RemoteKey Auto-Discovery

[Doug Kaye]

Added a new facility that I though of in the process of writing an app
that uses the APIs.

Let's say you've got an app that runs on a client system or in a
browser window (as opposed to one that runs entirely on a server).
Rather than ask users to enter their Remote Keys, you can now retrieve
them programmatically. If the user is logged into the SpokenWord.org
web site, just call the /member method without specifying a memberId.
You'll get back the metadata for the currently logged-in member and
(in this special case only) that member's Remote Key that you can then
use for subsequent authenticated calls. This is the one case in which
you don't need authentication to call the API method.

This should make it a lot cleaner for client- and browser-based apps.

The API documentation has been updated to reflect this.

...doug

Doug Kaye, Executive Director
The Conversations Network
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[Ken Kennedy]

Oh...if this works the way I'm reading it, that is fantastic, Doug! I have an Android app that I'm starting, and getting the RemoteKey passed to the app was going to be quite a pain (those suckers are big!). I have to try this out soonest! (though my dev plans keep getting reshuffled by life recently!) 

--
Ken Kennedy
Contact info: http://kenzoid.com/me/contact

[Doug Kaye]

Hmmm...it may not work for you Android app, Ken. If you call the
method from a browser (ie, via JavaScript) you'll get the Remote Key
because you'll still have the session with the web site. If you call
from a standalone application (which doesn't have access to the
browser's cookie) you won't be able to get to the session. Bottom
line: if you Android app runs in a browser, it should work. If not,
the trick will be to do something in the browser window that will
capture the Remote Key so that it can be passed or pasted to the app.

FYI, I wanted to check out Google Listen so I bought a used G1 on
eBay, unlocked it, and am now playing with it. The OS is better (from
a user perspective) than I expected. Lots of potential there. I think
an Android-based client for SpokenWord.org would be really cool.

...doug

[Ken Kennedy]

After a bit of consideration, I was thinking I would probably need the cookie. The spokenword ones are trickier than the word-combo Friendfeed ones to retype though...I need to login to site on phone and see how easy selecting and copying the remotekey will be. I know you can do 'select text' now, but I haven't had time to try it out. Copy/paste works fine, though...I do that all the time. 

Worst case, I might lobby for a bit of page adjustment just to make the select easier....no, probably not necessary! Just checked, it'a s text field, which is probably easiest thing to select out of. Good idea! That should work well

I actually only found out about Google Listen a week or so ago...I missed the announcement somehow. I've tried a couple of the Android podcatchers, but I'm really liking Listen. My podcast listening is already starting to switch to the Android almost exclusively, even in only a week. Very convenient!

My app will probably start out just a ratings/review tool, since there are good podcatchers like Listen already, but we'll see how it goes!

[Doug Kaye]

Ken, are you working on an Android-based app or some other platform?

   ...doug

[Ken Kennedy]

Android-based. Had to put aside for a couple of days; real-life intrudes. LOL And I'm using a python script on just a regular linux box as first pass for some API exercising. But will be on Android eventually, yes.