Need for Speed: Syrinx
Syrinx started out fairly simple, with only the most basic functionality to make it useful to me in day-to-day usage. In fact that’s all it started out as was something I would use everyday. Then I decided to share it. Since the 1.0 release I have added some really great customization and functionality. A lot of these enhancements came from user suggestions and others from my ever growing list of ideas. With the last release I feel Syrinx has really pulled ahead of other Twitter apps in terms of functionality.
Unfortunately this great functionality is being dragged down by the slow moving time interface. What seemed like a great idea at the time, using NSCollectionView, has really started limiting what can be done, and how well it works. As many users have experienced once a large number of tweets is displayed in Syrinx, scrolling starts to slow down. Searching becomes painful and the great new Show Conversations feature takes way too long.
With all this in mind I’ve put a temporary halt on the next feature release I was planning to dedicate some time to making Syrinx’s timeline faster and more efficient. I’ve got some ideas that I’m testing out and though it may mean losing some of the slick animations that NSCollectionView provided, I don’t think they’ll be missed if there is a suitable speedup.
hey I was wondering could you include a URL shrinker like Twirl does and support for Identi.ca
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identi.ca
I think I kinda like Syrinx so far, but since you say that customization is supposed to be one of its main features — can we please have customizable fonts or rather font sizes for tweets…?! I’ve been looking all around an no Twitter client seems to support that…
But since I ofte times sit in front of the TV set that has a Mac mini hooked up, I like following tweets on there sometimes…if only they were more readable…
@Person – URL shrinking is on my list of future enhancements.
@MILE – Several people have asked for customizable font sizes, it is on my list of future enhancements.
I’ve noticed the slowdown as well. What it seems a lot of other Twitter clients is doing with this is to just crop the list. Since Syrinx has a notion of read/unread tweets, it can even do a better job by just cutting out the read tweets. Every time the bookmark button is pressed, the list could be reduced to a configurable x number of items shown in the list, for example.
I’m glad you’re focusing on this for the next release, but I’m really looking forward to configurable font sizes as well as an integrated URL shortening service.
Under preferences there is a Remove read tweets: option. You can use this keep the number of tweets down and help keep Syrinx running faster.
Love the app so far, my only cooment is if you plan on being able to remove it from the dock and have it in the menu bar instead?
Pretty please
@Anthony – That is on my list of future enhancements.
Mickey:
I’ve been experimenting with Syrinx as a replacement for Twittelator. You’ve got some tremendous advantages, which I really appreciate.
My wishlist:
1. A preference choice of a standard app or a floating window
2. Ability to make the window even narrower
3. (I don’t know if this is a Growl issue) Ability to set the fade speed on Growl notifications. (I can’t find the note AND read the 140 characters before the fade out.)
4. iChat status updating
Thanks so much, MRR!
@Steve Thanks for the feedback.
1. If by floating window you mean not having a dock icon and just a menu bar icon, that’s on my list.
2. I will be looking into making the window narrower to see what I can do.
3. Under OS X’s System Preferences->Growl->Display Options you can set growl durations and customize everything.
4. I’ll add it to my list.