CawbirdX

A lightweight, modern GTK4 Twitter client for Linux

🛠️ Build Status

📸 Screenshots

✨ Features

• Timeline Viewing - Browse your Twitter timeline with real-time updates
• Tweet Composition - Compose and post new tweets with character count
• Search - Search tweets by keywords and hashtags
• User Profiles - View user profiles with follower/following counts
• Secure Storage - Credentials stored securely in system keyring
• Local Caching - Cached tweets for improved performance and offline viewing
• Modern UI - Clean, modern interface built with GTK4 and libadwaita
• Dark Mode - Follows system theme automatically

🚀 Installation

Prerequisites

System Dependencies

Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y \
    libgtk-4-dev \
    libadwaita-1-dev \
    libgstreamer1.0-dev \
    libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev \
    pkg-config \
    build-essential \
    libssl-dev

Fedora/RHEL:

sudo dnf install -y \
    gtk4-devel \
    libadwaita-devel \
    gstreamer1-devel \
    gstreamer1-plugins-base-devel \
    pkg-config \
    openssl-devel

Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S --needed \
    gtk4 \
    libadwaita \
    gstreamer \
    pkg-config \
    base-devel

Rust Toolchain

Install Rust using rustup:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
source "$HOME/.cargo/env"

Building from Source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/SwatDesignz/CawbirdX.git
cd CawbirdX

# Build in release mode
cargo build --release

# The binary will be at target/release/cawbirdx

Installing

# Install to /usr/local/bin
sudo install -m 755 target/release/cawbirdx /usr/local/bin/cawbirdx

# Or run directly from the build directory
./target/release/cawbirdx

🔧 Configuration

RapidAPI Credentials

CawbirdX uses the RapidAPI Twitter API. You'll need to:

1. Sign up at RapidAPI
2. Subscribe to a Twitter API (e.g., Twitter241)
3. Get your API Key and Host

On first run, you'll be prompted to enter:

• API Key: Your RapidAPI key (e.g., RapidAPI key)
• API Host: The RapidAPI host (e.g., twitter241.p.rapidapi.com)

Credentials are stored securely in your system keyring.

Environment Variables

You can also set credentials via environment variables:

export RAPIDAPI_KEY="your_api_key"
export RAPIDAPI_HOST="twitter241.p.rapidapi.com"
cawbirdx

📖 Usage

Basic Usage

# Run the application
cawbirdx

# Or with cargo
cargo run --release

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+Q	Quit application
Ctrl+R	Refresh timeline
Ctrl+F	Focus search bar
Ctrl+N	New tweet

Features

Timeline

• View your home timeline
• Refresh with the refresh button
• Scroll to load more tweets

Compose Tweets

• Click the compose button (document icon)
• Type your tweet (280 character limit)
• Character count shown in real-time
• Click "Post" to send

Search

• Enter search terms in the search bar
• Click the search button or press Enter
• Results appear in the timeline

Settings

• Click the settings button (gear icon)
• View application information
• Clear stored credentials

🛠️ Development

Project Structure

cawbirdx/
├── src/
│   ├── api/           # Twitter API client
│   ├── auth/          # Credential storage
│   ├── state/         # Local cache
│   ├── ui/            # UI components
│   ├── resources/     # GTK resources
│   ├── app.rs         # Main application
│   └── main.rs        # Entry point
├── Cargo.toml         # Rust dependencies
├── build.rs           # Build script
└── README.md          # This file

Dependencies

Core Dependencies:

• gtk4 (0.7) - GTK4 bindings
• libadwaita (0.5) - libadwaita bindings
• tokio (1.35) - Async runtime
• reqwest (0.11) - HTTP client
• serde (1.0) - Serialization
• keyring (1.2) - Secure credential storage
• heed (0.20) - LMDB database for caching

Development Dependencies:

• glib-build-tools (0.18) - GTK resource compilation

Building for Development

# Debug build with logging
RUST_LOG=debug cargo run

# Run tests
cargo test

# Format code
cargo fmt

# Check code
cargo clippy

Creating a Release

# Build optimized release
cargo build --release

# The binary will be at target/release/cawbirdx
# Size is optimized with LTO and stripping

🐛 Troubleshooting

Application won't start

GTK4 not found:

# Install GTK4 development libraries
sudo apt-get install libgtk-4-dev libadwaita-1-dev

Resources not loading:

# Clean and rebuild
cargo clean
cargo build --release

Credentials not saving

Keyring issues:

# Check if keyring is working
# On Linux, ensure you have a keyring backend installed
# (gnome-keyring, kwallet, etc.)

API errors

Invalid credentials:

• Check your RapidAPI key and host
• Ensure your RapidAPI subscription is active
• Verify you have API quota remaining

Rate limiting:

• RapidAPI has rate limits per subscription
• Wait before making more requests

📝 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

📧 Contact

• Repository: https://github.com/SwatDesignz/CawbirdX
• Issues: https://github.com/SwatDesignz/CawbirdX/issues

🙏 Acknowledgments

• GTK4 and libadwaita teams for the excellent GUI framework
• RapidAPI for providing Twitter API access
• The Rust community for amazing tooling

📊 Roadmap

• Direct Twitter API support (OAuth)
• Image/media upload support
• Thread viewing
• Lists support
• Notifications
• Direct messages
• Multiple account support
• Custom themes
• Keyboard navigation improvements

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Made with ❤️ using Rust and GTK4