Api

[pinbrook]

in light of http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=44177 and variuos other wish list items, my wish is for a good API.

the presence of api would mean alot of apps could be built by 3rd parties and actinic would not lag behind. apps can then be free/donation/paid for.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

Can someone confirm what exactly was said about the future use of an API at the recent conference as I have read a few comments that seem to contradict each other, one or two people seemed to give the impression it would be available for V10 whereas initial remarks seemed to indicate it was more of a planned future addition that would probably not arrive for a couple of years and in a future release perhaps V11.

[Goz]

I can't clarify, but my understanding of what was said to me at the conference was that APIs (and a move to PHP?) are a V11 thing. Hopefully Ben will be along soon to clarify......

[Darren B]

LOL in time for V10 - never gonna happen unless they have been working on it for the last 2 years which i doubt very much

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

Assuming it is available for V11 , I guess it would bypass V10 completely as it doesn't sound like the sort of feature they would add to a mid-version release, i.e V10.5.1

[cbarling]

Yes, we have been doing work on an API, but it won't come out in v10. Plans aren't far enough advanced to give any indication of delivery, but we have even had a two day design get together to thrash out some of the principles.

Chris

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

Can you confirm that it wouldn't be included in any future V10 releases, say V10.5.1

[cbarling]

I'm afraid not as I don't know. We haven't made any decision yet.

Chris

[Mike Hughes]

I'm actually against an API. I don't think it's in the long term interests of Actinic or the users.

The problem I have is that Actinic are already relying too much on 3rd parties to deliver features and functionality that should be built into the software. If Actinic want to remain competitive and keep their customers happy then they need to be doing more integration themselves and relying less on 3rd party plug-ins.

Things like Product Reviews, Multi-channel integration (ebay, amazon, etc), Back end Stock Management, Spellcheckers, On-line order tracking, etc should be a standard feature of this kind of software, not £500 or more a year of extras.

Maybe I'm viewing this the wrong way, but I wouldn't want the reason for doing the API to be so even more stuff can be done by third parties. Every time they rely on this they de-value the Actinic software itself, make it less competive and less attractive to the users.

Mike

PS. I'm well aware of the concept of creating an eco-system of web designers, plug in developers, 3rd party services, support forums, etc all adding value to make an overwhelming proposition that can't be beaten. I don't think this is applicable here.

[NormanRouxel]

A few simple things that might help with design based tweaks.

1) A variable (like PageType / isPreviewMode) that indicated if the page generation is for Single Page Preview, Multi Page Preview, Upload, Refresh, Snapshot, etc.

2) Some code that allows bits of custom PHP (from SiteIncludes perhaps) to run when various operations as above are actioned and completed.

E.g.

// execute when Single Page Preview is clicked
if (function_exists('SinglePagePreviewClicked')) SinglePagePreviewClicked();
// execute when Single Page Preview is finished
if (function_exists('SinglePagePreviewDone')) SinglePagePreviewDone();
// execute when Multi Page Preview is clicked
if (function_exists('MultiPagePreviewClicked')) MultiPagePreviewClicked();
// execute when Multi Page Preview is finished
if (function_exists('MultiPagePreviewDone')) MultiPagePreviewDone();
etc

[pinbrook]

I agree with you to a certain degree Mike, in an ideal world actinic would have stuff like 1stoporders, reviews without us having to pay more, but in the real world they are always going to be 2 - 3 years behind.

I am not convinced that API will stop them building new features, they will always have to include (within their pricing strategy) all features that are considered standard to any ecommerce cart in order to compete. Of course we have the current review offering which is both a 3rd party and extra dosh.

API could have had a temp offering for GC (maybe a bad example) but if i also think about the past we could consider CrossSellPro. This cost about £200, and was available for a few years, most people who bought it probably got their money back in increased sales. The developer hopefully got sufficient to cover their programming costs, actinic eventually introducted marketing lists. The shop keeper got the feature a few years ahead of the actinic timescale.

[george]

Am I a complete tit 'cos I dont know what API is?



*dribbles*

[plantsforshade]

I had to look it up when it was brought up at the conference

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applica...ming_interface

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

From Wikipedia: An application programming interface (API) is an interface that a software program implements in order to allow other software to interact with it; much in the same way that software might implement a user interface in order to allow humans to interact with it.

[Darren B]

in short

you dont need to hack Actinic to get it to do stuff you want, someone writes stuff to do it for you