ActiveXperts Twitter Toolkit Add Twitter capabilities to any Windows or .NET application

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How to use ActiveXperts Twitter Toolkit with Visual Basic .NET

Twitter is a popular social networking service that enables its users to send and read messages called Tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters. They are displayed on the author's profile page.

Twitter users can send and receive tweets through the Twitter website or through compatible applications. Applications that want to send or receive Tweets have the option of using Twitters HTTP based RESTfull API. The ActiveXperts Twitter Toolkit provides a user friendly wrapper around Twitters own HTTP based API.

The ActiveXperts Twitter API supports the following:

  • Post your Tweets on Twitter using your own software
  • Easy browsing through your own Tweets or the Tweets on any other time-line
  • Easy browsing through friends and followers
  • Integrated OAuth (Open Authorization) supports both both Client and Web use cases
  • Authenticate users in only two steps
  • Access all of the functions that are publicly available on the Twittter HTTP interface
  • Proved an interface to send custom, OAuth signed, requests to the Twitter HTTP interface

This tutorial describes how the Twitter Toolkit can be integrated in Visual Basic .NET projects.

Step 1: Download and install the ActiveXperts Twitter Toolkit

Download the Twitter Toolkit from the ActiveXperts web site and start the installation. The installation guides you through the installation process.  Download now »

Step 2: Create a new Visual Basic .NET Project

Launch Microsoft Visual Studio (for instance 'Microsoft Visual Studio 2005') from the Start menu. Choose 'New' from the 'File' menu and click on 'Project'. In the 'New Project' dialog, select a Visual Studio template (for instance: 'Console Application'). Select a name for the application (for instance: 'DemoApp') and a name for the solution (for instance: 'DemoSolution'). Also, select the directory where you want to store the project (for instance: 'C:\MyProjects):

Visual Basic.NET

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Step 3: Refer to the Twitter Toolkit Library and create the objects

Now that a new project has been created, you must add a reference to the ActiveXperts Twitter Toolkit in the project to be able to use the the Twitter Toolkit object. To do so, choose 'Add Reference...' from the 'Project' menu. In the 'Add Reference' dialog that pops up, select the 'COM' tab and select the 'Twitter Toolkit Type Library' as shown in the following picture:

.NET framework

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Click 'OK' to close the 'Add Reference' dialog.

On top of your code, type the following line to use the Twitter Toolkit namespace: 

Imports twitter-componentLib

In your Main function, declare and create the following object: 

Public m_objTwitter As Twitter

m_objTwitter = New Twitter()

Step 5: Tweet a message

The following code shows how to tweet a message using ASP .NET VB. 

Imports System.IO
Imports twitter-componentLib

Module Tweet

Sub Main()
  Dim strConsumerKeyFile As String = "", strAccessKeyFile As String = ""
  Dim objTwitter As Twitter = New Twitter() ' Create instance of COM Object

  Console.WriteLine("Twitter Toolkit {0}, Module {1}", objTwitter.Build, objTwitter.Module)
  Console.WriteLine("Expiration Date: {0}\r\n", objTwitter.ExpirationDate)

  ' To enable logging,assign a valid log file to the LogFile property
  ' objTwitter.LogFile = "C:\\TwitterToolkit.log";

  strConsumerKeyFile = "C:\Consumer.key"
  strConsumerKeyFile = "C:\Access.key"

  objTwitter.LoadConsumerKey(strConsumerKeyFile)
  Console.WriteLine("LoadConsumerKey, result: {0})", objTwitter.LastError )
  If (objTwitter.LastError <> 0) Then
      Exit Sub
  End If

  objTwitter.LoadAccessKey(strAccessKeyFile)
  Console.WriteLine("LoadAccessKey, result: {0})", objTwitter.LastError )
  If (objTwitter.LastError <> 0) Then
      Exit Sub
  End If

  objTwitter.Tweet("I'm tweeting using ActiveXperts Twitter Toolkit VB .NET Demo!")
  Console.WriteLine("Tweet, result: {0}", objTwitter.LastError )

End Sub
End Module

Samples

There are many working samples included with the product. You can also find them on the ActiveXperts FTP site: ftp.activexperts-labs.com/samples/twitter-component

Support Operating Systems

The Twitter Toolkit can be used by any of the following operating systems:

  • Windows XP, x86 (32-bit) and x64 (64-bit)
  • Windows 2003, x86 (32-bit) and x64 (64-bit)
  • Windows 2008, x86 (32-bit) and x64 (64-bit)
  • Windows Vista, x86 (32-bit) and x64 (64-bit)
  • Windows 7, x86 (32-bit) and x64 (64-bit)