1BTI(1) bti BTI(1)
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6 bti - send a tweet to twitter.com or identi.ca from the command line
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9 bti [--account account] [--password password] [--action action]
10 [--user screenname] [--host HOST_NAME] [--proxy PROXY:PORT]
11 [--logfile LOGFILE] [--config CONFIGFILE] [--replyto ID]
12 [--retweet ID] [--page PAGENUMBER] [--bash] [--shrink-urls]
13 [--debug] [--dry-run] [--verbose] [--version] [--help]
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16 bti sends a tweet message to twitter.com or identi.ca.
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19 --account account
20 Specify the twitter.com or identi.ca account name.
21 --password password
23 Specify the password of your twitter.com or identi.ca account.
24 --action action
26 Specify the action which you want to perform. Valid options are
27 "update" to send a message, "friends" to see your friends timeline,
28 "public" to track public timeline, "replies" to see replies to your
29 messages and "user" to see a specific user´s timeline. Default is
30 "update".
31 --user screenname
33 Specify the user whose messages you want to see when the action is
34 "user".
35 --host HOST_NAME
37 Specify the host which you want to send your message to. Valid
38 options are "twitter" to send to twitter.com and "identica" to send
39 to identi.ca. If you want to send the message to a custom laconi.ca
40 installation, you should specify the API URI. For example
41 identi.ca´s URI is: https://identi.ca/api/statuses
42 If no host is specified, the default is to send to twitter.com.
44 --proxy PROXY:PORT
46 Specify a http proxy value. This is not a required option, and only
47 needed by systems that are behind a http proxy.
48 If --proxy is not specified but the environment variable
50 ´http_proxy´ is set the latter will be used.
51 --logfile LOGFILE
53 Specify a logfile for bti to write status messages to. LOGFILE is
54 in relation to the user´s home directory, not an absolute path to a
55 file.
56 --config CONFIGFILE
58 Specify a config file for bti to read from. By default, bti looks
59 in the ~/.bti file for config values. This default location can be
60 overridden by setting a specific file with this option.
61 --replyto ID
63 Status ID of a single post to which you want to create a threaded
64 reply to.
65 For twitter, this is ignored unless the message starts with the
67 @name of the owner of the post with the status ID.
68 For status.net, this can link any two messages into context with
70 each other. Status.net will also link a message that contains an
71 @name without this without regard to context.
72 --retweet ID
74 Status ID of a single post which you want to retweet.
75 --shrink-urls
77 Scans the tweet text for valid URL patterns and passes each through
78 the supplied bti-shrink-urls script. The script will pass the URL
79 to a web service that shrinks the URLs, making it more suitable for
80 micro-blogging.
81 The following URL shrinking services are available: http://2tu.us/
83 (default) and http://bit.ly / http://j.mp
84 See the documentation for bti-shrink-urls for the configuration
86 options.
87 --debug
89 Print a whole bunch of debugging messages to stdout.
90 --page PAGENUMBER
92 When the action is to retrieve updates, it usually retrieves only
93 one page. If this option is used, the page number can be specified.
94 --dry-run
96 Performs all steps that would normally be done for a given action,
97 but will not connect to the service to post or retrieve data.
98 --verbose
100 Verbose mode. Print status IDs and timestamps.
101 --bash
103 Add the working directory and a ´$´ in the tweet message to help
104 specify it is coming from a command line. Don´t put the working
105 directory and the ´$´ in the tweet message.
106 This option implies --background.
108 --background
110 Do not report back any errors that might have happened when sending
111 the message, and send it in the background, returning immediately,
112 allowing the user to continue on.
113 --version
115 Print version number.
116 --help
118 Print help text.
119
121 bti provides an easy way to send tweet messages direct from the command
122 line or any script. It reads the message on standard input and uses the
123 account and password settings either from the command line options, or
124 from a config file, to send the message out.
125 Its primary focus is to allow you to log everything that you type into
127 a bash shell, in a crazy, "this is what I´m doing right now!" type of
128 way, letting the world follow along with you constant moving between
129 directories and refreshing your email queue to see if there´s anything
130 interesting going on.
131 To hook bti up to your bash shell, export the following variable:
133 PROMPT_COMMAND=´history 1 | sed -e "s/^\s*[0-9]*\s*//" | bti --bash´
135 This example assumes that you have the ~/.bti set up with your account
137 and password information already in it, otherwise you can specify them
138 as an option.
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141 The account and password can be stored in a configuration file in the
142 users home directory in a file named .bti. The structure of this file
143 is as follows:
144 account
146 The twitter.com or identi.ca account name you wish to use to send
147 this message with.
148 password
150 The twitter.com or identi.ca password for the account you wish to
151 use to send this message with.
152 --action action
154 Specify the action which you want to perform. Valid options are
155 "update" to send a message, "friends" to see your friends timeline,
156 "public" to track public timeline, "replies" to see replies to your
157 messages and "user" to see a specific user´s timeline.
158 --user screenname
160 Specify the user you want to see his/her messages while the action
161 is "user".
162 host
164 The host you want to use to send the message to. Valid options are
165 either "twitter" or "identica" to send to twitter.com or identi.ca
166 respectively. If you want to send the message to a custom laconi.ca
167 installation, you should specify the API URI. For example
168 identi.ca´s URI is: https://identi.ca/api/statuses.
169 proxy
171 The http proxy needed to send data out to the Internet.
172 logfile
174 The logfile name for bti to write what happened to. This file is
175 relative to the user´s home directory. If this file is not
176 specified here or on the command line, no logging will be written
177 to the disk.
178 replyto
180 The status ID to which all notices will be linked to.
181 There is no sane reason for a need to have this set in a config
183 file. One such reason is to have all your messages as children to a
184 particular status.
185 shrink-urls
187 Setting this variable to ´true´ or ´yes´ will enable the URL
188 shrinking feature. This is equivalent to using the --shrink-urls
189 option.
190 verbose
192 Setting this variable to ´true´ or ´yes´ will enable the verbose
193 mode.
194 There is an example config file called bti.example in the source tree
196 that shows the structure of the file if you need an example to work off
197 of.
198 Configuration options have the following priority:
200 command line option
202 config file option
204 environment variables
206 For example, command line options always override any config file
208 option, or any environment variables. Unless a config file is specified
209 by the command line. At that point, the new config file is read, and
210 any previous options set by a command line option, would be overridden.
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213 Written by Greg Kroah-Hartman <greg@kroah.com> and Amir Mohammad Saied
214 <amirsaied@gmail.com>.
215bti May 2008 BTI(1)