Fleakr

Description

A small, yet powerful, gem to interface with Flickr photostreams

Installation

Stable

sudo gem install fleakr

Bleeding Edge

sudo gem install reagent-fleakr --source=http://gems.github.com

Or …

$ git clone git://github.com/reagent/fleakr.git
$ cd fleakr
$ rake gem && sudo gem install pkg/fleakr-<version>.gem

Usage

To get started, you’ll need to grab an API key from Flickr to at least perform any of the non-authenticated, read-only calls. Head on over to the Flickr site to grab one, I’ll be here when you get back: www.flickr.com/services/api/misc.api_keys.html

Now that you have your key, you can get things rolling with irb and the fleakr gem:

$ irb -r rubygems
>> require 'fleakr'

Then, set your API key (only need to do this once per session):

>> Fleakr.api_key = '<your api key here>'

A Brief Tour

With just an API key, you have the ability to retrieve a substantial amount of data about users, their photosets, photos, contacts, and groups. Let’s start by finding a user by his username:

>> user = Fleakr.user('the decapitator')
=> #<Fleakr::Objects::User:0x692648 @username="the decapitator", @id="21775151@N06">

Or by email:

>> user = Fleakr.user('[email protected]')
=> #<Fleakr::Objects::User:0x11f484c @username="bckspcr", @id="84481630@N00">

Once you have a user, you can find his associated sets:

>> user.sets
=> [#<Fleakr::Objects::Set:0x671358 @title="The Decapitator", @description="">, 
    #<Fleakr::Objects::Set:0x66d898 @title="londonpaper hijack", ...

His individual photos:

>> user.photos.first
=> #<Fleakr::Objects::Photo:0x161b024 @title="\"Be Fabulous\"" ... >

Or contacts:

>> user.contacts.first
=> #<Fleakr::Objects::User:0x19039bc @username=".schill",
    @id="12289718@N00", @icon_farm="1", @icon_server="4">

Or his groups if you would like:

>> user.groups
=> [#<Fleakr::Objects::Group:0x11f2330 ..., 
    #<Fleakr::Objects::Group:0x11f2308 ...
>> user.groups.first.name
=> "Rural Decay"
>> user.groups.first.id
=> "14581414@N00"

Groups also contain photos:

>> user.groups.last.photos.first.title
=> "Welcome To The Machine"

When accessing a set, you can also grab all the photos that are in that set:

>> user.sets.first
=> #<Fleakr::Objects::Set:0x1195bbc @title="The Decapitator", @id="72157603480986566", @description="">
>> user.sets.first.photos.first
=> #<Fleakr::Objects::Photo:0x1140108 ... >
>> user.sets.first.photos.first.title
=> "Untitled1"

Contacts

Besides pulling back a given user’s public contacts list, you can also retrieve the list of contacts for the currently authenticated user (see below about authentication). For example, you can retrieve all contacts:

>> Fleakr.contacts
=> [#<Fleakr::Objects::Contact:0x111ff84 @username="bryan.ray" ...>]

Or just the contacts marked as ‘family’:

>> Fleakr.contacts(:family)
=> [#<Fleakr::Objects::Contact:0x12db42c @username="Grandbob" ...>]

Or a specific page of contacts marked as ‘friends’:

>> Fleakr.contacts(:friends, :page => 3, :per_page => 5)
=> [#<Fleakr::Objects::Contact:0x12a6c54 @username="Louise and BCG" ...>]

See the documentation for Fleakr.contacts for what options are available.

Photos

Each photo object contains metadata about a collection of images, each representing different sizes. Once we have a single photo:

>> photo = user.photos.first
=> #<Fleakr::Objects::Photo:0x161b024 @title="\"Be Fabulous\"" ... >

We can get information about one of the sizes:

>> photo.small
=> #<Fleakr::Objects::Image:0x1768f1c @height="172", @size="Small", @width="240",
    @url="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3250/2924549350_cbc1804258_m.jpg",  
    @page="http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_decapitator/2924549350/sizes/s/">

Grab the URL for the image itself:

>> photo.small.url
=> "http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3250/2924549350_cbc1804258_m.jpg"

Or grab the URL for its page on the Flickr site:

>> photo.small.page
=> "http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_decapitator/2924549350/sizes/s/"

Other sizes are available (:square, :thumbnail, :small, :medium, :large, :original) and are accessed in the same way:

>> photo.original.url
=> "http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3250/2924549350_1cf67c2d47_o.jpg"

Comments

Similar to tags, photosets and photos can each have comments:

>> user.sets.first.comments
=> [#<Fleakr::Objects::Comment:0x19795cc ...
>> user.photos.first.comments
=> [#<Fleakr::Objects::Comment:0x17bf0b0 @body="Dayum, that's some wishful thinking!" ...

All comments have additional information:

>> comment = user.photos.first.comments.first
>> comment.id
=> "21729829-3263659141-72157613553885978"
>> comment.body
=> "Dayum, that's some wishful thinking!"
>> comment.to_s
=> "Dayum, that's some wishful thinking!"
>> comment.url
=> "http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_decapitator/3263659141/#comment72157613553885978"
>> comment.author
=> #<Fleakr::Objects::User:0x178e3d4 @username="jaspertandy", ... >

See Fleakr::Objects::Comment for more information.

Saving Images

If a photo interests you, save it down to a directory of your choosing:

>> photo.original.save_to('/tmp')
=> #<File:/tmp/2924549350_1cf67c2d47_o.jpg (closed)>

Similarly, you can save down entire sets. Just specify the target directory and the size of the images you’re interested in:

>> user.sets.first.save_to('/tmp', :square)
=> [#<Fleakr::Objects::Photo:0x1187a1c @secret="715587b2cb" ...

This creates a subdirectory within the target directory based on the set’s name and preserves the original order of the photos:

>> Dir["/tmp/#{user.sets.first.title}/*.jpg"].map
=> ["/tmp/The Decapitator/01_2117922283_715587b2cb_s.jpg", 
    "/tmp/The Decapitator/02_2125604584_9c09348fd6_s.jpg", 
    "/tmp/The Decapitator/03_2118696542_8af5763bde_s.jpg", ... ]

Searching

If you would prefer to just search photos, you can do that with search text:

>> photos = Fleakr.search('ponies!!')
=> [#<Fleakr::Objects::Photo:0x11f4e64 @title="hiroshima atomic garden", @id="3078234390">, 
    #<Fleakr::Objects::Photo:0x11f4928 @title="PONYLOV", @id="3077360853">, ...
>> photos.first.title
=> "hiroshima atomic garden"

You can also search based on tags:

>> photos = Fleakr.search(:tags => 'macro')
>> photos.first.title
=> "Demure"
>> photos.first.id
=> "3076049945"

Searches can also be scoped to other entities in the system (namely Users and Groups):

>> user.groups.first.search('awesome')
=> [#<Fleakr::Objects::Photo:0x18cb4cc @server_id="2012", @id="2181921273",
     @farm_id="3", @title="", @secret="634eda7521">, ... 
>> user.search('serpent')
=> [#<Fleakr::Objects::Photo:0x18a6960 @server_id="41", @id="81370156",
    @farm_id="1", @title="Clear and Serpent Danger", @secret="013091582a">]

Uploading Files

Before you can upload files, you need to be able to make authenticated calls to the Flickr API. Skip to the next section (Authenticated Calls) for details on how to make this work.

Uploading single files is simple:

>> Fleakr.upload('/path/to/image.jpg')
=> [#<Fleakr::Objects::Photo:0x217fb54 @updated="1236133594", @server_id="3266", ...>]

Notice that the newly-uploaded image is returned. You can further inspect / modify this as necessary. The real magic is in uploading multiple files - the upload method takes a file glob:

>> Fleakr.upload('/path/to/images/*.jpg')
=> [#<Fleakr::Objects::Photo:0x217faa0 ...>,
    #<Fleakr::Objects::Photo:0x212fb18 ...>,
    #<Fleakr::Objects::Photo:0x20e09c8 ...>]

You can also set options on the file(s) that you’re uploading:

>> Fleakr.upload('/path/to/party/images/*.jpg', :viewable_by => :everyone, 
                                                :title => 'Party Pics')

The full list of options can be found in the Fleakr::Objects::Photo documentation.

Authenticated Calls

While read-only access to the API gets you quite a bit of data, you’ll need to generate an authentication token if you want access to the more powerful features (like uploading your own photos).

Assuming you’ve already applied for a key, go back and make sure you have the right settings to get your auth token. Click on the ‘Edit key details’ link and ensure that:

Your application description and notes are up-to-date
The value for ‘Authentication Type’ is set to ‘Mobile Application’
The value for ‘Mobile Permissions’ is set to either ‘write’ or ‘delete’

Once this is set, you’ll see your Authentication URL on the key details page (it will look something like www.flickr.com/auth-534525246245). Paste this URL into your browser and confirm access to get your mini-token. Now you’re ready to make authenticated requests:

require 'rubygems'
require 'fleakr'

Fleakr.api_key       = 'ABC123'
Fleakr.shared_secret = 'sekrit' # Available with your key details on the Flickr site
Fleakr.mini_token    = '362-133-214'

Fleakr.upload('/path/to/my/photo.jpg')
Fleakr.token.value # => "34132412341235-12341234ef34"

Once you use the mini-token once, it is no longer available. To use the generated auth_token for future requests, just set Fleakr.auth_token to the generated value. Similarly, if you have an authenticated frob from Flickr (using authentication for desktop applications, for example) you can also set Fleakr.frob to the frob value returned from the API.

What Went Wrong?

Because so much of the underlying API is hidden under the covers, it’s often tough to know what’s really going on when you run into unexpected behavior. To make things easier, you can have Fleakr log all of the API traffic. Here’s how:

Fleakr.logger = Logger.new('/tmp/fleakr.log')

Now any calls to the API will log both their request and response data to that file. But be warned, this can be pretty verbose by default (especially if you’re doing file uploads). To see just the requests you need to tune the log level:

logger = Logger.new('/tmp/fleakr.log')
logger.level = Logger::INFO

Fleakr.logger = logger

Even if something doesn’t go wrong, this is a good way to get a sense for when you’re making API requests.

Contributors

While Fleakr started as a labor of love for me, I’m glad that others have been interested in this project enough to contribute their ideas and code:

Thanks!

Roadmap / TODO

0.4.x

Implement remaining bits of person and photo-related API calls (read-only)

0.5.x

Implement asynchronous file upload / replacement w/ ticket checking
Provide a better searching interface with ruby-like option syntax

Future

Implement save-able search results (e.g. Fleakr.search(‘ponies’).save_to(‘/path’, :medium))
Implement deeper associations for core elements (e.g. tags / etc..)
Implement write methods for photos & photosets
Implement flickr.places.* portion of API

License

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.