First of all, you’ll need a controller to handle your sign on button and the OAuth [...]]]> For the last few days I have been working with MVC3 making a site that relies upon Twitter as the basis for user accounts, so I implemented Sign in with Twitter. It turned out to be incredibly easy.

First of all, you’ll need a controller to handle your sign on button and the OAuth callback. I named mine /Controllers/AccountController.cs. Only one method is required, it will handle the /Account/Logon/ route.

The first time the user hits the controller (they aren’t logged in) the OAuth arguments will be null, but there will be a ReturnUrl. The app reaches out to Twitter and gets a request token, then redirects the user to the authentication url. Once they have authenticated (and authorized your application) at Twitter, they will be sent back to the same /Account/Logon/ address, but this time with the OAuth arguments. The controller will then go to Twitter and get an access token. My application maintains user accounts, so I lookup the user account and create it if it doesn’t exist. I’m then using the built in FormsAuthentication class to set their authentication cookie. From then on, ASP.NET recognizes them as an authenticated user and all the built in goodies just work.

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// GET: Account/Logon/
public ActionResult Logon(string oauth_token, string oauth_verifier, string ReturnUrl)
{
    if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(oauth_token) || string.IsNullOrEmpty(oauth_verifier))
    {
        UriBuilder builder = new UriBuilder(this.Request.Url);
        builder.Query = string.Concat(
            builder.Query,
            string.IsNullOrEmpty(builder.Query) ? string.Empty : "&",
            "ReturnUrl=",
            ReturnUrl);
 
        string token = OAuthUtility.GetRequestToken(
            ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["TwitterConsumerKey"],
            ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["TwitterConsumerSecret"],
            builder.ToString()).Token;
 
        return Redirect(OAuthUtility.BuildAuthorizationUri(token, true).ToString());
    }
 
    var tokens = OAuthUtility.GetAccessToken(
        ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["TwitterConsumerKey"],
        ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["TwitterConsumerSecret"],
        oauth_token,
        oauth_verifier);
 
    using (TwitterizerDbContext db = new TwitterizerDbContext())
    {
        var user = db.Users.Find(tokens.UserId);
        if (user == null)
        {
            user = new User()
            {
                TwitterUserId = tokens.UserId,
                ScreenName = tokens.ScreenName,
                TwitterAccessKey = tokens.Token,
                TwitterAccessSecret = tokens.TokenSecret
            };
 
            db.Users.Add(user);
 
            db.SaveChanges();
        }
 
        FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie(user.ScreenName, false);
    }
 
    if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(ReturnUrl))
        return Redirect("/");
    else
        return Redirect(ReturnUrl);
}

For the UI, I used a partial view, very similar to the view that Visual Studio creates as part of the project template. I named this file /Views/Shared/_LogOnPartial.cshtml.

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@using Twitterizer.PublicWeb
 
<div class="logon-form">
@if (User.Identity.IsAuthenticated)
{
    <strong>
        Logged in as @User.Identity.Name
        |
        @Html.ActionLink("Edit", "Edit", "Account")
        |
        @Html.ActionLink("Log out", "Logout", "Account")
    </strong>
}
else
{
    @Html.ActionImage("Logon", "Account", null, "~/Content/images/sign-in-with-twitter-l.png", "Sign in with twitter")
}
</div>

I can then place the partial view on any other view with a simple command:

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@Html.Partial("_LogOnPartial")

One of the huge benefits of this is that the user will be automatically logged into the site the moment they try to access a protected resource, provided that they are logged into Twitter and have already authorized my application. The round trip to/from Twitter is seamless and the user may not even notice that it happened.

Update: I forgot to mention 2 things: the image I’m using for the sign on button can be downloaded here and I have a special ActionImage extension method you’ll need to use my example. Just place this method in a static class in your project:

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public static MvcHtmlString ActionImage(this HtmlHelper html, string action, string controller, object routeValues, string imagePath, string alt)
{
    var url = new UrlHelper(html.ViewContext.RequestContext);
 
    // build the <img> tag
    var imgBuilder = new TagBuilder("img");
    imgBuilder.MergeAttribute("src", url.Content(imagePath));
    imgBuilder.MergeAttribute("alt", alt);
    string imgHtml = imgBuilder.ToString(TagRenderMode.SelfClosing);
 
    // build the <a> tag
    var anchorBuilder = new TagBuilder("a");
    anchorBuilder.MergeAttribute("href", url.Action(action, controller, routeValues));
    anchorBuilder.InnerHtml = imgHtml; // include the <img> tag inside
    string anchorHtml = anchorBuilder.ToString(TagRenderMode.Normal);
 
    return MvcHtmlString.Create(anchorHtml);
}

Here are the particulars:

You can find the demo applications I used here: Twitterizer-TLHCodeCamp2011.zip.

In each of the four applications, you will need to provide your own consumer token (and sometimes access token, too).

The release is a little [...]]]> I’ve just posted Twitterizer 2.3.3. This update includes many bug fixes and support for additional end points. It is a quick attempt to merge 2.3.2 with the extensive changes we’ve made, but without requiring too many code changes for you. It also includes the latest in our streaming api library.

The release is a little different, in that it is a single zip file that includes all of the binaries. Hopefully this will cut out the confusion of having multiple zip files.

For a while, reports of an issue have started to come in on [...]]]> Hey everybody. Ricky here. Just wanted to take a few minutes to give all of you an update of things and address an issue that appears to have become more prevalent in the last few days weeks, along with a potential fix.

For a while, reports of an issue have started to come in on the forums dealing with the search API, namely with deserializing results. The sad part is, this issue was fixed long ago (on 6/13/2011) by @GoldenTao. The real problem is that no release has been made in a very long time that includes this fix.

If you need this fix, I suggest you download the source of the last release, and apply this change.

You may ask, “So, Ricky … why has it been so long since there has been a release? Does this mean that Twitterizer is dead?” Twitterizer is not dead. In fact, a LOT of changes have been made. @GoldenTao has put a lot of time working on the library. He’s added User Streaming support, fixed a lot of bugs, and made the entire library Silverlight compatible.

As to why there is no release, that’s mostly my fault. I can give reasons (I have a few legitimate ones) and excuses (I have many more of these), but it comes down to the fact that I have not been around. @GoldenTao has done great work, but I feel like there is a good deal of cleanup and restructuring that is needed before a release is put out. Needless to say, the next release will be a big one and I would like to make sure it is decent. I just need to find the time/mental capacity/motivation to do it.

Currently, this is what I feel the need to do:

1. Restructure the project into multiple solutions. Make the base a SL build, with other solutions for .NET and .NET client profile that link in the base code files.
2. Ensure that Streaming support is complete. I know User streaming functions (I’ve been using it via Metrotwit beta for months), but I’m not sure about Site streaming.
3. Revisit the outstanding tasks/bugs.

The last note I’d like to drop is about our Github repository. A while back I created a bash script (heresy, I know) to grab changes in our SVN repo and mirror them on Github. It’s broken. It’s been broken for a long time. I didn’t find out until recently (I don’t use Github personally). I spent a couple of hours trying to get the mirror script working again. It seems to tell me everything is OK, but it’s a damn liar and I hate it. I’m going to pull the link to it for the time being. If one of you would like to chip in and try to figure it out, I’d love it.

As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated.

Update: I was curious, so I did a little checking. It’s been 9 months since the last release. Since then, there have been 46 revisions. 367 changes by 4 developers (2 of them made a single change each). I’d say the project is still alive, wouldn’t you?

To address this issue, I’ve published version 2.3.2. This release will also address a few other bugs and includes support for a few more [...]]]> This morning Twitter dropped off the network and a Twitterizer bug appeared in its place. All requests to Twitter while the API is unavailable will result in unhandled exceptions being thrown.

To address this issue, I’ve published version 2.3.2. This release will also address a few other bugs and includes support for a few more API endpoints.

For the full list of changes, see the 2.3.2 changelog.

To download, update the package through nuget, or head over to our downloads page.