Cawbird is one of the best Ubuntu apps. Regardless of whether you use Twitter or not — and if you don’t, you lucky thing — the client is a solid example of a well designed, well-featured, and well-integrated native desktop Linux app.
Cawbird 1.3 is the latest release. It’s not a huge update but its devs say “…there are several key improvements to managing […] interactions that should have been implemented/fixed sooner.”
Features
1. Interface
Cawbird has a minimalistic and elegant interface. With just enough options for smooth usage, it is an extreme upgrade to the web interface. That, according to the developers, is the reason that they developed this program, as the web interface of Twitter.
There are most used options in the tab form on the top of the window in the following sequence:
- Home
- Mentions
- Favorites
- Direct Messages
- Lists
- Filters
- Search
This makes everything quite easy to access. Other than that, the default dimensions of the window give off a portrait mode resemblance, which in this case, is quite beautiful. The full window mode looks rather odd. There is the simple scrolling like that on a smartphone app. There is not much else to the interface.
Lightweight
Compared to the browser web interface, which looks slightly puffy and bloated, and consumes a lot more resources than it is supposed to, Cawbird has a pretty minimal and efficient interface. It is also a very lightweight client and doesn’t make your system work too hard.
Personal options
Personal options that are composing a tweet and editing your profile take place right on the top bar of the window. These windows are quite intuitive and work pleasantly.
Shortcuts
The best thing about desktop clients, in my opinion, is the keyboard shortcuts. They make everything much easier and faster to access. Well, Cawbird is no exception here and has a lot of keyboard options to make your Twitter experience more comfortable and smoother. Below is a screenshot showing the keyboard shortcuts.
Settings
Cawbird has specific configurations available, which can be used to make the usage more comfortable or more efficient. These are the categories and options available:
Interface
- Toggle display of inline media
- Toggle auto-scrolling on new tweets
- Toggle activation using a double click
Notifications
- Configure options for notifying of fresh tweets. Options available are of never, every, stack 5, 10, 25, or 50
- Toggle notifying on new messages
Tweets
- Toggle round avatars
- Toggle removal of trailing hashtags and removal of media links
- Toggle hiding inappropriate content
Snippets
Snippets can be activated by writing keyword and pressing the Tab key after. Available by default are snippets of dealwithit and tableflip. More can be added (with the respective keyword configuration), using the button on the bottom of the screen.
If you are interested in installing Cawbird on your system follow our Installation Guide for detail instructions.
