• Improved URL detection
• Embedded profiles and images visualization
• Advanced options in preferences dialog
• Improved look & feel (using Webkit)
• Broadcasting messages
• Dialog to send DMs
• Undo feature support (ctlr + z)
• Show profile image at real size when you click it from a tweet/dent
• Branded new dialog for username autocomplete
• Handle so much columns as the user wants
• Ubuntu integration
• Support for public timeline as column
• Undo retweet
• Implemented block and report as spam features
• Evolved mute/unmute feature to filtering (based on expressions)

We did a brief resume the past month of this features and how they look/work in this post. There are more feature but we want to let you some homework.

However, as you might know, this is a working-in-progress version so you must expect issues, breaks or even the lack of functionalities. This version is NOT intented for production purposes and we DON’T want bug reports about it. Bug reports will be welcome on the beta phase.

You can check the TO-DO list to be aware of the non-finished features and here is a list of the known issues so far:

• Notifications preferences still not working
• Proxy support not implemented yet
• After creating an account the updatebox doesn’t show the new account (you need to restart)
• Column autoresize not implemented
• Main window sometimes flicker when resizing
• More resource consumption (around 50MB of RAM more than Turpial 1.6.9)
• Every time you start the application you need to load your friends
• Account dialog needs a extreme makeover
• There is no way to follow users except through their profiles

As usual, you can find the source package in our files repository and the source code in the github repository. Package maintainers will be working to make available this release on official repositories of most popular GNU/Linux distros.

Thanks to all people that support the project and please, give us your feedback, you can help to the development process just commenting out your impressions.

Enjoy!

The name of the package remains the same (because there are no changes on libturpial source code) and is available from our files repository through the same URL but the MD5 checksum has changed. We highly recommend to check the new checksum in order to verify that you are using the right version.

We apologize for any inconvenient.

From branch 2.x, all Turpial backend relies on a single library that handles multiple microblogging protocols, multiple accounts, configurations and a lot of features of each protocol. The library we are talking about is libturpial and today, as part of the alpha release of Turpial, we proudly present the first stable release in it version 0.8.5.

Development of this library started on March 2011 and now is ready to be used, not just for Turpial 2.x else for general purpose too. Main features of this library include:

• OAuth support for Twitter
• Handle accounts and columns
• Fetch timeline, replies, directs, sents, lists and favorites
• Fetch public timeline
• Fetch friends
• Fetch conversations
• Update, destroy, repeat statuses
• Handle direct messages
• Mark/unmark favorites
• Handle relationship (follow, unfollow, block, unblock, report as spam)
• Perform searchs
• Fetch trends
• Handle services for short URLs
• Handle highlighted reources as entities
• Handle configuration stuffs
• Fetch followers and friends
• Support for undo retweet
• Implemented filtering by words/expressions
• Open media module to handle embedded resources (images, videos, etc)
• Improved security using HTTPS on Identi.ca and working with SSL certificates for all services

Source code can be downloaded in our files repository and the package should be available soon in most popular GNU/Linux distributions. More info in the official announcement of the Turpial mailing list.

I want to extend my thanks to all people that have been working hard day after day to make this release possible, great job guys! Let’s keep working.

And for all the people that would like to contribute or help the project but are not developers remember, click the advertising or donate is a great way to contribute too. Thanks!

Now, we are fixing some minor issues and polishing a couple of features required for this snapshot. Preferences dialog and a better authentication method are done, so main work this week will be focused on the embedded images features and the column autoresize and the next week will be dedicated to tests and UI improvements.

The new date for the alpha release has been set to March 18th.

Our platform was down for several days due some problems after the scheduled upgrade, however all our services are back again and in better shape.

We took this break to improve a lot stuff. Now we have a faster and solid web server (Nginx), a better integration betweet the web server and our Bug Tracking System (using Phusion Passenger) and a brand new files repository: http://files.turpial.org.ve/.

The last change implies that all previous links for source code files won’t work anymore, so please take all the considerations needed to avoid inconvenients.

As all might know Debian is a popular and influential GNU/Linux distribution know by his great stability because the packages are exhaustedly tested to ensure security and stability but this also cause that the packages released on the stable versions might be old. To improve this a group of developers, users and collaborators created the debian backports project and they work to maintain the packages so the versions on the stable release become the recent ones.

Today, as planned, we meet at #turpial IRC channel in Freenode to do our “Cayapa Turpial”. Andrea Stagi, Carlos Guerrero, José Torres and me (Wil Alvarez) were the participants in this meeting.

First, we define which would be the minimum features to complete for the next alpha release. In that conversation we talk about topics as user preferences, improving authentication methods, embedded images and methods for user searching. Besides we were talking about other pending tasks as eat some italian food work in the support for multiple languages in our platform, improve our broadcast strategies and work on multiplatform implementations of Turpial.

The most important results can be resumed as follow:

1. Translate to english all open issues in the Bug Track System
2. Elaborate a post to talk about multiplatform advances
3. Resume the work with Qt implementation
4. Wiki page to write down all conventions used (protocol) to work with Webkit implementations in each framework (GTK, Qt, etc)
5. Build a donation page and start a campaign
6. Post weekly articles to spread the word and inform about the development progress
7. Features to be included in the next alpha release (besides all the completed features: tweets, retweets, favs, directs, follow, unfollow, block, report as spam, conversations, user profiles, URL shortening, multiaccounts, etc)
• Show images in a embedded window
• Preferences dialog
• Column autoresize
• Improves for the user authentication method

Also we define that our deadline for the alpha release will be this March 4, 2012. So, if everything goes fine in 3 weeks you should be testing this amazing new version of Turpial.

As conclusion we can say that it was a fast and productive meeting.

As usual, I want to extend our thanks to all the people who support the project and welcome to José Torres to our team, we will keep working hard to bring an excellent and competitive application to you.

For full details about the meeting you can check the IRC conversation log.

First things first, The overall layout has become more elegant while keeping everything that made it light and resourceful. Here are some of the improvements:

Multi Protocol and Account Management: Have as many users accounts of Twitter and Identi.ca as you want, all in the same Client:

New Tweeting/Denting Box with Broadcast functionality: Send your thoughts to all your acounts at the same time with only one click

Username Assistant: Turpial Remember your friends so you don’t have to. Just add “@” and search from your contacts list to the user you want to Add to your tweet/dent

Limitless Columns: Tired of the old “only 3 columns” view? Now you will be able to add as many columns of as many accounts, protocols or lists you feel like having.

Users Profile: Turpial will now show you the users profile and options to interact with them just like the web without having to relay on a browser to do so.

Profile Picture: Ever wanted to see that cool/hot/weird avatar that user has? Now you can, just click on it and voila! in all it’s full size glory!

I think this is all we’ll show you for now, we’re looking forward to releasing the first Beta so everyone can join in the Turpial 2.0 fun. Still, if you want to have a say on what’s going to become of the bird‘s Alpha, Join us this Sunday on the Cayapa: More Info About it [Here]

How do you feel about this upcoming features? Excited? What would you like to see next on Turpial?

1. You know what “Cayapa” means and want to be involved in it.
2. You Want to know what “Cayapa” means and what does it have to do with the development of Turpial 2.0.

So, here it goes, I’ll try to be as clear as possible so that our venezuelan lingo can come across to anyone who’s never set foot in this beautyful land filled with beautiful women (Sorry guys, they’re all mine)

Cayapa: noun. & verb. [Kah-ya'll-pah] (Meh, close enough) In lame terms: The action of beating the crap out of one S.o.B. This is not done by one subject to another but is a group efford against the one until he’s pretty much left for dead. (Very invinting isn’t).

i.e: We were cayaping that MoFo for using my external HD to save his reggaeton “music” *spits on the carcas*

Now, Who wants to be a part of the beating???

How does it apply to Turpial development? you ask, fairly simple, We are the Cayapators [Terminator style] and the requirements for a good Alpha 2.0 is the MoFo whom defiled your HD: It needs to be set straight.

To better understand this term, think of it as a Bug Squash Party in Techno Language. And before you ask, NO! this word will not change and we will cayapa you if you, so much as, suggest we change it.

Thank you.

This next sunday, february 12th, Turpial development team we’ll be discusing everything related to Turpia 2.0 and its Alpha v. if you’d like to be a part of this discussion head over to:

IRC

Server: Freenode (irc.freenode.net)
Channel: #turpial

at 09.00 am VE / 10.30 am AR

(VE UTC -4:30 / AR UTC -3:00)

And join the beating…

With the last stable release (v1.6.9), Turpial has been accepted as official package in the community Arch Linux repository. Now if you want to install the stable release in Arch Linux just execute:

# pacman -S turpial

Thanks to our friends Miguel Ángel Useche who was the maintainer of AUR package and Angel Velásquez who uploaded Turpial to community repository and is the current maintainer of the official package.