Updating TWBlue
Oct. 30th, 2021 01:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dogriverIf you are not a blind software user, and more specifically, if you are not a blind Twitter user, this particular post will almost certainly mean absolutely nothing to you and can be ignored. TWBlue is a Twitter client used by many blind people because of its accessibility.
Recently, a set of changes came about that rendered older versions of TWBlue inoperative. A new version was made available within the hour, and people who had been keeping up with betas, known as snapshots, had no difficulty updating. For these people, run the program, choose to update, and you are good to go. However, people who were using the now quite-old stable release, the portable version, or an older snapshot can not update quite so easily.
This is currently confusing a lot of people. Most are on Twitter, and it can be very trying on someone's patience to receive instructions on how to fix this in small chunks, so I thought I would write out the procedure here, so you have it all in one spot and don't have to receive it in 280-character chunks.
This section of the instructions applies to anyone who has previously used an executable installer to run TWBlue.
1. Press Windows+r, then type the following exactly, including the quotation marks:
"%userprofile%\appdata\roaming\tw blue"
and then press enter. You will be placed in File Explorer exactly where you want to be.
2. Find the directory called config and delete it.
3. You can now close File Explorer, you're done with it.
4. Navigate to https://twblue.es/downloads/
5. Grab the version you want to use. For simplicity, I recommend the installer as opposed to the portable version, unless you have a compelling reason to use the portable version. Hint: if you don't know what a portable version is for, there's a good chance you have no compelling reason to use it. The remainder of this section of the instructions assumes you are installing the installer.
6. Run the installer. If Windows Defender pops up and tries to prevent you from running the program, select More Information, then tab to Run Anyway.
7. Once the installer has run, you should be able to run TWBlue again. Because you have deleted your configuration file, the program will need to be reconfigured. Fortunately, this, like the above steps, is a one-off process.
If you are using the portable version or were runnning an earlier snapshot (installed by unzipping a file in both cases), the quickest way to get going with this new version is to empty out your TWBlue directory, grab the appropriate portable version (32- or 64-bit), and unzip the contents into your newly emptied directory. Again, you will need to reconfigure. Note that the installer takes care of the 32- or 64-bit issue for you.
Finally, if you would like to read about why Manuel is doing away with the snapshots altogether, he rights about it in this blog post.
I hope these instructions will help people who are having difficulty updating TWBlue. As I stated before, these changes are a one-off. If your TWBlue is currently still working fine, it means you were up-to-date before all this happened, and still are, so you don't need to worry about any of this. Thanks very much.
Recently, a set of changes came about that rendered older versions of TWBlue inoperative. A new version was made available within the hour, and people who had been keeping up with betas, known as snapshots, had no difficulty updating. For these people, run the program, choose to update, and you are good to go. However, people who were using the now quite-old stable release, the portable version, or an older snapshot can not update quite so easily.
This is currently confusing a lot of people. Most are on Twitter, and it can be very trying on someone's patience to receive instructions on how to fix this in small chunks, so I thought I would write out the procedure here, so you have it all in one spot and don't have to receive it in 280-character chunks.
This section of the instructions applies to anyone who has previously used an executable installer to run TWBlue.
1. Press Windows+r, then type the following exactly, including the quotation marks:
"%userprofile%\appdata\roaming\tw blue"
and then press enter. You will be placed in File Explorer exactly where you want to be.
2. Find the directory called config and delete it.
3. You can now close File Explorer, you're done with it.
4. Navigate to https://twblue.es/downloads/
5. Grab the version you want to use. For simplicity, I recommend the installer as opposed to the portable version, unless you have a compelling reason to use the portable version. Hint: if you don't know what a portable version is for, there's a good chance you have no compelling reason to use it. The remainder of this section of the instructions assumes you are installing the installer.
6. Run the installer. If Windows Defender pops up and tries to prevent you from running the program, select More Information, then tab to Run Anyway.
7. Once the installer has run, you should be able to run TWBlue again. Because you have deleted your configuration file, the program will need to be reconfigured. Fortunately, this, like the above steps, is a one-off process.
If you are using the portable version or were runnning an earlier snapshot (installed by unzipping a file in both cases), the quickest way to get going with this new version is to empty out your TWBlue directory, grab the appropriate portable version (32- or 64-bit), and unzip the contents into your newly emptied directory. Again, you will need to reconfigure. Note that the installer takes care of the 32- or 64-bit issue for you.
Finally, if you would like to read about why Manuel is doing away with the snapshots altogether, he rights about it in this blog post.
I hope these instructions will help people who are having difficulty updating TWBlue. As I stated before, these changes are a one-off. If your TWBlue is currently still working fine, it means you were up-to-date before all this happened, and still are, so you don't need to worry about any of this. Thanks very much.
