hpr1799 :: Posting From the Command Line on Open Social Networks
I explain how to post content from the command line on open social networks pump.io and GNU Social
Hosted by Jon Kulp on 2015-06-25 is flagged as Clean and is released under a CC-BY-SA license.
scripting, command-line, social media, GNU Social, pump.io.
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general.
Posting From the Command Line on Open Social Networks
You can post to your open social media timelines from the command line using API access. Why would you want to do this?
- Script automated postings.
- Bots
- Post from terminal environments.
- Post from wherever else you are without having to go to the social media site or to the client that you use to access it.
- Trigger postings via voice command (what I do).
On GNU Social
Here is the basic format for the command to post a message to a Statusnet / GNU Social timeline:
curl -s --basic --user <username:password> --data status="Hello World" --output /dev/null https://instance.domain.com/api/statuses/update.xml
And here is the script I use to post a message to my timeline, launched by a blather voice command:
#!/bin/bash # SN account info user=johndoe pass='password123' # a place to store the text message text=/tmp/message.txt # Virtual keystrokes to copy selected text to the clipboard xdotool key Control+c # pipe text out of clipboard into the text file xclip -o > $text # rest for half a sec sleep .5 curl -s --basic \ --user $user:$pass \ --data status="$(cat "$text")" \ --output /dev/null \ https://instance.domain.com/api/statuses/update.xml rm $text exit 0
On Pump.io
On pump.io you have to install the pump.io
software on your computer. You don't have to be running a server, you just have to have the binaries so that you can run the commands. I will not go into how this is done on this podcast, but there's a link to the pump.io website below and there should be installation instructions available there. Once you have the software installed, you also have to allow command-line access to your account and get the token for authentication, maybe authorize the user too:
pump-register-app -s instance.domain.com -P 443 -t CLI
pump-authorize -s instance.domain.com -P 443 -u username
Finally you can post to your timeline from the command line:
pump-post-note -s instance.domain.com -P 443 -p -u username -n "Hello World."
My script to post a message to the pump.io
timeline, launched by a blather voice command:
#!/bin/bash # a place to put the text. text=/tmp/message.txt # -------------------------------- # Since markdown is possible, I run # the text through markdown to get # a bit of formatting and save it # as a separate file # -------------------------------- pump=/tmp/pump.txt # Virtual keystrokes to copy selected text to the clipboard xdotool key Control+c # pipe text out of clipboard into the text file xclip -o > $text # run Markdown markdown $text > $pump # Post message pump-post-note -s instance.domain.com -P 443 -p -u username -n "$(cat $pump)" sleep 1 rm $text rm $pump exit 0
Links
- GNU social: https://gnu.io/
- https://identi.ca/ (a pump.io network)
- pump.io Clients: https://github.com/e14n/pump.io/wiki/Clients
- My Screencast demonstrating the use of blather voice command to post to a timeline https://youtu.be/IJyzF_-6S2o