So a bit ago I decided I wanted to run Twitter Tools giving a daily archive of Tweets on my blog, rather than echoing each one. For one thing, I didn’t like the use of the first 30 characters of the post for the title (I know how to work around that, maybe, now, but …). For another thing, I didn’t think individual Tweets were that interesting, and I was spending too much time thinking, “How is this going to look as its own post.”
I switched the Twitter Tools options “Create a blog post from each of your tweets?” to No, and “Create a daily digest blog post from your tweets?” to Yes. Unlike what some of the comments folks have made in various forums imply, I did not find any sort of options appearing to set what date it should be.
The daily digests were showing up at midnight, which meant that all the comments for day X were on a post dated X+1. Not what I wanted.
Dug into the web pages, Google, WordPress forums, etc. Let messages. Tried to figure it out.
Nada.
I found in the WP database (in wp_options) a field titled aktt_digest_daily_time, but it was blank, and there was no sort of guide as to what should go in there — or even what format to try out. Given the vagaries of time standards in UNIX and PHP and such, I was reluctant to just guess.
I checked with Doyce, who runs this. He had a very old datestamp in there. Weird. I tried that. No change. I tried a different timestamp in the format of the install_date field. nada.
Finally, I tried “11:01 p.m.” by itself.
Ch-ching. Midnight comes and another post gets done.
So I tried (because I’d found a reference to something format like that in a post someone had written) “23:01”.
And … aha! I got a Tweet digest at … 5:23 p.m.?
What the heck?
I hadn’t had a chance to look at it this afternoon, but was poking into the WP dashboard for the blog and noticed … a Tweet digest … already in place? Scheduled but unposted?
And I looked at it, and, yup, it was scheduled for 5:23p.
So I opened up phpAdmin again and looked in the wp_posts table, and saw that the post_date for that post was “2009-04-03 17:23:00” — but the post_date_gmt for the file was “2009-04-03 23:23:00”. And, yes, during Daylight Saving Time, we’re GMT-6.
Aha!
So the aktt_digest_daily_time field is a GMT date, in a 24-hour hh:mm format. For some reason, there’s some sort of lag in it (perhaps based on when the widget actually gets thrown to look for tweets), giving a 20-odd minute lag.
So, if I change that timestamp to “05:15”, I should get a daily digest at 11:30 p.m. or so at night. Just what I want.
Let’s see if it works.
I figured out that my timestamp is old because my version of WP/Twitter-tools isn’t updating that field as it should.
Kate’s (test) install of the exact same version of WP & Twitter-tools does update all the fields in the database correctly, AND her installation shows options to set the time when the digest is supposed to display.
Basically, hers works correctly, yours and (all three) of mine don’t.
No idea why that is. All versions of everything are the same, including our hosting service, and we have all the same plugins… but he TTools has all the options listed, mine does.
Me, I shut off digest option in Twitter Tools today and will try to accomplish the same thing with the Twitter Digest option. We’ll see how that works.
Last paragraphs should read:
but heR TWITTERTools has all the options listed, mine doesN’T.
Me, I shut off THE digest option in Twitter Tools today and will try to accomplish the same thing with the Twitter Digest PLUGIN. We’ll see how that works.
Okay, well, that explains it.
I’ve seen some reference to Javascript and bad drug interactions with Twitter Tools functions. But you say she has all the same plug-ins? Hrm. May be a theme-based thing.
Are you having malfunctions? Because, aside from what you described (not knowing how to set the time), I had the impression it was working well for you. (But I’ll watch to see how the new experiment is working.)
[Ah, never mind — just saw the Tweet about it.]
Hrm. Still coming out at 5:23. Give it another 24 hours (the problem with diagnosing a Daily Digest thing is that, well, it only fires daily).
And … still coming in at 5:23p. Hrm.
So no joy.
Loaded up “Twitter Digest” — but it didn’t fire.
Doyce had some ideas on Twitter Tools, which I implemented and … a new one came in at 5:15a. Must examine further.
So Doyce’s cunning observation:
Working in the wp_options table in the WordPress database …
Ignore the aktt_digest_daily_time field. Yeah, I know.
Note that the aktt_next_daily_digest field and aktt_last_digest_post fields are apparently both serial counts, by seconds, from some past time mark. If you subtract the two, then divide by 60 (seconds in a minute) and again by 60 (minutes in an hour), you come up with 23.9999s. So 24 hours, which is what you’d expect between the two of them, right?
So to reset the interval, take the hours you want the next post to be later or earlier, and multiply x60x60. So 2 hours would be 2x60x60=7200. Add (subtract) that from the value in aktt_next_daily_digest to make it later (earlier) that many hours. Replace the value.
Hey-presto, it should work. I tried it, and managed to make my Twitter post show up at 5-something a.m. instead of 5:23 p.m., so I clearly need to do my math better, but the principle seems sound.
Woot! Posted at 11:15p!
Of course, there seems to be an unseemly lag between the last Tweet it sees and when it posts. But I can keep an eye on that.
For what it’s worth, the TT interface now shows the time selection for the options. I think it was an update under WP 2.8/2.8.1, since TT hasn’t changed.