Re: [Flickr APIs] snapFlickr + questions

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 21:21:53 -0700, Paul Bausch 
<pb-QawkqaZi1M9BDgjK7y7TUQ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hey All,
> 
> Great API you have there...

Hi  pb! Thanks!

> I wrote a little HTML-generating gallery script a while back called
> snapGallery:
> 
> http://www.onfocus.com/snap

We are familiar with it :)
 
> And I thought it'd be fun to have the snapGallery interface for Flickr,
> so I threw it together tonight. And snapFlickr Alpha is born:
> 
> http://www.onfocus.com/snap/snapFlickr_alpha.zip
> 
> It's a Windows Script Host script, so you just double-click it on a
> Windows machine. (Probably Windows XP and 2000 only with this one.) And
> it's a bunch of crazy hacks to get everything to work...so it's hanging
> together by a thread. I'll try to clean it up before I post about it on
> my site.

This is great!

> Anyway, I have a couple questions about the API. I'm a bit confused by
> the photosets methods.
> 
> 1.) Why do I need a primary_photo_id when I create a new set?
> (Especially when there are no photos in the set yet.)

Well, the idea is that a photoset cannot exist unless it has at least
one photo in it, so to enforce that we require you to provide a
primary_photo_id when you create it. The assumption, of course, is
that you are making a set of photos /already/ in flickr. The primary
photo, if it is not clear, is simply a member of the set that you have
chosen to act as the thumbnail for the set. We could have just always
used the first photo in the set's sequence for that, but we wanted to
give people more flexibility.

> 2.) And when I run the editPhotos method, why do I need to include a
> primary_photo_id if I've already declared it in step 1?

Just because. :)

Cal what about making that an /optional/ parameter for editPhotos? The
method would then have to do a couple more things:

1) make sure that the primary photo already declared for the set is
included in the list of photos passed to the method, and if not

     a) change the primary photo to the first photo in the set's sequence

      or
      
     b) return an error

The problem with a) is it requires the method to return more
information to the app making the request; maybe the rsp form
editPhotos could always include the primary_photo_id?

> 3.) The count seems to be off on the photoset via the API (one higher).
> Maybe this has something to do with questions 1 and 2? ;)

Hmm. I am not seeing this. Remember, the primary photo is also a
member of the set.

> 4.) Finally (shew!) can I get a URL to a photoset once it's created?

Now that is a good idea. What do you think Cal?

> Thanks for the fun API and great app!

No, thank you!

Cheers,
Eric