More Adventures With The Blogger API

Trying to add more features

I had a few more minutes to kill so I thought I'd explore the API a little more. If you'll remember (or if you want to just click a link here that goes to http://www.PaulChristensen.net), I've implemented a Blogger V3 API call that loads the most recent article from this blog (http://www.ZenOfBeer.com) when you load the home page. It works great, and adds a little dynamic content to a site with which I never really know what to do. Anyway, I had a few more minutes to kill so I pulled out my handy dandy test app to try a couple more API calls. The idea being that once I had the call working I could implement it on my site. So, where to start?

Listing all of my blogs

I thought it might be interesting to add a little widget that let you, the reader, select from a list of all of my blogs. I have three others on this account, one of which I actually try to update from time to time. I start off plugging my data in to my test app, and no joy. I'm getting an error back saying that my account isn't configured for this API call. After fighting with query formats for a bit, I finally go out a-Googling only to find a support thread about this very issue. What's the resolution? Google has decided to disable this feature. Why? I don't remember, and I don't care. It kinda blows, but whatever. I guess that shuts down that idea, so I'll just eventually add a page or something that will pull articles from the one other blog that I occasionally update. Not where I wanted to go, but no big deal. It was a feature with questionable value, anyway. So, what's next?

Comments

Really, I'm looking for a little more interaction around here. I'd like to maybe get a little conversation, share some ideas, so a valuable feature would be to allow commenting anywhere I choose to have my articles show up. Seems reasonable, so I went out and tweaked my test app and started running tests. What do I get? 404 errors. I can't find the endpoint that would allow me to comment. I fight with this for a little while, and then, as I'm known to do, off a-Googling I go. What do I find? A support thread detailing this very issue. What's the resolution? Well, there's a couple. The first option, I have to pass my username and password if I want to comment. I suppose this could be extended to any users who visit my site, but handling authentication just to post comments is not a business I'm interested in. Besides, a few minutes of testing indicated this probably wouldn't work, anyway. The other resolution? The API for commenting has been removed due to spam concerns. Bullshit. Bullshit, I say. There's a spam bucket in my account, I could easily get spammed by comments right here on the Blogger site, so what's the difference? Who knows, but yet another feature shot right down. It kinda blows, but whatever. 

Where do we go from here?

Well, one feature that I do know works is searching for any and all articles within a given blog. I'll use this functionality to make all articles searchable from my sites, so at the very least the stuff will be readable. Oh, well. It is what it is, and it still makes my personal site more interesting that it would be otherwise.