| 27 Jul 2011 06:09 |
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27 Jul 2011 06:09 |
Many many moons ago, Wikidot released something that they hoped, would change the future of Wikidot: Wikidot XML-RPC API.
I know right, I've never seen hyphenated acronyms before… and it uses the scary looking letter “X” and yet a third unknown acronym “API”.
API means “Application Programming Interface”. In a nutshell, an API lets programmers create programming code that communicates with something (a web server, another program, a piece of computer hardware, just to name a few).
XML-RPC is an API with the specific task of sending and receiving information from servers.
Wikidot created an API that allows us to request information about Wikidot sites. This “Wikidot API” uses the XML-RPC API to actually communicate with the Wikidot servers. So when we program with the Wikidot API, we are writing code that talks to an API that talks to another API. But you didn't have to know that part!!!
Anyway, at the time, the Wikidot API only had reading privileges, and was only compatible with the Python programming language1. But only in June last year, Wikidot upgraded their API to provide writing privileges to Wikidot sites. It wasn't until then that things really started to kick off! Because we now have writing privileges, some Wikidot users created libraries for the Wikidot API in other programming languages.2
It was around this time Wikidot expert Shane Smith (leiger) started work on a “Shane's Text Editor” (STE), a simple Java-based text editing application. Shane invited me to try it out, and I did. At the time, I wasn't too excited about it. I mean, come on! It's a text editor! What's the big deal? I already have “TextEdit” and “Notepad” on my computer.
That's to say, it was a pretty simple app at the time, a bare boned functional editor.
So then I neglected interest. Little did I realise that STE was evolving into something much bigger. Due to the newly upgraded API, Shane created a library to make the Wikidot API compatible with the Java programming language. He then started using the Wikidot API with STE.
It wasn't until April this year that I decided to revisit the STE website and see how his editor was coming along.
WOW!!! No seriously, f*cking WOW!!!
STE is not just a Text Editor. It's a Wikidot Tool. It's allows you to import your Wikidot pages, edit them offline, save them to your computer (metadata included) and export it to the web when you're online.
You can even preview your documents using HTML preview!
Since then, I've taking a big interest in the development of STE, because it is simply an essential Wikidot tool. And from the rumors I've been hearing lately… version 4 is going to blow us away!
Thankyou, Shane, for making this remarkable tool!
λ James Kanjo
PS. This blog post was posted via STE
I thought this was going to be about the API in general - and then I see you mentioning STE… thanks! :) I can't thank you enough for your support, ideas and feedback every time I release an update. Knowing that someone appreciates my work is what encourages me to continue working on it.
Just a quick correction: the XML-RPC protocol has always been open to all languages, and because the Wikidot API has always used this protocol, that means any language could access it.
Back when the API was first released, the only official examples provided by Wikidot were written in Python. For this reason I mistakenly thought that Python was required, as it seems you have done here. Later I found out that was not the case. It was just that no-one had written a library for the Wikidot API yet in any other language! :)
Thanks again,
- Shane
P.S. Next version of STE (v3.50) is very likely to include the ability to send watching notifications when you save a page, making it a bit more useful for blogs like yours. It hasn't been implemented yet, but I have every intention to add that feature ASAP.
Shane Smith ★ Wikidot Freelancer (Hire me!)
— Sites: My Website, Personal Blog
— Projects: STE Editor, Wikimated, Wikidot 101 (Video Tutorials), Wikidot SubReddit
FYI, it was going to be about STE, but then I got sidetracked and wrote about the API XD
Yeah I know… I'll throw in a footnote to make it clearer…
Someone? I'm pretty sure at least tens of people use STE!
λ James Kanjo
Blog | Wikidot Expert | λ and Proud
Web Developer | HTML | CSS | JavaScript
Yes, there are definitely several more users than just yourself :) Looking at the statistics, there seems to be about 5-6 main OS/Java configurations using STE on a semi-regular basis.
Sometimes there is a 1-2 day break where no one uses it, other days it's used by several people at once.
Assuming that some people have the same OS/Java configuration … e.g. most Mac users would be running either 10.6 or 10.7 and likely have the same Java version too … it is impossible for me to distinguish between them because I have not included any identifiable information in the stats (to respect privacy).
Going by that… I'm guessing that 10 is a solid number when looking at the "core" list of users. There are occasionally others that try it too.
There are many more watchers on the website than that, so perhaps that estimate is a bit low :)
In the future I intend to find some way to count downloads of each version. That'll give me a more reliable number to go on.
Shane Smith ★ Wikidot Freelancer (Hire me!)
— Sites: My Website, Personal Blog
— Projects: STE Editor, Wikimated, Wikidot 101 (Video Tutorials), Wikidot SubReddit
STE is a great tool. I can't wait for the 4.00 version!
I changed my username from Artimonier to Arotaritei Vlad
Website - Get 500MB free space on Dropbox - Twitter - YouTube - Behance
As we were discussing the number of people that use STE, here's a link to my most recent announcement on the website: Usage Statistics Report.
@Artimonier: Thanks :)
Shane Smith ★ Wikidot Freelancer (Hire me!)
— Sites: My Website, Personal Blog
— Projects: STE Editor, Wikimated, Wikidot 101 (Video Tutorials), Wikidot SubReddit
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