With the freshly discontinued MetroTwit project, tweet addicts will soon fall back on other desktop clients to remain connected to their Twitter accounts 24/7.
Although Twitter's official app for Windows 8 seems like the rational solution to Windows 8 users, it is currently poor in customization features. Another project developed by the Twitter company is TweetDeck which, unlike the Windows 8 app, makes room for enhancement via customized columns, timelines, keyboard shortcuts, themes, and more.
The application is free to use and compatible with all popular Windows versions, including 8/8.1 (32 and 64 bit). The standard installer unwraps TweetDeck quickly and does not demand a system restart at the end.
In the looks department, the desktop client has a clean and well-organized layout. Its interface has two themes available – dark and light – which can be chosen by taking into account the room's lighting conditions, recommended for protecting the eyesight (dark theme at night).
By default, the main window shows four columns with the home area, notifications, messages and activity, respectively. These can be arranged in any order by dragging them from the upper left side of the column, as well as increased or decreased in width. The font size can be altered as well, to either enlarge or shrink it. Meanwhile, columns can be removed and new ones can be added to oversee mentions, favorites, lists, scheduled, followers, trending, the user, and custom timelines.
Creating a new tweet is as easy as using the browser version of Twitter: by writing a message and clicking a button to publish it instantly, complete with an image at the user's choice. Alternatively, the tweet can be scheduled at a later time and date, as well as sent as a direct message to someone.
Each column comes with its own set of customization settings, and most of these are shared. For instance, content can be filtered to show only tweets with images, videos, links or any media, with matching words while excluding others, with or without retweets, and originating only from particular users.
A notification system can be set up to attract the user's attention to incoming tweets, consisting of sounds, popups, or both. Meanwhile, previews can be enlarged or turned off. In matter of notifications, TweetDeck can be set to indicate only those for mentions, retweets, favorites, followers or lists.
Lists have the role of grouping together followed users into categories, such as friends or co-workers, favorite musicians or hobbies, in order to better keep track of their activity. Public or private labels can be assigned to lists, along with names and descriptions. Similarly, it is also possible to build custom timelines to follow select users.
As far as program configuration is concerned, probably the most important aspect worth mentioning about TweetDeck is that it lets users add multiple Twitter accounts to monitor them at the same time. Furthermore, tweets can be disabled from streaming in real time, while media showing sensitive content can be allowed.
It is possible to hide notifications on startup and minimize TweetDeck to the system tray area on close, pick the link shortening service between Twitter and Bit.ly, as well as to mute text content, a user or source. A search function is available for locating other users, together with keyboard shortcuts for replying, retweeting, marking favorites, sending direct messages, adding and navigating columns, and so on (they cannot be remapped).
The Good
TweetDeck is cross-platform (Windows and Mac OS X) and available as a
Google Chrome extension, apart from the
browser version whose functionality is identical to the desktop client. It works on all popular Windows versions, including 8/8.1 (32 and 64 bit).
A portable counterpart was made by a third-party developer to skip the installer and run the app directly from a pen drive.
Its notable features are tweet scheduling, live column streaming, multiple account support, audio and visual notification system, along with filter searches. Custom columns and lists can be created and sorted to suit users' tastes.
The interface is attractive and intuitive enough to be figured out by anyone, keyboard shortcuts are supported, and CPU and RAM consumption is minimal.
The Bad
In case of the notification system, popups cannot be customized. For example, TweetDeck does not permit users to change their colors or set the on-screen time.
Speaking of colors, the interface's look cannot be personalized beyond the two themes, such as custom text colors or background images.
The Truth
The previous list of shortcomings is not enough to disregard TweetDeck, since it remains a dependable desktop assistant for staying connected to multiple Twitter accounts. Of course, there is always room for improvement, which is reflected by our final rating.
14 DAY TRIAL // 
