Twitter is a great way to stay in touch with friends and family, but it can also be a great way to communicate with reporters and other journalists. You can use Twitter to share your thoughts on current events, answer questions from reporters, and even provide tips for covering stories. But there are a few things you should keep in mind when managing your Twitter account from the Firefox sidebar. First, you should set up your Twitter account so that it’s easy to find and use. Second, you should make sure that your tweets are timely and relevant. Third, you should be aware of the rules of Twitter and follow them carefully. Finally, be sure to protect your account by using the privacy settings on your Firefox browser.

Accessing TwitKit+

There are three ways that you can access TwitKit+ after installing the extension. The first is by adding the “Toolbar Button” to your browser’s UI.

The second and third methods are through the “View & Tools Menus”.

 

TwitKit+ in Action

When you open TwitKit+ for the first time you will see Twitter’s “Public Tweet Stream”. To get started login into your account.

Note: If you do not care for the “brown theme” you can select a different one in “Preferences”.

Here is a closer look at the top area and the commands available. Notice the “blue arrow symbol” in the upper left corner…very useful if you want to separate TwitKit+ from your main browser window for a bit.

Secure Mode, Undock, Preferences, Login/Logout Google Search, Twitter Search, Copy Selection To Status Box, Shorten Selected URL Public, User, Friends, Followers, @ Messages, Direct Messages, Profile

Note: To use Google or Twitter search enter your term in the “Status Area” and click on the appropriate service icon.

Here is the regular timeline for our account…the “clickable tab buttons” make everything easy to view and work with. You can perform actions such as replying, retweeting, marking as a favorite, etc. using the set of “management buttons” at the bottom of each tweet.

To add a new tweet to your timeline enter your text and press “Enter”.

A look at the “Following List” for our account. Having a more defined and separate “view categories” set makes this better than directly accessing the Twitter website.

Preferences

The preferences can be quickly sorted out…choose how often the timeline is updated, name display, favorite URL shortening service, theme, and font size.

Note: The default connection setting is for “Secure Access”.

Conclusion

TwitKit+ makes a nice addition to Firefox for anyone who loves keeping up with Twitter throughout the day. There when you want it and out of your way the rest of the time.

Links

Download the TwitKit+ extension (Mozilla Add-ons)