Simler API

Michael Grace

Excited for the API to be released so I can possibly use it in a Kynetx app. 6 days, 16 hours ago

Glen Starchman

Here's the latest on the API. As we have been building out the iPhone application there have been some fairly heavy changes that had to be made to the API (and some really nice additions). Because of that we won't be publicly releasing the API until the iPhone app is 100% complete. Keep watching here for more! 3 weeks, 1 day ago

1 Comment

Glen Starchman

Announcement! I am ready to start passing out authorization tokens for the API. We are nearly done with our testing, and the only thing outstanding at this point is good developer documentation. PM me here to get your access keys.

Cheers! 1 month, 2 weeks ago

Glen Starchman

We made a lot of changes to the API this past week and are regression testing this week to verify that we have hit all of the critical points. Once that is done I will update the documentation and release it in beta form, more than likely by the close of the week.

You will need to 'apply' for a set of application keys that you will need to pass in to every call to the API, but the 'application' is really nothing more than requesting app keys. So long as the API is not being abused we will keep this structure.

More later this week! 1 month, 3 weeks ago

Glen Starchman

Good news! Lots of breakthroughs on the API this past week. Rather than play around with OAuth I built a simpler token-based authentication system. When a user first logs in via the API they are given a token and this token is then passed in on each subsequent call.

We are going into internal test mode on the API starting today and barring any terrible showstopper bugs we should be releasing a beta version into the wild sometime this coming week.

Thanks for your patience and stay tuned! :-) 2 months ago

Glen Starchman

All:

I know many of you are very patiently waiting for our API to be rolled out, so here is the latest:

There does exist an API the covers nearly every aspect of Simler. HOWEVER, in the last few weeks we have made giant changes under the hood and will need to tune the API to use those changes. I don't have an exact ETA but it will be released sometime this month.

Thanks for your interest! 2 months, 2 weeks ago

3 Comments

Glen Starchman

We are plotting and planning our externally available API right now and I wanted to get a feel from the devs out there on a few things:

1) OpenSocial or Facebook compliant? We want our API users to be able to reuse as much existing code (or even to port full applications!) for Simler apps as we can.

2) What sort of applications do you see yourself building using the API?

3) Should the API be hosted (a la an OpenSocial container), external (where you simply pull data from Simler and use it in your app), or both?

4) What sort of model would you like to see with regard to application integration on the simler.com site? 5 months, 2 weeks ago

26 Comments

Glen Starchman

Hey, all!

Here's a quick update on the API. There was a non-OAuth version that I let a couple of developers play with to get a better idea of usage. Right now I am putting together all of that information and working on a public release of the API. Would people find value in a purely read-only version of the API? That way I could skip OAuth (for now).

Let me know! 3 months ago

1 Comment

Michael Owens

Just a quick [Poke] to see if anything new has come up with this yet. 3 months ago

1 Comment

testbeta

where's the API????????? 3 months, 1 week ago

Michael Owens

Any updates on this?

I'm ready to get my hands dirty. 4 months ago

Glen Starchman

I just shipped off the API document to our very first beta testers for the API. YIIIPPPPEEEEE! I will include everyone here early next week but wanted to have a very controlled experimentation time first.

Can't wait to see what you all do with our API.

:-) 4 months, 2 weeks ago

7 Comments

feen

Can't wait for a desktop client for Simler. Or an IM bot. 4 months, 1 week ago

4 Comments

Austin McGowan

yay api info. 4 months, 2 weeks ago

Glen Starchman

Making some serious progress on the API today, including adding in a nice caching layer so that we don't inundate our database layer with thousands of API calls. I plan on unwrapping this to our initial API devs in the next couple of days so if you want to be part of this group please PM your email address, the language you will be using, and any details you feel may be relevant about your app(s).

This release is purely RESTful (or at least an approximation of REST... I changed a few things here and there to fit better into our scheme). I will be placing some initial documentation up here shortly.

We are getting close! 4 months, 2 weeks ago

Glen Starchman

We are getting closer! I have had several requests to release a pre-beta version without all of the OAuth stuff and so we are going to do that. Because there will be no authorizations on your calls I am going to create a test bed with a snapshot of Simler.com data to play with and plan on getting that done this weekend sometime. Plan on a non-OAuth version to play with in the next 6-7 days.

4 months, 3 weeks ago

Glen Starchman

Update on included methods for the Beta API (* indicates not 100% complete yet). I believe this touches on every single part of Simler with the exception of creating/editing profiles.

Profile Methods:
profile.get, profile.search, profile.homestream, profile.friends, profile.recommended.tags, profile.recommended.friends*, profile.tags*, profile.top_tags*

Tag Methods:
tag.get, tag.create, tag.join, tag.comment, tag.search, tag.members, tag.leave*, tag.common*, tag.star*, tag.by_name*

Friend Methods:
friends.common*, friends.request*, friends.deny*, friends.accept*, friend.sent_requests*,

Notice Methods:
notices.get*, notices.mark_read*, notices.filter*, notices.rss*

Message Methods:
messages.get*, messages.send*, messages.delete*

Comment Methods:
comment.reply*, comment.report*, comment.delete*
General:
public.timeline* 4 months, 4 weeks ago

1 Comment

Glen Starchman

I am currently anticipating having the RESTful portion of the API complete by EOD Monday and the reference Python client lib done shortly thereafter. I will be communicating with a few of you offline to go over the API before release to make sure it is going to meet everyone's needs.

Questions? Post them here or PM me.

The fun is just about to start! 4 months, 4 weeks ago

Glen Starchman

Today I added tag.create, tag.comment and a few other calls. Currently wedging OAuth into the mix. Will update more tomorrow! 4 months, 4 weeks ago

Glen Starchman

Today I am adding in the following API calls:

profile.friends -- a paged listing of a profile's friends
profile.tags -- a list of tags this member has joined
profile.pms -- a list of private messages to this user

tomorrow I will attempt to complete:

profile.tags_in_common which takes two profile ids and returns a list of common tags
profile.friends_in_common same as above but for friends
profile.suggested_friends -- list of suggested friends for a given profile
notices.get -- get a list of the past 100 notices for this profile

Once those are all done then I will move into the writing stuff (posting tags, etc...). More forthcoming.


5 months ago

1 Comment

Glen Starchman

It looks I can get back on track with the API now that the "great LDAP meltdown of 2009" is over. I'll update here by tomorrow morning with a new timeline.

Thanks for your patience! 5 months ago

1 Comment

Glen Starchman

Have been struggling with a VERY naughty LDAP server all day today so the API is going to have to slip a day or so. Will keep everyone posted and maybe release a read-only version as a teaser. The writing stuff gets a bit complex in places. 5 months ago

Glen Starchman

Some example REST calls to the Simler API. Note, these are NOT running in production and are subject to change before the actual release:

retrieve profile info: /external_api/profile.get/[profile_id].json (or .xml)

retrieve profile info for up to 50 users: /external_api/profile.get/[profile1],[profile2],[etc].json

retrieve a tag (and up to 100 of its comments): /external_api/tag.get/[tag_id].json

search profiles: /external_api/profile.search/[page_number].json and a POST of a whole bunch of search params

There are more but just wanted to give a hint as to what is coming. 5 months ago

3 Comments

Glen Starchman

Updated Status: after I get OAuth 100% (about 95% right now) working I will start adding calls like:

profile.homestream, profile.friends, profile.privatemessages, and a slew of others to the mix.

If there is a particular piece of Simler functionality that you think would be awesomely suited to an external API please post it here and we can see what we can do about adding it. 5 months ago

Glen Starchman

We are also returning a bunch of meta info about a call that you can use if you wish. Each returned JSON (or XML) file is broken down into info and data sections. The info section looks something like:

{'request_get': {}, start_time': 1255657711.904124, 'total_execution': 0.00090289115905761719, 'request_method': 'POST', 'end_time': 1255657711.9050269, 'request_post': {}, 'request_url': '/external_api/profile.get/80.json', 'result_count': 1}

This info is useful for debugging since it passes back to you exactly what you passed into it. I have been using it a lot for debugging POST calls. :-) 5 months ago

Glen Starchman

Update: The API is coming along very rapidly. We now have RESTful interfaces for most things doing with profiles and tags (including searching) and can currently return either JSON or XML. A reference client library (Python only at the moment) is nearing completion and I *ALMOST* have OAuth and per-user/per-application permissions in place (eg, a user can opt out of allowing an application to make posts on their behalf, for example).

The current plan is to have an internal (Simler-folks only) release sometime after the weekend and if all goes well an invite-only release shortly thereafter.

If I think about it tomorrow I will post some examples of the API to get some feedback.
5 months ago

3 Comments