Turpial, microblogging client from South America

In my post “6 microblogging client for Linux” I’ve received a comment about the software: Turpial.
Turpial is a client for Twitter and Identi.ca (only after the 1.4.X release) based on PyGTK, I’ve tested on my ubuntu 11.04 the version available in the development PPA for Ubuntu and so I’ve made the tests on Twitter and Identi.ca.

What I’ve liked of this program from the start it’s his simplicity, integration with the notification area (tested on XFCE) and the acoustic tweets when a new message arrive (but i suspect that in the long run I’d silence that), but now some details.

Installation

For what i know Turpial is not included at the moment in any distribution, but at the official Download page you can find how to easily install it on Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and Arch.

For Ubuntu, in a nutshell, you just need to add a PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:effie-jayx/turpial
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install turpial

This will install Turpial 1.3.4 (stable, no Identi.ca support), if you prefer to test the latest release (development version) use this PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:effie-jayx/turpial-devel
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install turpial

This will install Turpial 1.5.0-rc1-natty-1ubuntu1.

For others distro, if you want the development version, check this page.

A good news is that Turpial has been accepted in the repository of Debian Wheezy, Debian Sid and Ubuntu Oneiric (11.10), so install it will become easier in a short future.

Features

• These are some features of Turpial:
• Microblogging client for Twitter and Identi.ca, it’s not possible (at the moment) to use 2 accounts in the same windows, so to see both microblogging provider (or 2 twitter accounts) you need to run 2 instances of Turpial.
• Look very similar to TweetDeck, with the 3 columns “Timeline, Mentions and Direct messages” or you can substitute any column with your message.
• It integrates with the desktop environment, which allows you to view the notifications.
• It has support for short URLs, and to upload images using different services.
• Friend list, when composing a new message you can click to see the list of your friends.

Conclusions

First, I suggest to install the development release, in my tests I did not have any problems at all and used both Twitter and Identi.ca.
Of this program I like the 3 columns layout, the graphic and the integration in the desktop, the bad thing (like many other similar programs ) is that you have to run 1 instance for every user you want to use, not a problem if you just have 1 account, but could be a real issue if you use 3 or more, in these cases I still prefer Gwibber (that adds also support for Facebook).

If you like Tweetdeck, this is a great alternative you must check.

At last, all the official site is only in Spanish, but with the help of Google translator you can navigate it quiet easily, and once installed the program support English and other languages, so don’t be scared by the site language.

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