21

Currently, Twitter converts anything that has dot inside it into a link, e.g. ASP.NET becomes http://ASP.NET, Any.DO becomes http://Any.DO etc. I currently make a space if I want the word to stay the way it should, e.g. "ASP. NET" though it is not right.

Is there a hack around this Twitter bug? Like if there would be some unicode character that looked like a dot and could be inserted there or something like that.

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  • 4
    Type ASPdotNET? – kobaltz Jan 6 '12 at 17:38
19

Use a zero-width space. It's completely unnoticeable: ASP.​Net

I also use this trick to get around the minimum-character limit on some sites * cough *.

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  • The only disadvantage being that it eats one character from the 140 limit. But it is a nice solution, I like it. – Borek Bernard Jan 6 '12 at 22:48
  • +1 ZWSP is definitely the way to go, but it should come before the fullstop. That way, “.NET” stays a single word for the sake of wrapping and searching. – Jon Purdy Jan 7 '12 at 5:10
  • How do you actually type that character on laptops without numeric pads? I tried copying that character from MS Word but the space was clearly visible (the output was like "ASP .NET"). – Borek Bernard Jan 8 '12 at 9:32
  • @Borek: Try copying+pasting from this page – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft Jan 27 '12 at 22:54
  • You sir are a wizard. – Chris Marisic Aug 11 '14 at 13:46
4

How about a cedilla (U+00B8) (¸)? Or an ogonek (U+02DB) (˛)?

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  • Close but still visibly different than dot. – Borek Bernard Jan 6 '12 at 22:46
4

You can type . instead of a period (note the trailing semicolon, you need it). It's the ASCII encoding of a period, so you still get a normal period and not some weird Unicode thing that some fonts might not support. But Twitter won't interpret it as a web address. e.g. ASP.NET becomes ASP.NET and not some "shortened" t.co link.

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  • 1
    I can only see a dot instead of some ASCII encoding code? Can you provide an example of what I should type into Twitter textarea when I want to tweet "ASP.NET MVC rocks". – Borek Bernard Jan 6 '12 at 21:33
  • Oh of course the comment box also ate the escaped period. duh. Thanks for the edit. – sep332 Jan 6 '12 at 23:05
  • Does this actually work from Twitter web UI? I would expect it to just display the code instead of the period. – Alpha Jan 10 '12 at 23:57
4

I'd try this before posting but I'm at work so I don't have access to Twitter right now: try a backspace character (U+0008)?

ASP (U+0008).NET
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  • Unfortunately this will display as an inverted bullet or substitution character in many font/program combinations. – Jon Purdy Jan 7 '12 at 5:12

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