable, and in fact likely not possible, to fetch
more than a couple hundred.
Menu codes can be replaced by a Twitter tweet or DM ID, if you know it
(for fun, try /dump 20). Since DM IDs can overlap with regular tweet
IDs, put a d before the DM ID to disambiguate it.
Not all commands work or are fully supported in earlier versions.
/help (/?)
Displays mad-k001 ASCII art. Oh, and a quick list of commands, secondarily speaking.
/set [key] [value] (/s), /push [key] [value],
/add [key] [value], /padd [key] [value], /del [key] [value],
/pop [key], /unset [key] (/uns) and /print [key] (/p)
Allow setting and printing of command line options at runtime. Not all
command line options can be changed. For more about this, see
Command-line options. Whereas /set sets the actual
value, /add appends to the existing value (and for multi-set values,
adds an appropriate delimiter if required).
If you type /print by itself with no key, the (visible) settable
values are displayed.
With boolean values, /set [key] and /unset [key] set the key to 1
(true) or 0 (zero) respectively. You can use /unset on other options,
but it sets them to a null string, which may not be desirable.
/push /pop allow you to sling values onto a temporary stack. /push
acts like /set, except it pushes the current value on the stack;
/pop brings it back. /padd is the same thing, only analogous to
/add. This is very useful for long values like -filter, which can be
very annoying to edit.
/del removes all occurrences of the value from that key, including
delimiters if necessary. There is no /pdel, but you can push and then
delete if you like in two steps.
/refresh (/r)
Thumps the background process to do another update for new tweets right
away instead of waiting for the next one scheduled. If you are in
-synch mode, this is automatically done every time a tweet is posted.
If you have a very busy timeline or a lot of friends, Twitter may only
give you a partial list, though this is generally not a big deal until
you start following a good thousand or more or are watching the public
timeline. If nothing new is available, the background process will
politely tell you so. (/thump is a synonym since I keep typing it.) If
you have streaming enabled, this command is a lot less
useful, and you will be mocked.
/again (/a) (+)
Displays the last thirty tweets from your timeline, even old ones, along
with refreshing the most recent results from keywords and hashtags you
may be tracking (if any). If you use the -backload option, you can get
more than that by default (but be careful! - see Command-line
options), or you can use a +count. Also see the username
and listname forms.
/again [username] (/a [username]) (+)
Displays the last twenty tweets for user username (sans braces, of
course). If the user doesn't exist, or is protected/otherwise not
available to you, you will get an error message instead. Also see the
form with no arguments and the listname form. This command is
synchronous and the foreground process will pause until the tweets are
received or timed out.
/whois [username] (/w [username])
Displays the Twitter "vital statistics" for the specified user,
including number of people they follow and are followed by (f:),
number of updates (u:), real name, location, description, URL and
image/picture, along with (if you are not anonymous) if you already
follow this user and if this user follows you. Their URL, if they have
one, is loaded into the variable %URL% so you can substitute it in a
tweet (see command history and substitution below), /shorten it, or
open it with /url.
If you specify a filter with -avatar, then the URL for the user's
picture is passed to the specified shell command to operate upon it,
including saving it, opening it in a window somewhere else, or even
converting it to ASCII art. See Command-line
options for more. This command is synchronous and the
foreground process will pause until the data is received or timed out.
/wagain [username] (/wa [username])
Combines /again followed by /whois (yes, the name is out of order,
but it sounded better than /againw).
/follow [username] and /leave [username]
Follows or unfollows a username (/unfollow also works).
/doesfollow [user1] [user2] or /doesfollow [user]
(/df [user1] [user2] or /df [user])
Tells you if the first user follows the second. If you just use one screen name, then yours is substituted for the second (telling you if that user follows you).
/followers [username] (/fos), /friends [username] (/frs) (+)
Displays users who follow you or whom you are following, by default twenty. If you specify a username, then that user is queried instead. Also see the listname form.
/block [user] and /unblock [user]
Blocks or unblocks a user (you are prompted to confirm the former).
/dm [username] [message]
Sends a direct message to the specified user. See the section on direct messaging below.
/dmrefresh (/dm by itself)
Thumps the background process to do another check for direct messages right away instead of waiting for the next one scheduled. See the section on direct messaging below.
/dmsent (+)
Displays DMs you've sent. Because DMs don't contain threading information, this is not threaded.
/dmagain (/dma) (+)
/again:/refresh::/dmagain:/dmrefresh
/replies (/re) (+)
Displays your last twenty @ replies, mentions and old-style RTs. This
may be affected by your Twitter account
notifications settings.
This command is synchronous and the foreground process will pause until
the replies are received or timed out. If you specify -mentions
and/or have streaming enabled, then replies and mentions are
mixed into your timeline automatically, even from users you don't
follow, making this command unnecessary.
/reply [menu code] [tweet] (/re), /replyall [menu code] [tweet]
(/ra), /vreply [menu code] [tweet] (/vre), /thread [menu code]
(/th)
This set of commands respectively replies directly to a tweet or direct
message using threading if possible (the first using conventional
replies, the second a conventional reply to everyone mentioned in the
tweet, the third using a publicly visible reply a la
".@twitterapi Twitter API roxx"), and the last displays the thread a
tweet is part of (if any). See the sections on tweet selection and DM
selection below.
/delete [menu code] (/del)
Deletes a tweet (only your own tweet -- nice try) or a direct message. See the sections on tweet and DM selection below.
/deletelast (/dlast)
Deletes the last tweet (that is, the most recent tweet) you posted
during this session. This doesn't work for direct messages nor carries
forward from session to session, in case you have a habit of posting
incorrectly targeted death threats and then quitting oysttyer (in that
case, use /delete against said bogus tweet).
/like [menu code] (/li), /unlike [menu code]
Favourites or unfavourites a tweet, respectively. See the section on tweet selection below.
/favourites (/faves, /fl) (+)
Displays your most recent favourite tweets. This command is synchronous and the foreground process will pause until the data is received or timed out.
/favourites [username] (/faves [username], /fl [username]) (+)
Displays someone else's most recent favourite tweets. This command is synchronous and the foreground process will pause until the data is received or timed out.
/retweet [menu code] (/rt), /eretweet [menu code] (/ert),
/fretweet [menu code] (/frt), /oretweet [menu code] (/ort)
Retweets a tweet (direct messages, wisely, not allowed). /retweet uses
a NewRT (unless you append to it, or -nonewrts is set). If you want to
edit it, /eretweet loads the tweet into the special substitution
variable %RT% which you can use at the beginning or end of your next
tweet; and good old fashioned /oretweet just sticks on RT @username:
as an old style retweet and sends it right away. If you really like the
tweet, then /fretweet will favourite it for you at the same time as
you retweet it. See the sections on tweet selection and command
history/substitution below.
/rtsofme (/rtom) (+)
Displays tweets of yours that other people have retweeted through the
NewRT system (different from the old manual retweets), and you can query
individual retweeters of those tweets with /rtsof. Old-style "manual"
RTs are seen by the Twitter API as mentions, and can be seen with
/replies. This command is synchronous and the foreground process will
pause until the tweets are received or timed out.
/rtsof [menu code] (+)
Displays who retweeted that tweet. This can be any tweet, not just the
ones you brought up with /rtsofme. Only NewRTs work for this.
/lists, /lists [username], /list [listname] (+)
Displays your lists or the lists of the specified user or who's on the specified list. See List management and list timelines.
/again [listname] (/a [listname]) (+)
Displays the most recent statuses of members of that list, whether it is yours or a public list. See List management and list timelines. Also see the form with no arguments and the username form.
/liston [listname], /listoff [listname],
/autolists [list of lists] (/alist)
Sets lists that are automatically queried and mixed with your timeline
(either one by one, or [/autolists] en masse). See List management
and list timelines.
/withlist [listname] [verb] [arguments] (/wl)
Runs subcommands on a list. Used for creating, editing and removing your lists. See List management and list timelines.
/listfollow [listname] (/lfollow) and /listunfollow [username]
(/lunfollow)
Follows or unfollows a list. This only marks you (or unmarks you) as a follower; it does not actually add the list to your timeline. You do not have to be following a list to add it to your timeline, but IMHO it's courteous to the list owner.
/listfollowers [username] (/listfos), /listfriends [username]
(/listfrs) (+)
Displays lists who are marked as following you or whom you are marked as following, by default twenty. If you specify a username, then this is relative to that user. See also the next command.
/followers [listname] (/fos), /friends [listname] (/frs) (+)
Displays users who are marked as following the specified list or whom the list is following, by default twenty. Also see the username form.
/search [query] (/se) (+)
Queries the Twitter Search API, as if you had typed it into the box on
search.twitter.com, and displays the
most recent results. See the section on Search API
integration below. This command is synchronous and the
foreground process will pause until the data is received or timed out.
/track [keywords] and /tron [keywords], /troff [keywords],
/#[hashtag], /notrack
Keyword and hashtag tracking (respectively: set your keywords, add a keyword, remove a keyword, shortcut for adding a hashtag, and cancel all tracking keywords). See the section on Search API integration below.
/trends (/tre)
Asks Twitter for the most current trending topics. Displays them as
/search and /tron commands (qq.v.) you can simply cut and paste to
execute. See the section on Search API integration below. If
you provide an optional WOEID number as an argument, or your default
WOEID is set with the -woeid option, then local trends for that WOEID
are fetched if available (otherwise global trends). This command is
synchronous and the foreground process will pause until the data is
received or timed out.
/woeids
Displays the WOEID codes corresponding to your location, as set with
-lat and -long (see the Geolocation API section).
/dump [menu code] (/du)
Dumps out the internal structure and metadata for the tweet referenced
by the specified menu code (which, if only stored in oysttyer's backing
store, may omit fields irrelevant to oysttyer). You can also view
information such as creation date, source and Geolocation API
position data, and is particularly useful for people who want to grab
URLs to individual tweets as the URL for the specified tweet is placed
into %URL% for additional use.
/entities [menu code] (/ent)
Dumps associated entity URLs with the tweet or direct message specified,
allowing you to see what that t.co link is cloaking. Unfortunately,
this is often another shortened URL, but there's nothing oysttyer can
do about that (if we queried the shortener, this would necessarily leak
to the shortener that the URL is being probed). This also can grab media
URLs, if there are any.
/url [menu code]
Opens the URL(s) specified in the tweet or direct message indicated by
the selected menu code, according to the current -urlopen option. See
the sections on tweet and DM selection below. If you don't specify a
menu code, then the current value of %URL% is substituted (you can
also use an arbitrary URL if you like). Note that the t.co versions of
these URLs are opened, in accordance with Twitter TOS (see the -notco
entry in Command-line options).
/short (/sh)
Shortens a supplied URL (by default using the is.gd
service, but may be compatible with others). The new shortened URL is
displayed and you can substitute it at the beginning or end of
subsequent tweets using %URL% (see command history and substitution).
If you don't specify a URL, then the current value of %URL% is
substituted.
/versioncheck (/vcheck)
Pings the floodgap.com server (this one!) to see if you are using the
most current version.
/!
Allows you to enter a shell command from within oysttyer. This is run
with whatever Perl thinks your shell is (inside system()); for
example, /!ls displays the contents of the current working directory.
Remember that this opens up subshells (on purpose), so you can't change,
say, an environment variable this way and expect the Perl running
oysttyer to see it.
/history (/h)
Displays the last set of commands entered (see Command history and substitution below).
/me
For the IRC freaks. Simply echoed as a tweet, /me included.
/clear (/cls)
Clears the screen, either with an ANSI sequence or printing linefeeds.
/ruler (/ru)
Prints a "ruler," 140 characters wide plus the size of the prompt, as a convenient visual aid.
/eval
I'm sorry, this command is classified.
/quit (/q)
Leaves oysttyer. Pressing CTRL-D or CTRL-C will also do this. It's
preferable to use this command (or those keysequences) to exit oysttyer
because if you kill the console process outside of oysttyer, the
background process may not get cleaned up and will have to be killed
separately. /exit and /bye are synonyms by popular request.
/quit immediately stops anything running in the background, including
pending requests for new tweets or DMs. If you want to wait for these to
complete, use /end (/e).