Pure API Community Front End - RFC
I'd like to start a discussion centered around the documentation of building a pure API version of Community. I know others here have explored this as well to some extent, however the information cov...
Forum Discussion
I have created a proof of concept API-driven interface (not hosted on Lithium), so it is definitely achievable.
I decided to use AngularJS and Twitter Bootstrap to avoid as much boiler plate code as possible. I use it to monitor for new messages on Lithosphere (when I have the time :smileyhappy: ) - it asynchronously loads individual messages when I click on the subject, and I can reply in-line.
Interestingly, this is the same approach Lithium are taking with Mobile v2 - it is driven by APIv2 and you'll be able to customise almost any part of the interface. You can see it in action on the mobile version of this community - have a look at the HTTP requests it makes.
Hi Nathan
Thanks for the reply, indeed we have also seen the Mobile V2 work and the V2 API calls. We've dabbled with this type of thing also when building Community widgets outside of Lithium.
However there are caveats and some operations (such as those you find in the Topic Options drop-down that are not possible via the API (yet in V2). We intend to explore these and document them here. We'll also prioritise these (maybe via Ideas) and hopefully get Lithium to address the critical ones in expanding the V2 API.
Being able to quickly build out a light-weight front end that supports 80% of Lithium functions such as navigate, read, reply, post, kudo, tag, mark solution, label, subscribe, read / unread, search et. al. means we can tailor ad-hoc community channels without having to create complete Lithium themes / sub-themes.
Updates soon..
