Hotot+
Preview Status
Discontinued Discontinued
Platforms
Google Chrome Mozilla Firefox
Download
Chrome
Firefox
Opera

Hotot+ is an unofficial mod of Hotot, the famous and lightweight Twitter client for Google Chrome.
Hotot+ has now more than 1000 changes than the original version, divided among (many) bugfixes, improvements and additions of new functions.
Starting from v7.0 Hotot+ is now compatible even with Firefox! Thanks to the fact that Mozilla has started a migration to support WebExtensions APIs for its addons (more info can be found here https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2015/08/21/the-future-of-developing-firefox-add-ons/), I was able, after a hard work of rewriting, to readapt Hotot+ to be compatible with Firefox, so fullfilling the most frequently request you made me in recent months.
Starting from v8.2 Hotot+ is now also between the official extensions of Opera too!

A complete and detailed list of new features can be found in the Changelog section at the bottom of this page, meanwhile you can enjoy a brief summary of the main news than the old Hotot:

  • Compatible with Firefox and Opera too!
  • Updated for the use of the latest Twitter API, with the support for many new features previously not supported
  • GUI changed with the addition of new dialogs and many new themes
  • New display mode for DM divided by used and with the new 10000 chars support
  • Database rewritten using IndexedDB for deeper compatibility between browsers
  • Italian translation completely rewritten from scratch
  • Compatibility with multiple attachments in the tweets, both in displaying and sending
  • New and improved framework for the mute filters
  • Ability to follow a hashtag like a user
  • New filtering capabilities for the timeline: only images, no retweet or no replies
  • Notification system completely rewritten with support for image display and lots of new notification sounds to choose
  • Ability to display who made a retweet of own tweet
  • Suggestion of hashtags as well as screennames
  • Synchronization of the opened columns with Chrome Sync
  • Restored properly the search function for tweet/users
  • Added the column of trending topics
  • Ability to hide a tweet from the timeline
  • Ability to abort sending a tweet
  • Ability to immediately delete a tweet sent by mistake
  • Ability to open in one click all own Twitter lists
  • Ability to set the parameters of the Twitter API manually
  • Ability to fake the application from which you're sending tweets
  • Ability to protect with an additional password the access to your profile
  • Ability to attach videos to your tweets
  • Support for the notification of new followers
  • Support for the notification of own tweet favorited/liked by others
  • Support for Twitter official emojis
  • Support for voice recognition to write tweets
  • Support for displaying directly in the client image previews coming from many websites (twitpic, instagram, twipple…)
  • Support for displaying Twitter videos directly in the client
  • Support for displaying Youtube and Dailymotion videos directly in the client
  • Support for displaying Vine videos directly in the client
  • Support for displaying quoted tweets directly in the client
  • Support for the Twitter official function to mute a user without having to defollow him
  • Support for the Twitter official function to hide a user's retweets
  • Support for the automatic translation of tweets using Bing Translator
  • Support for displaying in Google Maps the location of the tweets when available
  • JQuery updated to the latest version
  • Fixed a countless amount of known bugs

As I think you have surely noticed, now it is almost a year that Hotot+ does not receive any new update. So far the client continued to work smoothly, but starting from August 16th, 2018 it will stop working (or at least it will lose several functions) because of the decision by Twitter to suspend some API calls. So I decided to take advantage of this forced opportunity to announce the discontinuance of the development of Hotot+. The reasons that pushed me to this decision are many, but essentially they can be summarized in the following ones:

  • Twitter made things difficult for this app for years, first suspending the API key intermittently (users should surely remember that) and now that we surrendered to the use of private API keys for user, Twitter comes out with a heavy update of its API that will bring withdrawal of several important functions (first among all the streaming APIs and push notifications, things that prevent updates in real time from now on) and the introduction of new premium and business APIs to replace them.
  • Starting from September Mozilla will no longer accept extensions or apps that use jQuery 2, forcing the upgrade to version 3. Unfortunately Hotot+ uses several javascript libraries no longer updated by their respective developers and so they are not compatible with the recent versions of jQuery.

So you will understand well that this essentially means that Hotot+ should receive a rewrite of the source code almost from scratch, a job that now I frankly have neither the time nor the desire to do. For me Hotot+ has always been only a “personal” project, without any profit, simply the Twitter client I used every day and for that reason I continued to keep it up to date. But now, frankly, the commitment that it would require is too far from the simpler and faster “migrating to other ready clients”, not to mention that even my personal use of Twitter is gradually reducing to zero.

Of course I wish to thank all the users who have used this my Hotot+ version and who have contributed to its web diffusion.

Starting from version 2.1 Hotot+ has been finally accepted by the Chrome Web Store, so you can just click on the link above and follow the official instructions for installation.

Starting from version 8.5 Hotot+ has been finally accepted by the official Mozilla Firefox addons, so you can just click on the link above and follow the official instructions for installation.
Please remember that WebExtensions support is still under development and Mozilla itself suggests to use them only starting from Firefox 48.

Starting from version 8.2 Hotot+ has been finally accepted by the official Opera addons, so you can just click on the link above and follow the official instructions for installation.

  1. Why this modded version?
    Hotot is the Twitter client I used for many years. I find it the most comfortable, complete, fast, immediate and lightweight among the various Twitter clients I've tried so far. Unfortunately, the latest project's update was released on June 2012 and lastly it has been discontinued, so, also because of the changes to Twitter APIs, bugs were now numerous, almost makes it unsuitable for daily use. So I decided to take it and make it an again functional and up-to-date Twitter client.

  2. Why did you mod the extension for Chrome and not the standalone program?
    Simple, because that's the version I use. However, the changes may be brought to the standalone program without much effort.

  3. So you'll release a modded version of the standalone program too?
    Frankly I do not think, I do not feel the need, my intent is not to create a “my” Twitter client but simply I want to mantain the one I use every day up-to-date. The public share is just an addition, to allow people to avail himself of this my work. The program is still under GPL license so the source code is publicly available to everyone, if you want then you can do it by yourself, it is just a question to replace some files or make a few copy-paste of some functions from my modded version.

  4. And where can I find the source code?
    I uploaded the source code to GitHub.

  5. I need to install the original version of Hotot first?
    Absolutely NO. This extension is designed to be completely independent from the original version of Hotot, which means that you DON'T need to install the original version first. Likewise, you can, if you wish, keep both Hotot and Hotot+ installed into your Chrome. The two extensions, I repeat, are in fact totally different in everything, settings included.

  6. Am I wrong or does not work anymore autocompletion of nicknames in the status box?
    To use that function the client, only the first time, needs some seconds, maybe due to nicknames/accounts caching. Everything should be back to normal by simply restarting the client.

  7. Why after installation it does not appear in Chrome's Applications page?
    Because, to make it suitable for Chrome Web Store, I had to “transform” Hotot+ in an extension instead of an app. This means that the program's icon will NOT appear in Chrome's Applications page, but it will add a small icon in the extensions bar, to the right of the address bar (look below at the v2.1 changelog for more information about the differences).

  8. Why did you turn it into an extension?
    Because in recent months the Chrome Web Store has added restrictions on rights of third party apps (for safety reasons). Hotot+, being a Twitter client small but also very advanced, needs to communicate with several websites and to have ample access to Google Chrome's features (such as tabs, internal database, etc…) but unfortunately, an app apparently can not have all these rights in Chrome. So if I keep it as an app when I try to upload it to the Chrome Web Store the official uploader refuses the package giving me errors about permissions. But if I delete those permission requests that give problems, then Hotot+ is accepted but after installation it does not work anymore because he could not even communicate with Twitter. For months I searched for a solution on internet and asked also into the official Google developers forum, but I could not find any help or suggestion to overcome this obstacle. For these reasons the trick to turn it from an app into an extension is the only possible solution that allows the acceptance by the Chrome Web Store and at the same time ensures the functionality of Hotot+ after installation.

  9. So it can not appear in Google Chrome's Applications page?
    Unfortunately no, because of its policy Google Chrome clearly divides apps and extensions. You can not have Hotot+ icon in its Applications page, at least not with the current situation.

  10. But I don't like the icon in the extensions bar or I want to save space for other extensions. Can I remove it?
    Of course, just right click on it and choose “Hide button”. After this, however, the only way to launch Hotot+ is to manually enter the following address: chrome-extension://pmfcfpompfkahkjemkmenehdjehchpfi/index.html
    Of course you can also save this address into your bookmarks to quickly access it.

  11. I already used Hotot+ and now, at first startup of v4.0, the loading time was very long and then all my existing accounts have been deleted. Why?
    The v4.0 integrates several substantial changes to the code of the program and especially its internal database. This means that the old database is no longer supported and therefore at first startup of v4.0 Hotot+ have to recreate from scratch its database and this obviously involves a slowdown (but only the first time!), caused by a great number of tasks to do, and the deletion of the old database and so of any accounts already created with older versions. Unfortunately there was no way to avoid it.

  12. I already used Hotot+ and now, at first startup of v7.0, the loading time was very long and then all my existing accounts have been deleted. Why?
    In v7.0 I had to rewrite all database functions from scratch, migrating from SQL to IndexedDB. Of course this means that the new database is no more compatible with the old ones and so Hotot+ has to create it again at first startup.

  13. Are you going to make a porting of Hotot+ for other web browsers such as Firefox or Edge?
    Starting from v7.0 Hotot+ is compatible with Firefox. When Edge will have the support for extensions I'll check if a Hotot+ porting will be doable.

You can report any bug through the Bitbucket official page for the project.

As by now you should know (if you have read above), the WebExtensions APIs support in Firefox is still under development and so there are many bugs, some probably even not yet found. Being bugs about the WebExtensions support I can not fix them with Hotot+ and therefore there is nothing left to do but wait patiently for an improvement to WebExtensions support by the community of Mozilla developers (they are working hard so surely it will not be a long wait).
Testing Hotot+ for Firefox I personally found the following bugs (due to current incompatibility of the WebExtensions APIs):

  • The database is recreated every time you restart the browser - Fixed in Nightly (Nov. 15, 2015)
  • It's not possible to sign extensions that use WebExtensions APIs yet, so Hotot+ can not be installed normally. - Fixed (Mar. 01, 2016)
  • The localized description do not load properly in addons page - Fixed in Nightly (Nov. 11, 2015)
  • The icon do not load correctly in addons page - Fixed in Nightly (Nov. 11, 2015)
  • Since there is still no support for the synchronization of data (like in Chrome), it's therefore impossible for now synchronize open columns among your browsers
  • Since there are no APIs to support voice recognition you can not use it for writing tweets.
  • Notifications APIs do not yet support the display of images inside them, so you can not enable the display of images attached to the tweet in notifications. - Fixed in Nightly (Jan. 07, 2016)
  • You can not set a closing time for notifications as it's not supported by the APIs yet. - Fixed in Nightly (Jan. 07, 2016)
  • The click on the Hotot+ button on extensions bar will open a new tab with Hotot+ regardless if it is already opened or not. - Fixed in Hotot+ v8.5.2
  • The APIs does not yet support the integration with the context menu of the browser, so it is not feasible at this stage. - Fixed in Hotot+ v8.5.2

Of course I will keep updated this list with new bugs you'll report me (or with those I'll find by myself), so please read it often.
You can report any bug using the bug tracker.

Since the changelog has now become very long, I decided to move it to another page in order to avoid further complicating this overview page.
So now you can read it in all its majesty from THIS page.