snsapi 0.8.1

lightweight middleware for multiple social networking services

A cross-platform middleware for Social Networking Services (SNS):

• Unified interfaces and data structures.

• The building block of a user-centric meta social network.

• Near-zero infrastructure requirements.

• Play with your social channels like a hacker.

Lightning Demo 1 – Read Twitter Timeline

Step 1.

Register user and developer on Twitter. Apply for application keys and access tokens.

Step 2.

Save the following codes to mytest.py in the root dir of this project:

from snscli import *
nc = new_channel('TwitterStatus')
nc['app_key'] = 'Your Consumer Key from dev.twitter.com'
nc['app_secret'] = 'Your Consumer Secret from dev.twitter.com'
nc['access_key'] = 'Your Access Token from dev.twitter.com'
nc['access_secret'] = 'Your Access Token Secret from dev.twitter.com'
add_channel(nc)
print home_timeline()

Filling your app credentials in the above script: app_key, app_secret, access_key, access_key.

Step 3.

Try it by python mytest.py. You will see your home timeline from twitter.

Remarks

SNSApi unifies the interfaces of all SNS such that retrieving new messages from all other platforms are the same:

• Create a new channel configuration and add_channel it.

• Invoke a single home_timeline() to obtain an aggregated timeline from all channels in a batch.

Lightning Demo 2 – Backup Your Data

Step 1.

Configure a channel.json file with two channels:

• One is called “myrenren” and it interfaces with Renren (an OSN in China).

• The other is called “mysqlite” and it interfaces with a SQLite3 DB.

See one example channel.json configuration.

Step 2.

Save the following codes to backup.py in the root dir of this project:

from snsapi.snspocket import SNSPocket
sp = SNSPocket()
sp.load_config()
sp.auth()

ml = sp['myrenren'].home_timeline()
for m in ml:
    sp['mysqlite'].update(m)

Step 3.

Try it by python backup.py. Now your timeline of Renren (latest 20 messages by default) is backed up to the SQLite DB. You can run this script on a regular basis to backup data from all kinds of SNS.

Remarks

SNSApi unifies the data structures of all SNS so as to enable flexible/ programmable inter-operation between those services:

• Backup one message in SQLite is just “update a status” there.

• In order to read those messages, just invoke home_timeline of your SQLite channel.

• The data in SQLite DB are ready for further analysis. For example, I remember someone said that “snsapi is awesome”. Who posted it? I can not recall. Now, enter sqlite and use one line of command to get the answer: select * from message where text like '%snsapi%';.

• You can also use EMail or RSS to distribute your statuses and follow the updates of your friends.

• When there are new platforms, it’s just one configuration away to use them. The intervention from app developer is not needed.

Lightning Demo 3 – An Ad-Hoc DSN

Decentralized Social Network (DSN) is the next paradigm of social networking. Current centralized services have a lot of problems, e.g. Spying for free.

SNSApi is just a middleware to offload your burden in interfacing with different platforms. Now, try to build something without worrying about the interfacing detials.

See RSoc Community Page if you are interested.

Supported Platforms

Enther the interactive shell by python -i snscli.py. Get the supported platforms as follows:

Supported platforms:
   * DoubanFeed
   * Email
   * FacebookFeed
   * InstagramFeed
   * RSS
   * RSS2RW
   * RSSSummary
   * RenrenBlog
   * RenrenFeed
   * RenrenPhoto
   * RenrenShare
   * RenrenStatus
   * RenrenStatusDirect
   * SQLite
   * SinaWeiboBase
   * SinaWeiboStatus
   * SinaWeiboWapStatus
   * TencentWeiboStatus
   * TwitterStatus
   * ...

More platforms are coming! Please join us!

Get Started

• Clone and install dependencies via pip. Then you are ready to go. See installation guide if you need more detailed information. See troubleshooting page if you encounter problems in your initial tests.

• We have several demo apps in this repo. You can start with them and see how to use those classes of SNSAPI.

• Users who don’t want to write Python or other non-Python programmers can start with our command-line-interface (snscli.py). The official SNSAPI website should get your started quickly along this line. This CLI can allow interfacing with other languages using STDIN/ STDOUT.

• Users who are not comfortable with CLI can use the graphical-user-interface (snsgui.py). See more user interfaces.

Resources

• SNSApi Website: maintained by @hupili; welcome to report problems to admin, or send pull request to website repo directly.

• SNSApi Website (CN): maintained by @xuanqinanhai.

• SNSApi doc: automatically generated from code using Sphinx; also available as inline doc using help(XXX) from Python shell.

• SNSApi Github Wiki: editable by all GitHub users; welcome to share your experience.

• SNSApi Google Group: The most efficient way to get help, discuss new ideas and organize community activities. Please join us!

License

All materials of this project are released to public domain, except for the followings:

• snsapi/third/*: The third party modules. Please refer to their original LICENSE. We have pointers in snsapi/third/README.md for those third party modules.

Other

• Old version of this readme in Chinese