Monitter for DotNetNuke
Oct
29
Written by:
Joe Brinkman
10/29/2008 1:51 AM
During the last couple of months as we were finalizing details for DotNetNuke OpenForce, I have been working on a Silverlight module that would allow visitors to the OpenForce website to see a real-time feed of Twitter posts related to the conference. In the past this would have been done by using HashTags.org. The problem with HashTags is that it requires users to remember to use the ‘#’ prefix to their terms. It also requires twitter users to follow the @hashtags user. Both of these requirements limit the usefulness of the service. What I really wanted was a way to monitor anyone on Twitter who was talking about the conference.
My first attempt with Silverlight quickly ran into technical challenges. Between cross domain requests (XDR) and the indexing/filtering challenges plus the requirement to have twitterati follow another “special” user, it just seemed like the project would never be complete. Nor would it achieve the critical mass needed to make such a service valuable.
Well, even while I was working on my solution, Twitter went and bought out the major Twitter search service – Summize. Summize provides a real-time search service for the twitter feed that allows you to see exactly what people are talking about. Twitter wasted no time in integrating Summize which can now be found at search.twitter.com. The Summize search service not only provides a great website for searching twitter posts, but it also provides a simple, yet powerful API as well.
Yesterday I had the fortune to stumble across the Monitter.com website which leverages jQuery to provide access to the Twitter search API. This is exactly what I was looking for. I took the Monitter widget, made a few tweaks and wrapped it in a DotNetNuke module. I did this to simplify installation and configuration for DotNetNuke administrators.
I dogfooded the module on the OpenForce website for the upcoming North American conference in Las Vegas. Now that all the obvious bugs have been worked out, I have uploaded the module to the DotNetNuke Forge. The Forge is a frontend for CodePlex that allows DotNetNuke users to quickly find DotNetNuke modules without requiring DotNetNuke to actually host the project management infrastructure. You can download the initial release from the Monitter For DNN page on CodePlex.
7 comment(s) so far...
re: Monitter for DotNetNuke
I just downloaded it. I am sure this module is supported in DNN 4.09 and Cambrian, but is it supported in prior versions? Which ones?
By Will Strohl on
10/29/2008 7:03 AM
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re: Monitter for DotNetNuke
There is very little "DotNetNuke" related code here so it should work in most DotNetNuke versions that support the ClientAPI and WSP modules.I would be surprised it didn't work in all 4.4 versions and beyond, but don't quote me on that. It has only been tested in 4.8.4 and 4.9. I am likely to create a separate 5.0 version so that it uses the new jQuery support rather than duplicating insertion of jQuery on the page
By jbrinkman on
10/29/2008 7:09 AM
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re: Monitter for DotNetNuke
Great module Joe! Just installed it on www.erikvanballegoij.com
By erik van ballegoij on
10/29/2008 7:25 AM
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re: Monitter for DotNetNuke
oh... and for a next version might be nice to have some skinning :)
By erik van ballegoij on
10/29/2008 7:26 AM
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re: Monitter for DotNetNuke
@Erik - I definitely agree. I have emailed the original Monitter author who has some additional enhancements on his site but which weren't part of the widget. For now you have to resign yourself to modifying the module.css.
@Will - As for Cambrian, I am seriously thinking about creating a Skin Widget wrapper so that you can just use a simple object tag and won't need a settings page or anything else. Embed it in a skin or drop it in an html module. It'll just work.
By jbrinkman on
10/29/2008 7:47 AM
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re: Monitter for DotNetNuke
Nice module! We've added it to our main site: http://www.eguanasolutions.com/Freelance_Jobs.aspx
There's a link back to this page, of course.
As for the module's skin, it was VERY nice of Joe to model it using our site's CSS so we wouldn't have to change anything... ;)
By mamlin on
12/8/2008 12:14 PM
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re: Monitter for DotNetNuke
Seems to work only on Firefox. Not IE7, Opera or Chrome......
By ian gotts on
12/9/2008 7:14 AM
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