Question

I am using this twitter api library and so far everything is great. My problem (well not really a problem more a user experience) is that every time you want to sign in with twitter you need to open a popup.

Right now the flow is this:

• User clicks on the sign in with twitter logo on my page.
• Javascript induced popup comes up with the the twitter Oauth stuff on it. If you are logged in all it says is login and cancel. If you are not it has login fields.
• If everything is good it goes to a callback url that I supply. does a bunch of stuff and then..
• I call window.opener and pass the authenticated info and from there I close the window.

This was surprisingly easy to implement and works great. I’m wondering if the twiiter login process can be a little more like the facebooks which would be this.

• User clicks on the sign in with twitter logo on my page.
• If the user is logged in and has autorized the app the popup window will popup go away instantly and chuck the user data back to my page.

I do realize that I am using a php library for twitter and the facebook flow is from the javascript side but I am wondering if I can detect, with php, if the user has already allowed the app and is signed in, for them bypass the extra signin/cancel click.

Answer 1

Try using the "Sign in with Twitter" flow. If the user is already authenticated, it’s a one click operation. The linked doc above has a flowchart and description of the process, but I’ll list the steps here (with emphasis added) as well, and link in the relevant API pages:

"Sign in with Twitter" is the pattern
of authentication that allows users to
connect their Twitter account with
third-party services in as little as one click. It utilizes OAuth and
although the flow is very similar, the
authorization URL and workflow differs
slightly as described below.

The
normal flow dictates that applications
send request tokens to oauth/authorize
in Twitter’s implementation of the
OAuth Specification. To take advantage
of "Sign in with Twitter",
applications should send request
tokens received in the oauth_token
parameter to oauth/authenticate
instead.

The oauth/authenticate method
will act in different ways depending
on the status of the user and their
previous interaction with the calling
application:

1. If the user is logged
   into twitter.com and has already
   approved the calling application, the
   user will be immediately authenticated
   and returned to the callback URL.

2. If
   the user is not logged into
   twitter.com and has already approved
   the calling application, the user will
   be prompted to login to twitter.com
   then will be immediately authenticated
   and returned to the callback URL.

3. If
   the user is logged into twitter.com
   and has not already approved the
   calling application, the OAuth
   authorization prompt will be
   presented. Authorizing users will then
   be redirected to the callback URL.

4. If
   the user is not logged into
   twitter.com and has not already
   approved the calling application, the
   user will be prompted to login to
   twitter.com then will be presented the
   authorization prompt before
   redirecting back to the callback URL.

Hopefully this fits the bill and will work for you.