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UT Drupal Kit

UT Drupal Kit 3.13.0/3.13.1 Release

NOTE: Due to a regression introduced in the 3.13.0 release, the 3.13.1 bugfix release was created prior to the 3.13.0 release announcement.

This serves as the release announcement for both 3.13.0 and 3.13.1. For details about the 3.13.1 bugfix, please see the release notes.

The 3.13.0 release is part of the Drupal Kit’s normal, bi-monthly maintenance release schedule. There are no major changes in this release, just the usual mix of bugfixes and improvements. Four changes of note are described below:

Categories
UT Drupal Kit

Disruption to previously recommended Twitter timeline alternative

On June 7, 2023 in the post “Disruption to UT Drupal Kit Twitter feed functionality,” we announced that the Twitter API used for the UT Drupal Kit’s implementation of embedding Twitter timelines had stopped functioning, and blocks created using that functionality were no longer returning any tweets for display.

As a replacement, we recommended use of Twitter Publish, which offers a free, simple interface for users to create embeddable Twitter feeds. But as of July 5, 2023, it appears that Twitter Publish is not functioning. We have been able to find reports of this problem from other users, but there have been no public announcements from Twitter about the status or future of this service.

While there is no confirmation that these issues are related, Twitter recently announced rate limits on Tweet consumption, which have impacted third-party services such as TweetDeck. Our working theory is that these rate limits are even impacting Twitter’s own internal products and services such as Twitter Publish.

At this time, there is no recommended alternative for embedding Twitter feeds in websites, and as Twitter’s reliability and service model continues to change wildly and without notice, site owners should consider the risk of continuing to rely on this service for publishing information to stakeholders.

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UT Drupal Kit

Disruption to UT Drupal Kit Twitter feed functionality

As previously reported in the post “Potential disruption to UT Drupal Kit’s Twitter feed functionality,” planned changes to the Twitter API (application programming interface) were anticipated to break the current implementation included in the UT Drupal Kit for embedding Twitter timelines into pages.

As of May 22, 2023, this change appears to have gone into effect (without prior announcement of a specific date), and the Twitter component included in the UT Drupal Kit is no longer working. Existing Twitter blocks on pages will simply show with the title of the block, but no Tweets below it.

At this time, we do not plan to replace the Twitter Feed component, but encourage the use of Twitter Publish as a substitute. This is a free, simple interface for users to create embeddable Twitter feeds that could be placed on any site by copying the <iframe>  code generated from https://publish.twitter.com to a block using the “Full HTML” text format.

This option works independently of the UTDK Twitter Feed component, does not require creating a Twitter developer account, and is available today for site owners to use. For examples of advanced options such as limiting the number of Tweets displayed, please see the Timelines documentation on https://developer.twitter.com.

Feedback from several UT Drupal Kit customers has been that Twitter Publish is easy to use, and the appearance of the resulting Twitter feeds is actually superior to that of the native Drupal component.

If you have additional questions about the Twitter Feed component and these changes, please open a support ticket by emailing drupal-kit-support@utlists.utexas.edu.

Categories
UT Drupal Kit

Potential disruption to UT Drupal Kit’s Twitter feed functionality

NOTE: Please see updated information on this issue at “Disruption to UT Drupal Kit’s Twitter feed functionality.”

The UT Drupal Kit team has become aware of the impending retirement of Twitter’s “V1.1” API (application programming interface). This API is used by the “Twitter Profile Widget” module for Drupal to retrieve data from Twitter and populate the Drupal Kit’s Twitter Feed component.

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