SLTwitCtrl ActiveX Control for Twitter - Example Code

SLTwitCtrl ActiveX Control for Twitter - Example Code

Example 1 - Visual Basic - Preparing the Twitter control for communication

Before you can send a tweet to Twitter you must specify some information that Twitter requires for communication. You must specify an application name, a consumer key, a consumer secret, a username and a password. You can do this by setting corresponding properties in the ActiveX control.

You can do it via the Properties window in Microsoft Visual Basic (as shown in the picture to the right) or by specifying the information programmatically, as shown in the Visual Basic example below:

' Specify application name
SLTwitCtrl1.AppName = "My Application"

' Specify consumer key and consumer secret
SLTwitCtrl1.ConsumerKey = "a9ht7gTr3cGax3v9tobh"
SLTwitCtrl1.ConsumerSecret = "iHbty8rEwkds3hbxdKlYb7jHgrQkM8"

' Specify username and password
SLTwitCtrl1.Username = "Smith"
SLTwitCtrl1.Password = "Ahj6gtrdx"

A consumer key and consumer secret can be retrieved from Twitter's website for developers. On the same website you can register your application (which is necessary before you can send tweets to Twitter). Open this web page to read more.

Example 2 - Visual Basic - Send a message (a tweet) to Twitter

This example in Visual Basic shows how to send a message (a tweet) to Twitter. It also shows how to handle errors, if something goes wrong.

Dim bStatus As Boolean
Dim nErrorCode As Integer
Dim sReplyMsg As String
Dim sErrMsg As String

' Post a tweet
bStatus = SLTwitCtrl1.TwitPostMessage("This is a tweet!")
' Check if an error occurred
If bStatus = False Then
    ' Get error code
    nErrorCode = SLTwitCtrl1.TwitGetLastError()
    sErrMsg = "Error #" + CStr(nErrorCode) + " occurred!"
    If nErrorCode > 1000 Then
        ' Get response from Twitter
        SLTwitCtrl1.TwitGetLastResponse sReplyMsg
        sErrMsg = sErrMsg + " Twitter returned: " + sReplyMsg
    Else
        MsgBox sErrMsg, vbExclamation, "Error"
    End If
Else
    MsgBox "The message was successfully sent to Twitter!", vbInformation, "Information"
End If

Example 3 - Visual Basic - How to use Bitly to shorten a URL in a message

This example in Visual Basic shows how to shorten a URL in a message by using the TwitShortenURLInMessage method in the SLTwitCtrl ActiveX control. The Bitly service is used.

Dim sMessageOriginal As String
Dim sMessageShortenedURL As String

' Create a message that contains a URL
sMessageOriginal = _
"Read more about MultiMailer here: http://www.samlogic.net/multimailer/multimailer.htm"

' Now shorten the URL in the message
sMessageShortenedURL = SLTwitCtrl1.TwitShortenURLInMessage(sMessageOriginal, 1)

' Now display the updated message in a message box
MsgBox sMessageShortenedURL, vbInformation, "Message with shortened URL"

The message text "Read more about MultiMailer here: http://www.samlogic.net/multimailer/multimailer.htm" will be updated to have the following contents: "You can read more about the Twitter component here: http://bit.ly/13i0sOE". The image below shows how the message box that is opened in the last line of the example look like:

The message box shows the updated message with a shortened URL

The message box shows the updated message with a shortened URL

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Visual Basic