Android Sharing on Twitter

Question

How can I share a string message on twitter? I would like to let the user choose between multiple string messages and click on one to share it via Twitter.

Answer 1

There are a number of ways to implement this.One may be simply open up http://twitter.com and share tweets in a single intent such as..

Intent tweet = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
tweet.setData(Uri.parse("http://twitter.com/?status=" + Uri.encode(message)));//where message is your string message
startActivity(tweet);

Or,

Intent tweet = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
tweet.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "Sample test for Twitter.");
startActivity(Intent.createChooser(share, "Share this via"));

Or,

String tweetUrl = "https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=WRITE YOUR MESSAGE HERE &url="
                    + "https://www.google.com";
Uri uri = Uri.parse(tweetUrl);
startActivity(new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, uri));

Answer 2

To share via twitter I use my own custom static function in a Util class like so:

public class Util
{
    public static Intent getTwitterIntent(Context ctx, String shareText)
    {
        Intent shareIntent;

        if(doesPackageExist(ctx, "com.twitter.android"))
        {           
            shareIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
            shareIntent.setClassName("com.twitter.android",
                "com.twitter.android.PostActivity"); 
            shareIntent.setType("text/*");
            shareIntent.putExtra(android.content.Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, shareText); 
            return shareIntent;
       }
       else
       {
           String tweetUrl = "https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=" + shareText;
           Uri uri = Uri.parse(tweetUrl);
           shareIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, uri);
           return shareIntent;
       }
   }
}

The advantage of this function is that if the twitter app is installed it uses that, otherwise, it uses the web based twitter page. The text that will be tweeted is passed into the function.

In your scenario, when the user has selected from a choice of messages, pass the selected message into the function. It will then give you back an Intent which you can plug into startActivity() function like so:

startActivity(Util.getTwitterIntent(context, "Text that will be tweeted"));