Topic: Miscellaneous / Is there an app like Pyro for Backpack?

Check out PackRat at http://www.infinitenil.com/packrat

Topic: Backpack API / Backpack API Doesn't Return Start Page

I do it by finding the page with the lowest ID.

Topic: Backpack API / Backpack API Doesn't Return Start Page

Using the Backpack API after the latest release and making a /ws/pages/all request, the start page is not returned in the list of pages.

Topic: Backpack API / Updating Separators

I finally got deleting separators to work. The trick was setting the Accept HTTP header to application/xml. However, I’m still having problems updating separators.

I’m trying to update a separator so I’m doing a PUT request to /page/#{pageID}/separators/#{id}.xml. Everything looks correct but I’m getting a 405 error back which means Resource Not Allowed. Reading the HTTP specs leads me to believe that the server doesn’t accept the PUT method, yet the API docs say that is what we are supposed to do. Is this a bug or am I missing something? I’ve tried just doing a POST, but that doesn’t work either. When I do a POST I get back a status code of 500 which is an Interal Server Error.

Either there is a bug in the API or the documentation is not accurate.

Topic: Backpack API / Deleting Separators

I finally got this to work. The trick was setting the Accept HTTP header to application/xml.

Topic: Backpack API / Deleting Separators

I’m trying to delete a seperator. Here’s the URL for request I make:

https://xxxxx.backpackit.com/page/#{pageID}/separators/#{id}.xml

I’m using the DELETE HTTP method. I get a status of 200 back (instead of 204) and the response I get back is:

<?xml version=”1.0” encoding=”UTF-8”?>
<separator> <id type="integer">xxxxx</id> <name>test</name> <page-id type="integer">xxxxx</page-id>
</separator>

It’s acting like a query of some sort instead of a requst to delete something.

Topic: Backpack API / Separators

You can get the separators, but you get it from the page. Just request a page and you will see the separators in the XML returned. Then just parse it out.

Topic: Backpack API / Separators

I’m trying to update a separator so I’m doing a PUT request to /page/#{pageID}/separators/#{id}.xml. Everything looks correct but I’m getting a 405 error back which means Resource Not Allowed. Anybody else get this to work?

Topic: Backpack API / Writeboard Information

You can currently tell if a page has a writeboard by looking at a page’s belongings, but you can’t get any other information about the writeboard. It would be nice if you could at least get the name of the writeboard and the URL for it.

Topic: Backpack API / Image URLs

That’s good to know. However, typically when you are using the API you may or may not be logged in. Requiring the user to log in just to run your program is less than ideal. Can you tell us how to compute the hash?

Topic: Backpack API / Image URLs

I see that you changed the URLs back for when you click on an image to retrieve the original image. Thank you. However, the URLs for thumbnail images that you display in the gallery still have a hash in them. Could we get those changed back as well? Or just let us get them via the API?

Topic: Feature Requests / PLEASE - Open up the API for reordering elements on a page!

That was a mistake on my part. I said that on my blog, but I was mistaken. I can get the order of items and I can tell Backpack to reorder items via the API. PackRat doesn’t do that yet, but it will as soon as I implement it.

Topic: Backpack API / Image URLs

It would be nice if the API supported getting the URL for images and file attachments. PackRat is able to display images, but with the changes it only is able display images that were added before the new Backpack because the image URLs have changed. I was able to figure it out before, but the new image URLs have some kind of hash in them. Could 37signals please tell us how to figure out the URLs or add support for them in the API?

Topic: Backpack API / Delete item bug

I believe I have found a bug in the /item/destroy request of the API. If you do a request such as /page/#{page_id}/lists/asdf/items/destroy/#{item_id}, the API returns success even though the list ID is bogus (asdf is the list id and of course it doesn’t exist). The list item is not deleted either. I would expect to get 404 error back.

Topic: Backpack API / Update Item

It used to be that you could update the completed state of an item by including <item><completed>true</completed></item> for the body of the item update request. This doesn’t work in the new Backpack API. Instead I guess you have to do a toggle request unless I’m missing something. The ability to use an update request to set the completed state is very handy as using a toggle request is awkward as you have to know the current state of the completed attribute.