Group APIs

Posted on May 24, 2012 by jfanaian

With over 1.5 million groups, it’s no doubt that they are an important part of Flickr. Today, we’re releasing a few new ways to interact with groups using our API.

Group Membership

We are adding two new methods to manage group membership through the API.

flickr.groups.join to join a group. Before calling this method, check if the group has rules using flickr.groups.getInfo. The user needs to agree to the rules before being able to join the group. Pass the accept_rules argument if the user accepted the rules.

flickr.groups.leave to leave a group. The user’s photos can also be deleted when leaving the group by passing the delete_photos argument.

Group Discussions

We are also opening up group discussions in the API. You can now fetch a list of discussion topics for a group using flickr.groups.discuss.topics.getList, with sticky topics first, then regular topics sorted from newest to oldest.

&lt;rsp stat=&quot;ok&quot;&gt;
    &lt;topics group_id=&quot;46744914@N00&quot; iconserver=&quot;1&quot; iconfarm=&quot;1&quot; name=&quot;Tell a story in 5 frames (Visual story telling)&quot; members=&quot;12428&quot; privacy=&quot;3&quot; lang=&quot;en-us&quot; ispoolmoderated=&quot;1&quot; total=&quot;4621&quot; page=&quot;1&quot; per_page=&quot;2&quot; pages=&quot;2310&quot;&gt;
        &lt;topic id=&quot;72157625038324579&quot; subject=&quot;A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...&quot; author=&quot;53930889@N04&quot; authorname=&quot;Smallportfolio_jm08&quot; role=&quot;member&quot; iconserver=&quot;5169&quot; iconfarm=&quot;6&quot; count_replies=&quot;8&quot; can_edit=&quot;0&quot; can_delete=&quot;0&quot; can_reply=&quot;0&quot; is_sticky=&quot;0&quot; is_locked=&quot;&quot; datecreate=&quot;1287070965&quot; datelastpost=&quot;1336905518&quot;&gt;
            &lt;message&gt; ... &lt;/message&gt;
        &lt;/topic&gt;
    &lt;/topics&gt;
&lt;/rsp&gt;

flickr.groups.discuss.topics.add to post a new topic to a group, passing a subject and the message content.

Additionally, you can fetch a list of replies for a topic using flickr.groups.discuss.replies.getList, which includes the information for the topic along with all the replies, sorted from oldest to newest.

&lt;rsp stat=&quot;ok&quot;&gt;
    &lt;replies&gt;
        &lt;topic topic_id=&quot;72157625038324579&quot; subject=&quot;A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...&quot; group_id=&quot;46744914@N00&quot; iconserver=&quot;1&quot; iconfarm=&quot;1&quot; name=&quot;Tell a story in 5 frames (Visual story telling)&quot; author=&quot;53930889@N04&quot; authorname=&quot;Smallportfolio_jm08&quot; role=&quot;member&quot; author_iconserver=&quot;5169&quot; author_iconfarm=&quot;6&quot; can_edit=&quot;0&quot; can_delete=&quot;0&quot; can_reply=&quot;0&quot; is_sticky=&quot;0&quot; is_locked=&quot;&quot; datecreate=&quot;1287070965&quot; datelastpost=&quot;1336905518&quot; total=&quot;8&quot; page=&quot;1&quot; per_page=&quot;3&quot; pages=&quot;2&quot;&gt;
            &lt;message&gt; ... &lt;/message&gt;
        &lt;/topic&gt;
        &lt;reply id=&quot;72157625163054214&quot; author=&quot;41380738@N05&quot; authorname=&quot;BlueRidgeKitties&quot; role=&quot;member&quot; iconserver=&quot;2459&quot; iconfarm=&quot;3&quot; can_edit=&quot;0&quot; can_delete=&quot;0&quot; datecreate=&quot;1287071539&quot; lastedit=&quot;0&quot;&gt;
            &lt;message&gt; ... &lt;/message&gt;
        &lt;/reply&gt;
    &lt;/replies&gt;
&lt;/rsp&gt;

flickr.groups.discuss.replies.add to post a reply to a topic, passing the message content.

flickr.groups.discuss.replies.edit to edit a reply, passing the updated message.

flickr.groups.discuss.replies.delete to delete a reply.

You can only edit and delete replies when authorized as the owner of the reply. For now, it is not possible to edit or delete a topic through the API.

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or just want to chat about these methods or anything else related to the API, please join the Flickr Developer mailing list.

Photos from fofurasfelinas and larissa_allen.

Farewell FlickrAuth

Posted on January 13, 2012 by jfanaian

Last year, we added support for OAuth 1.0 – a much better way to have your users authenticating against Flickr. More information on Flickr user authentication via this method is available here in our Developer Guide and specifically here.

If you are app already uses OAuth, then you can skip this post and look at some gorgeous photos instead. However – if your app still uses the old Authentication API, you will need to update it to OAuth by July 31st this year.

Updating to OAuth is easy and you don’t worry about any user impact. You can exchange an old auth token from the old Authentication API, to an OAuth access token. The process simply requires that you make an authenticated request to the flickr.auth.oauth.getAccessToken API, which will exchange the old token used to make the request, with a new OAuth access token. Again, everything is documented right here. Flickr member Jef Poskanzer has also written an overview and comparison between the two auth methods: http://acme.com/flickr/authmap.html.

After July 31st, we will no longer support the old Authentication API.

More information is available in the Flickr API FAQ’s, and in the Flickr Developer guide, but if you have specific questions about updating your app, you may file a help ticket here.

Thanks for making Flickr more fun by contributing to our growing collection of apps!

Your Engineering Team at Flickr
(@FlickrAPI)

Flickr now Supports OAuth 1.0a

Posted on June 21, 2011 by jfanaian

We’re happy to announce that Flickr now supports OAuth! This is an open standard for authentication, which is now fully supported by the Flickr API. You can get started by going to our OAuth documentation. As part of this announcement, we would also like to note that the old Flickr authentication is now deprecated, and is expected to be disabled early 2012.

I’m Guarding the Door by Frenck’s Photography

OAuth is very similar to the old Flickr auth in a lot of ways. You start by getting a request token (frob in the old flow), redirecting the user to the authentication page, and then getting a token which can be used to make authenticated requests. With proper OAuth support, though, you will be able to use one of the many libraries available in a variety of languages to get started.

In addition to this, we have streamlined the authentication process across desktop, mobile and web, and have simplified the user experience by removing the anti-phishing step for the Desktop flow, which is no longer necessary.

Currently, we only support OAuth 1.0a, but we have plans to eventually support OAuth 2.0. The decision was based on the fact that OAuth 2.0 is still an evolving definition that is rapidly changing.

We wanted to make the transition to OAuth seamless to the user, so we created a method to exchange an old token, with an OAuth token. The application has to simply make an authenticated request to flickr.auth.oauth.getAccessToken, which returns an OAuth auth token and signature for that user which are tied to your application. The exchange is meant to be final, so the old authentication token is scheduled to expire 24 hours after this API method is called.

Now, it’s your turn! Go read our OAuth documentation if you already have an application, or visit our developer guide for more information on how to get started. If you experience any problems, or have any questions or suggestions regarding our OAuth implementation, please post to our developer mailing list.

code.flickr.com

Author Archives: jfanaian

Group APIs

Group Membership

Group Discussions

Farewell FlickrAuth

Flickr now Supports OAuth 1.0a