68kMLA Forums API?

[equant]

Does anyone know if there is there an API to access these forums?  I have done a bit of searching, but I can't find any evidence of it.  I am daydreaming about writing a Macintosh TCP application to access the forums, or perhaps a "door" for my current bbs project.

 

[cheesestraws]

Invision does have a REST API but I don't know whether it's available here: I assume it would need to be enabled on the server side? (And I don't know what version 68kmla runs)

https://invisioncommunity.com/developers/rest-api/index/

 

[equant]

I did see that.  But I couldn't find any info in the 68kMLA forums or wiki about getting a key, so I'm pretty sure it's not turned on, or at least not advertised.  I think it would be nice to browse and post to 68kMLA on my old Mac.

 

[cheesestraws]

Yeah.  I was wondering about OAuth, but that doc says that requires server-side setup too.  Sigh.

 

[equant]

Well, I found the "staff" page, and it looks like @Bunsen and @wthww are active administrators... maybe one of them will chime in?

 

[Cory5412]

There's a staff page? And I'm not listed on it? Hm.

Anyway - such that there is an API, and there probablyis, we're not currently in a place to be able to open access to it, as far as I know. I'll run this by @wthww who does the technical administration. A couple years ago he was talking about writing a read-only forum client that people could telnet into, to gain access on older machines, but I don't know where that went, and at the moment it would likely need to wait for the infrastructure work he/we have been doing.

 

[equant]

There's a staff page? And I'm not listed on it? Hm.

Oh, you are... but for some reason it says you haven't logged in for many months.

Anyway - such that there is an API, and there probablyis, we're not currently in a place to be able to open access to it, as far as I know. I'll run this by @wthww who does the technical administration. A couple years ago he was talking about writing a read-only forum client that people could telnet into, to gain access on older machines, but I don't know where that went, and at the moment it would likely need to wait for the infrastructure work he/we have been doing.

Ok, well I'd love to either implement a client that runs on old macs, or add an interface to my RetroBridgeBBS project so that someone could browse the forums with their old computer using a serial connection.  If there's any chance of getting access to an API, that would be great, but I won't get my hopes up.  I appreciate you looking into it.

 

[Cory5412]

Oh, you are... but for some reason it says you haven't logged in for many months.

Ah - that's on purpose on my part, it didn't occur to me it might cause people to think not to contact me, however.

To be honest, at this point it's more out of habit than anything else.

Anyway, I'll float this by wthww and see what he says. I don't know what access the API allows but a read-only view seems reasonable for something like this, I just don't know what tools wthww wanted to build himself.

 

[Bunsen]

I was wondering about OAuth

ants created a workaround for OAuth as part of his SE/30 Spotify player project
 

Like most modern web API’s, Spotify uses OAuth to allow third party apps to access their services. However the OAuth flow requires a modern web browser for users to enter their login details. To overcome this, I wrote an OAuth bridge for vintage Macs which delegates the login part of the process to another device such as a smartphone. The first steps are handled on the Mac:

68k.io is a simple page that hits the Spotify API to grab a short code that you need to confirm your device's authorization. Seems you'd need to be logged into Spotify via your browser and then 68k.io just displays a page to grab the short key to confirm connection.

I created 2 separate GitHub projects for the OAuth stuff:

• The server API & login page is written in .NET Core 2: https://github.com/antscode/MacAuth . This is what's hosted on 68k.io. 
  
• A C++ client library for the Macintosh Toolbox: https://github.com/antscode/MacAuthLib. This is what displays the code dialog on the Mac, and handles the communication with the server.
  

Technically these projects should work with any OAuth implementation.