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POUsing the Twitter API with an app - using app OAUTH keys or user logging in
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copied!<p>I've built a Twitter app called <a href="http://twools.it/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Twools</a> in PHP using the wonderful <a href="https://github.com/J7mbo/twitter-api-php" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Twitter API PHP Wrapper script</a> by <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/users/736809/jimbo">@J7mbo</a>. Like many Twitter app examples it requires you to create an app at <a href="http://dev.twitter.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">dev.twitter.com</a>, get the OAUTH keys (consumer key, consumer secret, access token & access token secret) and add them to the app.</p> <p>I'm happy with the way it works, but I am confused as to the difference between this way of working and apps that allow the user to sign in to use the app. </p> <p>My Twitter app stores the OAUTH tokens and can run at any time without direction from a user. It could run on a schedule for example every hour. The problem is that it requires a user to create an account at dev.twitter.com and get those tokens. </p> <p>Other apps seem to allow a user to authorize it to use their details. In this case the user doesn't have to create their own app- the OAUTH details are presumably stored by the app. What is this technique called? I can't seem to find out the difference between these two techniques. In this latter case, once the app has been authorized, can it act autonomously without direction from the user? For example could it run on a schedule?</p> <p>I hope you can reverse my confusion!</p> <p>Thanks.</p>

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