Take Advantage of the Keyboard in Twitterific

Twitter is a really incredible internet phenomenon, it mixes blogging and instant messaging.

To learn more about Twitter, visit Twitter in Plain English.

There are many amazing Twitter applications for OS X. We have even discussed many different free Twitter clients here on MacTips.

My personal favorite Twitter client, however, is Twitterific, which is offered both in a $15 ad-free version and in a free moderately ad-filled version. Twitterific is not only a very aesthetically appealing application, but also takes advantage of being a Mac application and is easy to control with the keyboard.

The first of Twitterific’s keyboard abilities is obvious. Once it is the frontmost application, pressing Tab will move OS X’s focus from the tweet list to the “What are you doing?” text box. You can obviously type in the text box and press enter to tweet, and use the up and down arrow keys to navigate through tweets.

To further take advantage of the keyboard in Twitterific, try pressing the left arrow key after selecting a tweet with the keyboard or mouse in the list. Twitterific will immediately send a new window or tab to your default web browser displaying the profile (with others) of the Twitter user who’s tweet you selected.

Another keyboard feature in Twitterific allows you to enable a hotkey to toggle the Twitterific window. To access this feature, click on the wrench icon at the bottom left of the Twitterific window and select the pane titled “Window.”

Where the settings asks you for a hotkey, enter any combination of modifiers and a letter or number, and you have your shortcut! Pressing that key combination will open or close Twitterific every time.

To truly take advantage of Twitterific, you’ll have to follow MacTips, of course!