Create a dynamic Twitter Signature with PHP.

Today, I’m going to show you how to use PHP and it’s GD library to create a dynamic signature that you can use on forums, blogs, etc, that contains your latest tweet.

This will be a simple script, you can adjust it yourself later.

To begin, you’ll need a background image, we’ll use this one:

Now, we’ll create mysig.php:

First, let’s go over the initial script:

   $name = $_GET['name'];
   $srcImage = "./twit.png";
   $im = imagecreatefrompng($srcImage);
   $res = tweetit($name,1);
   $string = $res[2].": ".$res[0];
   $timg = $res[1];
   if( !empty($timg) ){
      $timg = copyImg($timg);
      if( stristr($timg,".jpg") ){
         $stamp = imagecreatefromjpeg($timg);
      }else if( stristr($timg,".png") ){
         $stamp = imagecreatefrompng($timg);
      }
      $marge_right = 2;
      $marge_bottom = 2;
      $sx = imagesx($stamp);
      $sy = imagesy($stamp);
      imagecopy($im, $stamp, imagesx($im) - $sx - $marge_right, imagesy($im) - $sy - $marge_bottom, 0, 0, imagesx($stamp), imagesy($stamp));
   }
   $black = @imagecolorallocate ($im, 0, 0, 0);
   $white = @imagecolorallocate ($im, 255, 255, 255);
   $width = imagesx($im);
   $height = imagesy($im);
   $color = imagecolorallocate($im, 100, 100, 100);
   ImageStringWrap($im, 3, 5, 2, $string, $black,320);
   header("Content-type: image/png");
   imagepng($im);
   exit;

So, there are a few steps involved here, we still need to create some functions.

The first function, is a function called tweetit, which returns the latest tweet:

   function tweetit($user,$cnt = 1){
      $curl = curl_init('http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/' . $user . '.xml?count='.$cnt);
      curl_setopt($curl,CURLOPT_HEADER,false);
      curl_setopt($curl,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,true);
      $twi = curl_exec($curl);
      curl_close($curl);
      $tweeters = new SimpleXMLElement($twi);
      $latesttweets = count($tweeters);
      foreach ($tweeters->status as $twit1) {
         $text = (string)$twit1->text;
         $img = (string)$twit1->user->profile_image_url;
         $name = (string)$twit1->user->screen_name;
         break;
      }
      return array( $text,$img,$name);
   }

Next, we have to copy the avatar for your twitter account, this will help save on bandwidth later, and also helps cut down on trying to manipulate remotely hosted images:

   function copyImg($url){
      $fname = explode("/",$url);
      $fname = end($fname);
      $fname = "avas/".$fname;
      if( !file_exists($fname) ){
         $curl = curl_init($url);
         curl_setopt($curl,CURLOPT_HEADER,false);
         curl_setopt($curl,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,true);
         $twi = curl_exec($curl);
         curl_close($curl);
         $fp = fopen($fname, 'w');
         fwrite($fp, $twi);
         fclose($fp);
      }
      return $fname;
   }

The last function, is our custom ImageStringWrap function, this function is used to split your tweet into multiple lines based on image width.

   function ImageStringWrap($image, $font, $x, $y, $text, $color, $maxwidth){
      $fontwidth = ImageFontWidth($font);
      $fontheight = ImageFontHeight($font);
      if ($maxwidth != NULL) {
         $maxcharsperline = floor($maxwidth / $fontwidth);
         $text = wordwrap($text, $maxcharsperline, "\n", 1);
      }
      $lines = explode("\n", $text);
      while (list($numl, $line) = each($lines)) {
         ImageString($image, $font, $x, $y, $line, $color);
         $y += $fontheight;
      }
   }

Now, let’s put it all together:

   $name = $_GET['name'];
   $srcImage = "./twit.png";
   $im    = imagecreatefrompng($srcImage);
   $res = tweetit($name,1);
   $string = $res[2].": ".$res[0];
   $timg = $res[1];
   if( !empty($timg) ){
      $timg = copyImg($timg);
      if( stristr($timg,".jpg") ){
         $stamp = imagecreatefromjpeg($timg);
      }else   if( stristr($timg,".png") ){
         $stamp = imagecreatefrompng($timg);
      }
      $marge_right = 2;
      $marge_bottom = 2;
      $sx = imagesx($stamp);
      $sy = imagesy($stamp);
      imagecopy($im, $stamp, imagesx($im) - $sx - $marge_right, imagesy($im) - $sy - $marge_bottom, 0, 0, imagesx($stamp), imagesy($stamp));
   }
   $black = @imagecolorallocate ($im, 0, 0, 0);
   $white = @imagecolorallocate ($im, 255, 255, 255);
   $width = imagesx($im);
   $height = imagesy($im);
   $color = imagecolorallocate($im, 100, 100, 100);
   ImageStringWrap($im, 3, 5, 2, $string, $black,320);
   header("Content-type: image/png");
   imagepng($im);
   exit;

   function ImageStringWrap($image, $font, $x, $y, $text, $color, $maxwidth){
      $fontwidth = ImageFontWidth($font);
      $fontheight = ImageFontHeight($font);
      if ($maxwidth != NULL) {
         $maxcharsperline = floor($maxwidth / $fontwidth);
         $text = wordwrap($text, $maxcharsperline, "\n", 1);
      }
      $lines = explode("\n", $text);
      while (list($numl, $line) = each($lines)) {
         ImageString($image, $font, $x, $y, $line, $color);
         $y += $fontheight;
      }
   }
   function tweetit($user,$cnt = 1){
      $curl = curl_init('http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/' . $user . '.xml?count='.$cnt);
      curl_setopt($curl,CURLOPT_HEADER,false);
      curl_setopt($curl,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,true);
      $twi = curl_exec($curl);
      curl_close($curl);
      $tweeters = new SimpleXMLElement($twi);
      $latesttweets = count($tweeters);
      foreach ($tweeters->status as $twit1) {
         $text = (string)$twit1->text;
         $img = (string)$twit1->user->profile_image_url;
         $name = (string)$twit1->user->screen_name;
         break;
      }
      return array( $text,$img,$name);
   }
   function copyImg($url){
      $fname = explode("/",$url);
      $fname = end($fname);
      $fname = "avas/".$fname;
      if( !file_exists($fname) ){
         $curl = curl_init($url);
         curl_setopt($curl,CURLOPT_HEADER,false);
         curl_setopt($curl,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,true);
         $twi = curl_exec($curl);
         curl_close($curl);
         $fp = fopen($fname, 'w');
         fwrite($fp, $twi);
         fclose($fp);
      }
      return $fname;
   }

This is how the script works, you call it as follows:

   <img src="mysig.php?name=freekrai" alt="" />

And you get this:

Pretty cool huh?

When you upload this to your site, your going to want to create a folder called “avas“, and make sure it is writable by setting it to 755 or 777, this will let you store your twitter avatars locally using the copyImg function.

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