Forumotion JSON API

It would be awesome if forumotion forums had a json(or whatever else) api. It would make a ton of customizations possible and forums could be made a lot faster. An api means a world of posibilities for a forum. I am willing to pay extra for this kind of a feature.

I really do not understand what you would use this for on Forumotion.

SLGray wrote:I really do not understand what you would use this for on Forumotion.

Basically anything related to ajax.

Bump

Also, those that voted no, can you give some kind of an explanation please? Dont forget you dont actually have to use the api if it's added.

well an api is used to submit or grab information from somewhere else. so i'm not really sure what you would need it for.. as far a json that's just a format in which it displays the info back to you in the api request... as far as ajax you can use it already... the only use i could see for this would be to submit data to your forum and that would be a security issue and the other would be to display news,recent topics or something on another website and this can be done by using ajax to grab the page and then use javascript to grab each element in the return result and then you can display it in whatever format you would like

Well, I dont know what that user meant but I know that I would definitely love to see this feature on forumotion. An API is used to grab data about something(for example in forumotions case, maybe data about an user). This could be used in a lot of ways, as right now the only way to programatically grab this kind of data is by grabbing an entire page, which is slow, hard to maintain and messy. I can imagine that transforming a forum into a SPA would not be too hard this way. Many modern websites have an API and a front end app that works with the API.

As about the security issues @_Twisted_Mods_ was talking about, the API would only provide the data if the user has the permission to access it. Also, submitting data to your forum is what happens for example when you post a message, so the only way this would be a security issue is if the forumotion forums already have security issues, which is not the case(somebody would already have found them).

The JSON format is pretty much the standard format for APIs, because its very easy to work with it, so not much to say about it.

yea but it wont hurt you much to grab the whole page its just text unless your refreshing it alot but if they were to add it they would prob add a max number of request per min so either way you would have a small delay. but i don't think they will ever add it because its not really worth the time to put into it compared to the amount of users that would use it

I agree that most people would not use it themselves. But there will be people that will create codes based on that api and people that will use it. After all, they released things like publications, events and the ads one that I never used once in my life.

Would be useful for automating shops

I'm not sure if you would use it for the right thing, but it would definitely be an amazing feature. Being able to update information through an API would be incredible. I actually thought about creating something like this a week ago. It's possible and not too complicated, especially an API for a user with administrator permissions. The biggest challenge would be making it dynamic to be used on any forum. However, creating it specifically for one forum isn't impossible either.

My vote is no for this idea. Most users not know html basic (or CSS), imagine JSON? This course that, for user advanced with code this is jump for forums, but for bussine the cost of addition the function you can put FA in risk. Furthermore, more requests may arise and more problems may arise as well.

Shek wrote:My vote is no for this idea. Most users not know html basic (or CSS), imagine JSON? This course that, for user advanced with code this is jump for forums, but for bussine the cost of addition the function you can put FA in risk. Furthermore, more requests may arise and more problems may arise as well.

Why not? JSON is not a web language but rather a text format to manipulate with information in an easier way. Implying that something should not be used just because majority doesn't know basic html and css is flawed. If majority don't know to use html and css, let's forbid them to use it.

I support the idea because it will give more freedom to those who code and contribute to Forumotion.

The Raven wrote:

Shek wrote:My vote is no for this idea. Most users not know html basic (or CSS), imagine JSON? This course that, for user advanced with code this is jump for forums, but for bussine the cost of addition the function you can put FA in risk. Furthermore, more requests may arise and more problems may arise as well.

Why not? JSON is not a web language but rather a text format to manipulate with information in an easier way. Implying that something should not be used just because majority doesn't know basic html and css is flawed. If majority don't know to use html and css, let's forbid them to use it.

I support the idea because it will give more freedom to those who code and contribute to Forumotion.

Exactly, I agree with what you said, it's these details that made many old members sad.

@The Raven I don't know if you saw it but I recently started playing with it, see:
https://help.forumotion.com/t162927-api-forumotion

The Raven wrote:Why not?

Your question is rhetorical. I've explained why I think it's not a good idea (at least not for now).

Shek wrote:Most users not know html basic (or CSS), imagine JSON?

Shek wrote:the cost of addition the function you can put FA in risk

There is not much explanation given what I justified when I said that my vote was no because of this. Sorry.

But this is my view of the feature, looking from the FM side. You can't dispute my opinion, but you can present solutions that make me believe there are benefits for both sides. However, in part you and Ganso may be right, which I mentioned in part of my opinion:

Shek wrote:This course that, for user advanced with code this is jump for forums

Contrary to my downvote, this move was the same one that was made when the "Javascript pages" feature was created. Was it risky? Yes. But it was worth it and today many users love the function. It doesn't hurt to try to take risks again. But, just like "topic'it" (for example) there are things to be discussed. Don't just look from your side. FM is free, and to maintain all this you need to make a profit. Even if the function becomes available, it will have limitations or it will be included in the paid package, which may cause rejection from the community of administrators.

Despite thinking it would be a great addition (I am taking as an advanced coder), i totally agree with @Shek for different reasons:
1. cost-benefit is not balanced - you would have a really time/resources cost for just a few users effectively being able to use it
2. forumotion is meant to be a board so that everyone can create a forum without technical knowledge; normally if you are really advanced you host your own forum so that you are more free to do whatever comes to your mind
3. i agree also for the javascript part - because in the end, 90% of the users that use the javascript function just copy/paste codes provided from the support forum

i agree it would be a wonderful addition for the expert users, but i don’t think it is worth spending so much time/miney developing it as a company - and for the sake of just a few “standard” administrators, which in the end are the majority

I think the biggest problem with Forumotion trying to do something like this, aside from the cost. Is the fact that APIs while extremely helpful and cool for those of us who are advanced technical users, it does have the potential to create significant security vulnerabilities if not done correctly. While JSON is not very difficult to use in and of itself, the code implementation that would likely be required to ensure it could not be used maliciously and to make it user friendly across forum versions, likely would not justify the expense and development time.