flickr-fu

Contact

Author: Ben Wyrosdick
Email: ben [at] commonthread.com
Lighthouse: http://commonthread.lighthouseapp.com/projects/12069-flickr_fu/overview
Main Repository: http://github.com/commonthread/flickr_fu/tree/master

Getting Started

You need to first get an API key as detailed here:

http://www.flickr.com/services/api/misc.api_keys.html

Installation

sudo gem install flickr-fu

Documentation

RDoc Documentation can be found here:

http://www.commonthread.com/projects/flickr_fu/rdoc/

Example flickr.yml

— !map:HashWithIndifferentAccess key: “YOUR KEY” secret: “YOUR SECRET” token_cache: “token_cache.yml”

Authorization

To authorise your application to access Flickr using your API key you will
need to access a specific URL.

To generate this URL run the following and when presented with the URL 
access it from your browser. Confirm the application has permission at 
the level you have specified.

Note that flickr has different types of keys. If you use one for a webapplication,
which is most likely, you need to define a callback and somehow make sure that
you connect the parameter :frob that flickr send via the callback is assigned
to the right user account. The best way to do this is to loop over all the current
user's flickr accounts and try flickr.auth.token with the :frob.

Finally, cache the token (this will create the token cache file)

If you have an invalid API key you will see errors such as:

"100: Invalid API Key"

If you don't follow the process below to authorise your application
you will see errors such as:

"98: Login failed / Invalid auth token" or 
"99: User not logged in / Insufficient permissions"

Authorization Example for non-webapplication

require 'flickr_fu'

flickr = Flickr.new('flickr.yml')

puts "visit the following url, then click <enter> once you have authorized:"

# request write permissions
puts flickr.auth.url(:write)

gets

flickr.auth.cache_token

Authorization Example for a webapplication

flickr.auth.token also contains the nsid and username, this
example only stores the token and no other userdata.
All you need in the views is a button or link to FlickrController.create

require 'flickr_fu'
class FlickrController < ActionController::Base
  def create
    flickr = Flickr.new('flickr.yml')
    redirect_to flickr.auth.url(:write)
  end
  def flickr_callback
    flickr = Flickr.new('flickr.yml')
    flickr.auth.frob = params[:frob]
    current_user.update_attribute :flickr_token, flickr.auth.token.token
  end
  def something_else_with_flickr
    flickr = Flickr.new(YAML.load_file('flickr.yml').merge(:token => current_user.flickr_token))
    # now you have full access on the user's data :)
  end
end

User creation on the fly

To use the userdata in flickr.auth.token and create
an account with it on the fly try following flickr_callback

def flickr_callback
  flickr = Flickr.new('flickr.yml')
  flickr.auth.frob = params[:frob]
  if(!logged_in?)
    # no user yet for this flickr id, create a new user
    if (current_user = User.find_by_flickr_nsid(flickr.auth.token.user_id))).nil?
      current_user = User.new do |user|
        user.login = flickr.auth.token.username
        user.real_name = flickr.auth.token.user_real_name
        user.flickr_nsid = flickr.auth.token.user_id
        user.flickr_token = flickr.auth.token.token
      end
    else # we have a user for that flick account, login and update token
      current_user.flickr_token = flickr.auth.token.token
    end
    if(current_user.save)
      flash[:notice] = 'Registered and logged in via flickr'
      redirect_to '/'
    else
      // probably you validate for the presence of an email address?
      flash[:error] = 'Logged in via flickr but some user data is missing'
      @user = current_user
      render :action => 'users/new'
    end
  else
    current_user.update_attribute :flickr_token, flickr.auth.token.token
  end
end

Search Example

require 'flickr_fu'

flickr = Flickr.new('flickr.yml')

photos = flickr.photos.search(:tags => 'ruby-flickr')

puts "found #{photos.size} photo(s)"

photos.each do |photo|
  puts photo.title
  puts photo.description unless [nil, ''].include?(photo.description)
  [:square, :thumbnail, :small, :medium, :large, :original].each do |size|
    puts "#{size}: #{photo.url(size)}"
  end
  puts "comments: #{photo.comments.size}"
  photo.comments.each do |comment|
    intro = "#{comment.author_name} says - "
    puts "#{intro}\"#{comment.comment.gsub("\n", "\n"+(" "*intro.length))}\""
  end
  puts "notes: #{photo.notes.size}"
  photo.notes.each do |note|
    puts "[#{note.x},#{note.y} ~ #{note.width}x#{note.height}] - \"#{note.note}\""
  end
  puts
  puts
end

Another Search Example

If searching for photos by user id then you need to specify the 'alias' - without
intervention this is usually set by Flickr and is an alphanumeric string. 

To find out the user id for a given user, you can use the tool at:

http://idgettr.com/

And replace the line in the above sample to query on user id:

photos = flickr.photos.search(:user_id => 'your_user_id_here')

Authenticatd Search Example

For a few searches you will need to authenticate. E.g. to receive the original_url
staight away (and thus saving an extra getInfo call), or to search for the private
photos of a user. In order to do so you need to pass the user's token and his
flickr_nsid (though the API docs also suggest 'me', both work fine).

This example appends the :url_o to the extras, mapping it to :original_url:

flickr.photos.extras << {:url_o => :original_url}
photos = flickr.photos.search(:per_page => 5, :page => 1,
    :user_id => 'me', :privacy_filter => 5, :auth_token => user_token,
    :safe_search => 3))

Patch Contributers

Chris Ledet
Maciej Biłas
Mike Perham
Chris Anderton
Luke Francl
Thomas R. Koll
P. Mark Anderson
Josh Nichols