Twhirl is a desktop client for the popular microblogging platform Twitter that builds on the very cool Adobe AIR runtime. AIR allows desktop software development using popular web techniques like XHTML/CSS or Flash/Flex. Twhirl requires the most recent version of AIR (beta 3) to be installed on the client computer.

There were different reasons for me to start developing twhirl. First of all, I liked twitter, but using the website didn’t feel comfortable. Second, I wanted to get my hands on a “real” AIR project, testing it in and out and evaluating it for future uses. Third, I had some spare time to do some fun stuff.

The decision to go the Flex way was easily made. I do XHTML/CSS every day, but I had very few experiences in Flex and ActionScript programming. So I thought this was a good chance to improve these.