TweetDeck v0.25 - Memory Leak Fixes, Facebook Integration & shortURL/TwitPic Previews

Wednesday, 8 April 2009

We’ve got some good news to share with you. A new version of TweetDeck is available with some much wanted improvements, including a fix for the memory leak issue, and great new features including short url previews, Twitpic thumbnails, recording of 12seconds video clips and Facebook integration to make TweetDeck even more useful to you, our users. Plus TweetDeck is now recognised as the most popular application for Twitter driving 8.9% of tweets according to TweetRush. Plus with over 375,000 visits to TweetDeck.com last month and a growth rate of 32% we’re hoping to see this growth continue.

We know that many of our users have been experiencing problems with TweetDeck gobbling up memory and not releasing it. The memory leak issue has forced some users to re-start TweetDeck regularly and we’re really sorry about that. We’ve been listening and working hard, together with Adobe, making improvements to TweetDeck to fix the memory leak. Today we’re delighted to be able to tell you that the memory leak has been plugged and now the latest version of TweetDeck will peak at a certain level and won’t go any higher. So you can leave your TweetDeck running all day, all night, or forever if you really want to.

We’re continuing to work on the overall memory usage of TweetDeck on an ongoing basis but we think you’ll be very pleased with the results of the fix for the memory leak issue. We couldn’t have fixed it without your feedback and the help of a team of Adobe engineers too.

In the new version we’ve also added a preview function for short urls so you can view information about links directly from TweetDeck and see where you’re going before you go there. Simply click once on short links and an information box will appear, so you can see what your friends are tweeting about. Click on the links in the box to be taken directly to the web page. Plus for Twitpic links you can view a thumbnail of the photo inside TweetDeck, just click once to preview and then click on the image to take you directly to the webpage. Nice and easy. The short URL preview function is turned off by default but you can enable it and try it out by ticking ‘Show preview information for short URLs’ on in your TweetDeck settings.

We’re also rolling out Facebook integration to everyone so you’ll be able to view your Facebook friends’ status updates in a new column in TweetDeck. Plus we’ve made it easy to keep Facebook up to date, simply write a tweet and then choose if you’d like it to update Facebook, Twitter or both. You can also see when your friends’ are online and start a chat with them within TweetDeck, simply by clicking on their name (or the green online status indicator). (Note: To use the Facebook functionality you’ll need to give TweetDeck authorisation to access your Facebook information. Simply follow the steps in TweetDeck to get started.)

Recording and sharing video clips has also become even easier. Now you can record short videos directly from TweetDeck with 12seconds and then share them on Twitter and Facebook in just a few clicks.

Some of the other improvements we’ve made include:

Option to have usernames auto-complete in the tweet box.
Option to automatically include hashtags when replying to messages.
Removing the ability to DM yourself, and in so doing stopping many of you from feeling foolish.
Updating the list of URL shortening services to the top 5 only and adding the Digg URL shortener.
Making it easier to tab between the tweet box and the shorten box.
Removing unread counter at top of each column. This has been making many of you feel stressed when you see thousands of unread messages and we don’t want to contribute to increasing your stress levels.

The update will automatically be pushed out to everyone from today and can be downloaded direct from http://tweetdeck.com. Please let us know what you think at [email protected].

Plus we still need your help to continue spreading the word about TweetDeck so if you love TweetDeck please tweet and tell your friends about us.

(Source: TweetRush, Compete.com and TweetStats)

Change Log v0.25:

Added recording of 12seconds clips within TweetDeck

Added auto-complete of usernames in the tweet box

Added support for Spotify URI and http URLs

Added FB integration - column & cross posting

Added Digg URL shortener

Added DIGG short url preview window

Added bit.ly short url preview window

Added maxlength and restrictions to url shortening field

Added a preference for auto including the hashtags when replying

Added twitpic preview window

Added blocking of DMs to self, inline with twitter.com

Updated url shortening services to top 5 only

Updated FB tickbox to stay on even when blocked action occurs

Updated replies column to reflect change in twitter replies API method (no search)

Updated replies data to get max 200 tweets

Updated tab order of tweet box so easy to go from tweet to shorten box

Updated process for replying to multiple recipients

Updated username login field to only accept allowed characters

Updated twitter status message to something less churlish

Fixed Email Tweet resulting in blank email bug

Fixed < character cutting off tweets in Summize columns

Fixed empty replies column bug

Fixed issues with @username autocomplete placement

Removed unread counter at top of each column