From 835b51c1de0d49e652fe9c9a60f0974275de070c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Henare Degan Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:34:47 +1100 Subject: Rename ALL THE TEMPLATES!!1!!!one!!1!! .rhtml is deprecated in favour of .erb in Rails 3 --- app/views/help/api.html.erb | 81 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 81 insertions(+) create mode 100644 app/views/help/api.html.erb (limited to 'app/views/help/api.html.erb') diff --git a/app/views/help/api.html.erb b/app/views/help/api.html.erb new file mode 100644 index 000000000..da6253f87 --- /dev/null +++ b/app/views/help/api.html.erb @@ -0,0 +1,81 @@ +<% @title = "About our API" %> + +<%= render :partial => 'sidebar' %> + +
+

<%=@title %>

+
+
Introduction
+
+

This page explains how programmers can make other websites and software + interact with WhatDoTheyKnow via an "API". +

+ +

WhatDoTheyKnow does not have a full API yet, but we are gradually adding + lots of things that are similar in use to an API as they are requested. +

+
+ +
Linking to new requests
+
+

To encourage your users to make links to a particular public authority, use URLs of the form + <%= link_to new_request_to_body_url(:url_name => "liverpool_city_council") , new_request_to_body_url(:url_name => "liverpool_city_council") %>. + These are the parameters you can add to those URLs, either in the URL or from a form. + +

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  • title - default summary of the new request.
    • +
  • default_letter - default text of the body of the letter. The salutation (Dear...) and signoff (Yours...) are wrapped round this.
    • +
  • body - as an alternative to default_letter, this sets the default entire text of the request, so you can customise the salutation and signoff.
    • +
  • tags - space separated list of tags, so you can find and link up any requests made later, e.g. openlylocal spending_id:12345. The : indicates it is a machine tag. The values of machine tags may also include colons, useful for URIs. +
+
+ +
RSS (actually, Atom) feeds +
+

There are Atom feeds on most pages which list FOI requests, which you can + use to get updates and links in XML format. Find the URL of the Atom feed in + one of these ways: +

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  • Look for the RSS feed links.
    • +
  • Examine the <link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml"> tag in the head of the HTML.
    • +
  • Add /feed to the start of another URL. +
+ +

In particular, even complicated search queries have Atom feeds. + You can do all sorts of things with them, such as query by authority, by file + type, by date range, or by status. See the advanced search + tips for details. +

+ +
JSON structured data
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+

Quite a few pages have JSON versions, which let you download information about + objects in a structured form. Find them by: +

+
    +
  • Adding .json to the end of the URL.
    • +
  • Look for the <link rel="alternate" type="application/json"> tag in the head of the HTML.
    • +
+ +

Requests, users and authorities all have JSON versions containing basic + information about them. Every Atom feed has a JSON equivalent, containing + information about the list of events in the feed. +

+
+ +
Spreadsheet of all authorities
+
+

+ A spreadsheet file listing every body in WhatDoTheyKnow is available: + <%= link_to "all-authorities.csv", all_public_bodies_csv_url() %> +

+ +
+
+ +

Please contact us if you need an API feature that isn't there yet. It's + very much a work in progress, and we do add things when people ask us to.

+ + +
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