Instead of using the CLI to test our API we can use the powerful Chrome REST Console plugin instead. This provides a nice GUI and makes it a little easier to both test and understand what is going on. In this lesson Joe looks at installing the plugin and making basic requests to our API using the REST Console interface.
Additional resources
The Chrome plugin demonstrated in this video is no longer available but there are many alternatives available. Use Postman or search for "REST client" to find tooling options.
In this lesson Joe will demontrate using additional parameters and arguments to refine the returned data when making requests from our API. As well as walking through the code that shows where the various parameters are defined and how you can find what options are available. Finally, we install the services tools module which provides some additional documentation.
Additional resources
Services implements resources for all of core's basic data types but sometimes the information returned in the response is either to much or to little and we want to make changes to the response data. In this lesson Joe will look at how we can write a simple custom module that implments basic hooks provided by the services module to allow us to alter the response returned by a request to the node resource.
Most of the actions we want to perform and data we want to retrieve from an API is likely restricted to authenticated users. This lesson will outline the process of making an authenticated request and walk the user through the configuration that is required for our services endpoint in order to start allowing session based authentication.
In this lesson Joe walks through making authenticated requests to our API with cURL. Although cURL can be a bit verbose when making authenticated requests it serves as a good way to talk about all the headers that are a required and a lowest common denominator for how you could accomplish authentication in just about any language or application.
Example commands
curl http://services-demo.lan/api/v1/user/login -d '{"name":"admin","pass":"admin"}' -H "Content-type: application/json" -H "Accept: application/json"
curl http://services-demo.lan/api/v1/system/connect -X POST
curl http://services-demo.lan/api/v1/system/connect -H "Cookie: SESS60f8c5b86739b7e326223b4ef35867b2=A86XHGJWlnDcMOGcArbOT-qHrsIi5P2NrcoNTXwWluw" -H "X-CSRF-Token: T77haXwD7JKOJsBlKP3p3kLbjQO96bQWvGJAE1_PUZM" -X POST
curl http://services-demo.lan/api/v1/user/login -X POST -H "Content-type: application/json" -H "Accept: application/json"
In this lesson Joe walks through making authenticated requests using the Chrome REST Console Plugin
Additional resources
The Chrome plugin demonstrated in this video is no longer available but there are many alternatives available. Use Postman or search for "REST client" to find tooling options.
All the power of views made available to your API. Really, what else is there to say? In this lesson Joe walks through installation and basic configuration of the services views module which provides the ability to expose views as resources via the services module.
Additional resources
In addition to using views to expose lists of things via our API we can also take advantage of views exposed filters to allow API consumers more control over the data they are receiving in a request. In this lesson Joe looks at accessing views exposed filters via REST requests by adding an exposed filter to both of the perviously created views and then walking through how the configuration of the view changes the behavior of the filter when used via the services API.
In addition to the built in support for core's data and actions the services module also provides a robust framework for exposing the data and actions of our custom modules as an API. In this lesson Joe writes a basic module which creates a custom resource for saving and retrieving a "checked in" status for an authenticated user.
Example commands:
Check a user's status
curl http://localhost/demos/services-7x-test/docroot/api/v1/drupalsquare/1 -H "Accept: application/json"
Check-in a user
curl http://localhost/demos/services-7x-test/docroot/api/v1/drupalsquare/checkin -X POST -H "Content-type: application/json" -H "Accept: application/json" -d '{"uid":1}'
Additional resources
An API that exposes data and actions to a 3rd party is only as good as the documentation for that API. Without good documentation no one will be able to make use of the API you just spent so much energy creating. In this lesson Joe shows some of his favorite API documentation examples and then walks through creating some basic documentation for the resource we created in the previous lesson.
Additional resources
Example - GitHub API Documentation
Example - Recurly Documentation
http://apiary.io - tool to assit in writing good documentation
this lesson, we'll configure Webform content type defaults and add our first Webform node.
Additional resources
Now that we've created a webform node for our form to live, it's time to build the form itself and add the form fields that we'll use to collect responses. In this lesson, we'll add a textfield, select options and number inputs. We'll begin by taking a closer look at the webform in its final state to better understand where we're going, then we'll return to the webform node we created in lesson 2 and we'll add each form component, step-by-step.
In this lesson, we'll configure email settings for the RSVP form. We'll go over the different email header options and customize the default message template, using special tokens that Webform module provides.
Drupal’s built-in Search module offers powerful, flexible searching features and intelligent ranking of results. Behind the scenes, it’s silently building an index of all the words used in the site’s content. In this lesson we'll:
- Review the Search module settings
- Explain the importance of cron
- Discuss searching with Views
Additional resources
To transform the Product Finder page into a searchable index, we’ll be adding two new filters to the view: one that restricts the results by manufacturer, and another that restricts results to reviews that mention specific words. In this lesson, we'll:
- Add a filter
- Expose a filter
- Set permissions
Additional resources
We’re almost done! The only problem with our view now is that clicking the titles in the view links to Amazon.com instead of to our own website. Fortunately, Views provides a handy trick for just this sort of situation; we can “rewrite” the output of the Title field to create a link back to its referring node instead. In this lesson, we'll:
- Exclude a field from display
- Rewrite the output of a field
Additional resources
You've built the site that Bob and Sarah need to get their reviews going, but as always, there are ways to add more neat features. In this lesson, we'll look at a few modules you can look at adding down the road
- AdSense
- Display Suite
- Blog (core)
- Recipe
Additional resources
We’ve hit all of the major pieces of functionality that Bob and Sarah wanted. In this summary, we'll:
- Tour the Super Duper Chefs site
- Discuss our implementation points
- Review modules and resources
Additional resources
To kick off this series, we're going to take a look at the needs for our project. Our client is the Aurora Book Club, and they need a way to track events along with who is attending the events. In this lesson, we'll discuss the requirements, and how we'll implement them. We'll also be taking a tour of the finished site so we can see where we're headed. At the end of this lesson you should understand what the target site is that we will be building.
Additional resources
To get things started we need to create a new, basic content type just for events. We just need the event name and description along with an easy way to add the event location. In this lesson, we'll create the content type and set up our permissions.