API Update - 7th June 2007

devbobo

G'day all,

Today we rolled out a few API changes...

1. Added SmugSearchable and WorldSearchable as return parameters to methods...
- smugmug.albums.getInfo
- smugmug.albumtemplates.get

Note: this change cascades into the following methods when the Heavy options is used...
- smugmug.albums.get
- smugmug.users.getTree

changes made to versions 1.1.1, 1.2.0

2. Added SmugSearchable and WorldSeachable as arguments to...
- smugmug.albums.create
- smugmug.albums.changeSettings

changes made to versions 1.1.1, 1.2.0

3. The boolean "Watermark" parameter has been renamed "Watermarking" on the following methods...
- smugmug.albums.get
- smugmug.albumtemplates.get
- smugmug.albums.create
- smugmug.albums.changeSettings

This change was neccasary due to a naming conflict in JSON/PHP responses.

Note: smugmug.albums.create and smugmug.albums.changeSettings are backwards compatible with sending 'Watermark' argument

changes made to version 1.2.0 only

4. Keywords have been added to non-owner sessions for method...
- smugmug.images.getInfo

Note: this change cascades into the following methods when the Heavy options is used...
- smugmug.images.get

changes made to versions 1.1.1, 1.2.0

5. smugmug.subcategories.create is now returning the SubCategoryID as an int instead of a string in XML-RPC responses.

change made to version 1.1.1

All documentation on the wiki should be up to date.

Cheers,

David

rainforest1155

Good job, David! Sounds like good news to all developers, even though I've no clue about all this stuff.

Sebastian

Nikolai

Awesome, David!
Can't wait to get my hands onto it..:-)

Bar

Does this mean that maybe we'll be able to use the API to browse other users' public galleries without already knowing their usernames?

It doesn't appear that this is the case, but I have to ask.

devbobo

Bar wrote:

Does this mean that maybe we'll be able to use the API to browse other users' public galleries without already knowing their usernames?

It doesn't appear that this is the case, but I have to ask.

G'day Bar,

No you need to know a user's nickname to retrieve a list of available albums or would have to know a user's valid gallery ID to retrieve the images.

Does that answer your question ?

David

Bar

devbobo wrote:

G'day Bar,

No you need to know a user's nickname to retrieve a list of available albums or would have to know a user's valid gallery ID to retrieve the images.

Does that answer your question ?

David

It sure does. Thanks.

terrycojones

devbobo wrote:

G'day Bar,

No you need to know a user's nickname to retrieve a list of available albums or would have to know a user's valid gallery ID to retrieve the images.

David

Hi David.

Is there any way to get hold of users' nicknames or public gallery IDs? If not, it seems like the API is designed/focussed on just allowing you access to your own photos/galleries, plus those of people who are willing to tell you their SmugMug nickname or gallery IDs. Is that the intention? If so, it obviously limits the range of applications that can be built using the API - or at least changes their architecture, necessitating tools that individuals run themselves that use the API to extract data about their images and put it elsewhere (i.e., into a 3rd party application).

It would be helpful to know if that's the intent of the API, and, if not, how to programmatically access more images than just your own. E.g., via search on image properties or tags.

Regards,
Terry

devbobo

terrycojones wrote:

Hi David.

Is there any way to get hold of users' nicknames or public gallery IDs? If not, it seems like the API is designed/focussed on just allowing you access to your own photos/galleries, plus those of people who are willing to tell you their SmugMug nickname or gallery IDs. Is that the intention? If so, it obviously limits the range of applications that can be built using the API - or at least changes their architecture, necessitating tools that individuals run themselves that use the API to extract data about their images and put it elsewhere (i.e., into a 3rd party application).

It would be helpful to know if that's the intent of the API, and, if not, how to programmatically access more images than just your own. E.g., via search on image properties or tags.

Regards,
Terry

Hey Terry,

I am adding some new methods to the API for version 1.2.1, which include smugmug.friends.get and smugmug.family.get...this will extend beyond just your own images slightly. Other than that I suggest that feeds might be a good way to go...popular, keywords, etc.

Let me know if you need more info.

Cheers,

David

jfriend

terrycojones wrote:

Hi David.

Is there any way to get hold of users' nicknames or public gallery IDs? If not, it seems like the API is designed/focussed on just allowing you access to your own photos/galleries, plus those of people who are willing to tell you their SmugMug nickname or gallery IDs. Is that the intention? If so, it obviously limits the range of applications that can be built using the API - or at least changes their architecture, necessitating tools that individuals run themselves that use the API to extract data about their images and put it elsewhere (i.e., into a 3rd party application).

It would be helpful to know if that's the intent of the API, and, if not, how to programmatically access more images than just your own. E.g., via search on image properties or tags.

Regards,
Terry

Terry, I don't work for Smugmug, but I'm not sure what you are looking for in the API. About the only thing it wasn't designed to do is to let you arbitrarily crawl all accounts on the site, so if that's what you wanted to do, then it isn't for you. There are probably ways to "discover" lots of usernames using popular photos and/or search if that's related to what you're trying to do.

But, once you have a publicly available username, either because you found it yourself or because a user gave it to you, the API can access just about everything on the site that is meant to be available to the public.

Modifications to a site or access to private images or access to restricted sizes or properties of the images obviously require appropriate user credentials.

In general, the most powerful applications I've see built using the API are either advanced viewing applications (an embeddable slideshow you can put in a different site) or advanced editing applications (that allow you, as the site owner, to do more advanced changes to your site like change a property on 20 galleries at once or upload 1000 images across 40 galleries.

So ... if you can be more explicit about what you want to do with the API, we can probably be more helpful in telling you whether it can do that or not.

iamback

devbobo wrote:

I am adding some new methods to the API for version 1.2.1, which include smugmug.friends.get and smugmug.family.get...this will extend beyond just your own images slightly. Other than that I suggest that feeds might be a good way to go...popular, keywords, etc.

Unfortunately I've been unable to construct a URI for a feed for a keyword combination. Let alone find an API method to get a list of all keywords (and I'm not fond of screen scraping!)