Python Workshops for Beginners/Twitter authentication setup
Things you will need before you start:
- A Twitter account (you can sign up at http://twitter.com)
Follow each of these steps:
1. Go to the Twitter development homepage: https://dev.twitter.com/
2. Click Sign In in the top right corner of the page. You can sign in with your normal Twitter account.
3. Navigate to the Application Management section of Twitter (https://dev.twitter.com/apps). You should see a page that says "You don't currently have any Twitter Apps" with a button underneath that says "Create New App". Click the "Create New App" button.
4. The next page will ask for application details. The first three are required so you will need to create a Name, Description, and Website URL. You can choose whatever you want for these fields but keep in mind that the name can not contain the word "Twitter". You should leave the "Callback URL" blank. If you find it easiest, you can just use the three following examples:
- Name: PWFB Test Application
- Description: PWFB Test Application
- Website: http://www.example.com/
4. Look through the Developer Rules of the Road and then, if you agree, click, "Yes, I agree"
5. You should now see page a page that says "Application Management" on the top and the name of your app (probably "PWFB Test Application") right below the blue bar.
Right below that there are four tabs that say::
- Details
- Settings
- API Keys
- Permissions
6. Click on the API Keys tab.
- You should now see a list of "Application settings". The first two here are the most important and you will need to copy and paste these into a file. The first is the API key. The second is the API secret. Both of them should be long strinigs of garbage looking letters and numbers. These are the keys that will let you program know that it's approved to grab data from Twitter.
7. Now, at the bottom of the page you should see a section marked "Your access token" that says, "You haven't authorized this application for your own account yet." Below that there is a button that says "Create my access token". Click on that button. Once you press it there will be a yellow 'Status' box at the top. It will give you a link you can click to refresh. Wait a minute or two and click it untill you see information, below including lines that give you your "Access token" and your "Access token secret". Copy these two pieces of information.
8. You should have four long strings of letters and numbers taken from this page now:
- API key
- API secret
- Access token
- Access token secret
You will need all of these in order to have your Twitter application work.
Copy and paste each of these into a text file called 'twitter_authentication.py' as follows:
API_KEY = 'CHANGE_ME' API_SECRET = 'CHANGE_ME' ACCESS_TOKEN = 'CHANGE_ME' ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET = 'CHANGE_ME'
Keep this material secret. Your access token and access token secret will allow anybody who has it to post to Twitter as you and to control your account. It is entirely equivalent to your Twitter password so please be as careful with it as you would be with your Twitter password.