Barely available, Twitter’s new 280-character limit is already annoying some users. A French developer offers a solution to restore the old behavior.
Revolution on Twitter last night: the 140 character limit has been dropped. After a little over a month of testing, the social network decided to break the restriction and allow the publication of messages of up to 280 characters on its site. Unsurprisingly, many users are disappointed with this announcement and express their annoyance on the social network. For them, a Tweet in 280 characters loses its immediacy, and therefore its DNA.
But let them be reassured: there are alternatives. Hakim Ibrahim, a 19-year-old developer, has come up with an extension that restores the 140-character limit, for a more readable news feed.
140 characters … and more if affinity
The idea ofHakim Ibrahim is simple: display only the first 140 characters of a tweet as well as a More button giving the possibility to read the full version. It was by discovering the reaction of Internet users after the launch of the test that the idea came to him. “It is an alternative solution to this rather brutal change” explains the developer. The extension does not remove the 140 additional characters but makes it possible not to display them by default, and therefore to have a smoother navigation.
Available on Google chrome and Mozilla Firefox initially, the extension called “Tweets Truncator” should be available for Opera soon. The developer also tells us that he is working on the Tweetdeck version for regulars of this Twitter client. A good way to take advantage of the 280 characters without making your Timeline unreadable.