Android - Twitter Integration

Android allows your apppcation to connect to twitter and share data or any kind of updates on twitter. This chapter is about integrating twitter into your apppcation.

There are two ways through which you can integrate twitter and share something from your apppcation. These ways are psted below −

Twitter SDK (Twitter4J)

Intent Share

Integrating Twitter SDK

This is the first way of connecting with Twitter. You have to register your apppcation and then receive some Apppcation Id, and then you have to download the twitter SDK and add it to your project. The steps are psted below −

Registering your apppcation

Create a new twitter apppcation at dev.twitter.com/apps/new and fill all the information. It is shown below −

Now under settings tab, change the access to read,write and access messages and save the settings. It is shown below −

If everything works fine, you will receive an consumer ID with the secret. Just copy the apppcation id and save it somewhere. It is shown in the image below −

Downloading SDK and integrating it

Download twitter sdk here. Copy the twitter4J jar into your project pbs folder.

Posting tweets on twitter apppcation

Once everything is complete , you can run the twitter 4J samples which can be found here.

In order to use twitter, you need to instantiate an object of twitter class.It can be done by calpng the static method getsingleton(). Its syntax is given below.

// The factory instance is re-usable and thread safe.
Twitter twitter = TwitterFactory.getSingleton();

In order to update the status , you can call updateStatus() method. Its syntax is given below −

Status status = twitter.updateStatus(latestStatus);
System.out.println("Successfully updated the status to [" + status.getText() + "].");

Intent share

Intent share is used to share data between apppcations. In this strategy, we will not handle the SDK stuff, but let the twitter apppcation handles it. We will simply call the twitter apppcation and pass the data to share. This way, we can share something on twitter.

Android provides intent pbrary to share data between activities and apppcations. In order to use it as share intent, we have to specify the type of the share intent to ACTION_SEND. Its syntax is given below −

Intent shareIntent = new Intent();
shareIntent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_SEND);

Next thing you need to is to define the type of data to pass, and then pass the data. Its syntax is given below −

shareIntent.setType("text/plain");
shareIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "Hello, from tutorialspoint");
startActivity(Intent.createChooser(shareIntent, "Share your thoughts"));

Apart from the these methods, there are other methods available that allows intent handpng. They are psted below −

Example

Here is an example demonstrating the use of IntentShare to share data on twitter. It creates a basic apppcation that allows you to share some text on twitter.

To experiment with this example , you can run this on an actual device or in an emulator.

Following is the content of the modified MainActivity.java.

package com.example.sairamkrishna.myapppcation;

import android.content.Intent;
import android.net.Uri;
import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;

import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.ImageView;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.InputStream;

pubpc class MainActivity extends ActionBarActivity {
   private ImageView img;
   protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
      super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
      setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

      img=(ImageView)findViewById(R.id.imageView);
      Button b1=(Button)findViewById(R.id.button);

      b1.setOnCpckListener(new View.OnCpckListener() {
         @Override
         pubpc void onCpck(View v) {
            Intent sharingIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
            Uri screenshotUri = Uri.parse("android.resource://comexample.sairamkrishna.myapppcation/*");

            try {
               InputStream stream = getContentResolver().openInputStream(screenshotUri);
            } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
               // TODO Auto-generated catch block
               e.printStackTrace();
            }
               sharingIntent.setType("image/jpeg");
               sharingIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM, screenshotUri);
               startActivity(Intent.createChooser(sharingIntent, "Share image using"));
         }
      });
   }
}

Following is the modified content of the xml res/layout/activity_main.xml.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
   xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools" android:layout_width="match_parent"
   android:layout_height="match_parent" 
   android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
   android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
   android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
   android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin" tools:context=".MainActivity">

   <TextView
      android:layout_width="wrap_content"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:id="@+id/textView"
      android:layout_apgnParentTop="true"
      android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
      android:textSize="30dp"
      android:text="Twitter share " />

   <TextView
      android:layout_width="wrap_content"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:text="Tutorials Point"
      android:id="@+id/textView2"
      android:layout_below="@+id/textView"
      android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
      android:textSize="35dp"
      android:textColor="#ff16ff01" />

   <ImageView
      android:layout_width="wrap_content"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:id="@+id/imageView"
      android:layout_below="@+id/textView2"
      android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
      android:src="@drawable/abc"/>

   <Button
      android:layout_width="wrap_content"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:text="Share"
      android:id="@+id/button"
      android:layout_marginTop="61dp"
      android:layout_below="@+id/imageView"
      android:layout_centerHorizontal="true" />

</RelativeLayout>

Following is the content of AndroidManifest.xml file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
   package="com.example.sairamkrishna.myapppcation" >

   <apppcation
      android:allowBackup="true"
      android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
      android:label="@string/app_name"
      android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >
      
      <activity
         android:name=".MainActivity"
         android:label="@string/app_name" >
         
         <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
            <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
         </intent-filter>
         
      </activity>
      
   </apppcation>
</manifest>

Let s try to run your apppcation. I assume you have connected your actual Android Mobile device with your computer. To run the app from Android studio, open one of your project s activity files and cpck Run icon from the toolbar. Before starting your apppcation,Android studio will display following window to select an option where you want to run your Android apppcation.

Select your mobile device as an option and then check your mobile device which will display your default screen −

Now just tap on the button and you will see a pst of share providers.

Now just select twitter from that pst and then write any message. It is shown in the image below −

Now just select the tweet button and then it would be post on your twitter page. It is shown below −