Just want to make sure: are we allowed to use the forum API?

Help with Snap! Snap! Forums
1

I am no longer able to access the Snap! forum, as Snap! is now blocked. (My school is really cracking down on games, and Scratch was blocked, then the school district was like "Hey, Snap! is sorta like Scratch, we should block that, too!")
I can access cs10.org just fine, so I've been using that.

To cut that rant short, I've been using the Discourse API to get read-only access to the forum, and have been borrowing my friend(hello!)'s phone to post.

I know that using the Snap!Cloud API will get you permanently banned, but I heard that the Forum API is fine. Is that correct? (I'll delete my program if it isn't.)

2

I assume it's perfectly fine, since I don't know anyone who's gotten banned from the forums.

3

tethrarxitet said:

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Few. Thanks!

4

I thought you were making just a normal app, like an Android port, but then you whip out a console log. I actually laughed a bit. This is amazing! :open_mouth:

5

Yeah... Don't tell Brian I switched to vim!

6

hmmm... this makes me want to make my own forums thingy
but how...

7

Trust me, you don't want to:

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However, if you do, DuckDuckGo for Discourse API Docs

8

it says i need an API key. howdo i get one?

9

That's for writing to the forum. You don't need one for reading.

10

really? the docs say otherwise....
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11

Don't they share info with Microsoft

12

I know it does, but the fact that I can see that post (and ask my friend to post this) says otherwise.

13

They did get in a controversy about that, but they fixed it, I think.

14

I still use Google (even though it's worse abt that stuff) because of the convenience. But I'm building my own search engine that I wanna push out before the end of the year

15

Well, can you explain it?

I actually did port the forums into an Android app with Android Webview but that phone broke when I went to DC :frowning:

16

I'll post my code, once it's in a presentable state, but the idea is this:

Every page on a Discourse forum has a .json counterpart, which can be read by a program to do stuff.

So, if you want to, for instance, view the list of the most recent topic, you can wget https://forum.snap.berkeley.edu/latest.json, then look at [topic_list][topics][0].

17

wget? is that a special type of GET request? or just a typo?

18

No, a linux command. wget downloads the file you pass to it from a network.

19

I once was porting the forums to an app, but without the webview, so all of it actually involved native Android views. I was lazy so I gave up "S!F Android" pretty early.