For the products we build, we have trace tools that help us understand what APIs etc are being called behind the scenes. We even give them to our customers (b2b) so they can analyze & learn.Of course there's Fiddler, which does quite a bit of tracing, but I *think*(?) Fiddler is irrelevant for tracing Khoros API stuff - but it's been probably 5 years since I've used Fiddler seriously. Are there any Trace tools available (either by Khoros or that expose Khoros goodies) that can help make sense of the API requests called by various components? (example: "My Group Hubs" component ... what API call is happening behind the scenes there? I'd like to build my own component that grabs the same list but uses it differently. I've spent 1hr in the docs, and haven't found what I'm after. Buuuutttttttttttt if I could only trace the dang thing........)Does anyone have any tracing insight? Are there any tools available?

Hi keithkelly and, cblown hoping you both are doing well!! I have revoked the acceptance of the solution marked on @Normanschmidt's comment and banned the user for spamming, as it included an advertising link.

If I understand what you're asking correctly, you want to see what API calls the OOTB components are using?One of the first questions I recall asking a long time ago was, "Could we get the Freemarker source code for the OOTB component X?" Of course core components aren't Freemarker so the answer was "sorry not possible".V2 API came along and while it gave us a deeper look at the underlying core database (kind of) - it was still behind the API layer. I think with Hermes this changed and some of OOTB Components are actually Freemarker but they are not directly available in Studio - unless you ask really really nicely 🙂 I'm hoping, no praying, that Aurora provides a way for developers to extend the core OOTB Component so we can add minor customisations without the need to reimplement the entire component. But I suspect some of the highly complex components say "messageList" may still need to remain behind the curtain.

Well, I'm guessing as much as you on what those older components use as their datasource and yes, I've struggled in the past to re-build "better" versions of out of the box components due to the API not covering all the data/functionality we need to actually do it. BUT, of course there is a "but", there's a pretty ugly way of doing it anyways. The gist of it is, you make an @override of the OOB widget, assign <@delegate /> to a variable, so you get the original HTML markup of the OOB widget in a variable, then you regex the s*** out of it and extract information you can then use to make API calls, usually the ID does it, e.g. in your scenario you'd regex out the user id's for the kudos leaderboard, then you create API requests for using those rendering your own leaderboard... It is of course ugly because first it loads the OOB widget (using server time for that I assume) and then you come in, regex stuff out, then make additional API calls to build your own, so I'd definitely recommend using <@liaMarkupCache /> in those kind of "solutions".But before you do that, have a look at API v1, for example here https://devdocportal.khoros.com/t5/Community-API-v1-Reference/bd-p/restv1docs?section=commv1&leaf-id=Blog.kudos.authors.leaderboard#Blog.kudos.authors.leaderboardHint: just type "leader" into the searchbox to find API endpoints for various leaderboards. My guess is that a lot of older OOB widgets still use API v1, as that was the only thing that existed back in those days.EDIT: Went digging in some old codebases because i wondered what it was I did this for, here you go (had to adapt the code slightly as it used functions etc. defined elsewhere, so it's untested, but that's the bulk of it anyways): <#-- /** /* There is no leaderboard API available for top solution authors (there is for kudos...) /* and it's nearly impossible (only by querying ALL users and then their authored solutions /* with "SELECT * FROM messages WHERE is_solution = true AND author.id = <id>") to do by ourselves. /* So we parse the studio component widget for top solution authors and crank out the user ids listed /* there, which we then can use to actually fetch the user objects. /*/ --> <#-- ids will finally store the extracted user ids --> <#local ids = utils.sequence.builder() /> <#assign cmp> <#assign markup> <#-- @delegate seems to always be available, but can be empty! --> <@delegate /> </#assign> <#if !markup?has_content> <#attempt> <#assign markup> <@component id="solutions.widget.accepted-solutions-leaderboard-taplet" /> </#assign> <#recover> ${"including markup from @component 'solutions.widget.accepted-solutions-leaderboard-taplet' failed!"} </#attempt> </#if> ${markup} </#assign> <#-- Extract required data from original component markup, regex101.com can be your friend! --> <#assign matches = cmp?matches("\\/user-id\\/(\\d+)") /> <#list matches as match> <#-- Only add a match once --> <#-- The ?groups build-in contains a sequence with [0] = the whole match and [0+groupn] items with their match --> <#if !ids?seq_contains(match?groups[1])> <#assign ids = ids.add(match?groups[1]) /> </#if> </#list> <#-- then get user objects from all extracted ids --> <#assign query = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE id IN('" + ids.build()?join("', '") + "') /> <#assign response = rest('2.0', '/search?q=${query}') /> <#-- do someting with the data --> <#list response.data.items as obj> </#list>

Agreed in all aspects. An example of what I'm after is to take the question:"What's the API V2 request used by the My Group Hubs widget? I could post that question on this forum, but I could avoid it if I could see that request (& the response) happening behind the scenes. It's a capability we give our users, and I was hoping it was also available to those of us developing on Khoros.

I see Normanschmidt's response was accepted as a reply, but I don't believe this addresses my question. Perhaps I'm just not following. Normanschmidt wrote:A trace can have multiple spans, the relation/ordering between the span is maintained by storing the pointer of parent_span inside each span. System Tracing allows you to share your collected trace with other apps on your device. In doing so, you can send the trace to your development team through an email or a bug-tracking app without needing to connect a device to your development machine. HEB PartnerCan I leverage this to see what API calls are happening behind the scenes?

Can I "Trace" the Requests Happening Behind the Scenes?

SyedSa
Moderator
2 years ago
Hi keithkelly and, cblown hoping you both are doing well!!

I have revoked the acceptance of the solution marked on @Normanschmidt's comment and banned the user for spamming, as it included an advertising link.
cblown
Boss
2 years ago
If I understand what you're asking correctly, you want to see what API calls the OOTB components are using?

One of the first questions I recall asking a long time ago was, "Could we get the Freemarker source code for the OOTB component X?" Of course core components aren't Freemarker so the answer was "sorry not possible".
V2 API came along and while it gave us a deeper look at the underlying core database (kind of) - it was still behind the API layer. I think with Hermes this changed and some of OOTB Components are actually Freemarker but they are not directly available in Studio - unless you ask really really nicely 🙂

I'm hoping, no praying, that Aurora provides a way for developers to extend the core OOTB Component so we can add minor customisations without the need to reimplement the entire component. But I suspect some of the highly complex components say "messageList" may still need to remain behind the curtain.
- keithkelly
  Leader
  2 years ago
  Agreed in all aspects.
  An example of what I'm after is to take the question:
  "What's the API V2 request used by the My Group Hubs widget?
  I could post that question on this forum, but I could avoid it if I could see that request (& the response) happening behind the scenes. It's a capability we give our users, and I was hoping it was also available to those of us developing on Khoros.
  - mdfw
    Genius
    2 years ago
    The way I understand it (consider this a rumor, but seems supported by evidence) is that many of the OOB components don't use the API, especially the older parts of the templating engine. Those parts can call directly into the body of the beast. For instance, I see no way to build a proper kudos leaderboard from the API but it exists as a widget.
    Aurora appears to fix some of that but it's frustrating now.
cblown
Boss
2 years ago
haha - a user with one post that joined Tuesday. I think maybe Chat GPT has escaped and changed its name to Normanschmidt ?

This is a bit weird cause only the OP (or an admin) can accept a solution.
- cblown
  Boss
  2 years ago
  What's more strange is I found the copy that was posted here even Chat GPT doesn't do that 🙂
  
  A trace can have multiple spans, the relation/ordering between the span is maintained by storing the pointer of parent_span inside each span.
cblown
Boss
2 years ago
Thanks, how come the spam post was accepted as a solution though? Seems odd. Only the OP or an Admin has permission to do this?
- keithkelly
  Leader
  2 years ago
  I've been wondering the same...
luk
Boss
2 years ago
Unfortunately I also do not know a way of tracing OOTB component's API queries, there are a few Angular ones that do AJAX requests directly to the API, those you can trace, but that's about it. Toolbox does only trace custom components, not OOTB ones (at least afaik).
But for the GroupHub message list, a query like this is roughly what you need:

"SELECT ${fields?join(',')} FROM messages WHERE depth = 0 and grouphub.id = '${id}' ORDER BY post_time DESC LIMIT 10 OFFSET 0"
luk
Boss
2 years ago
Glad it helped someone =)!
And yes, it doesn't answer the OP's question, that was done before: Basically, no, it's not possible to trace API requests from OOB components as some of them seem to use some kind of internal magic to access data we cannot via API v1 or v2.
And for your usecase, the kudos leaderboard, there is actually an API v1 endpoint for that!

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