PicApport Web-API

Features

The PicApport Web API has been introduced in PicApport Version 7.4

For an example Gallery built with the WebAPI click on the following link: https://en.onlinedemo.picapport.de/public/sharedgalleries.html

The following features are supported:

Easy access to photos and their metadata stored in PicApport
An function to upload photos to PicApport with setting of metadata like title, tags, description etc…
Photos can be dynamically scaled
Supports all operators and functions of PicApports built-in photo query language: https://en.onlinedemo.picapport.de/picapport#help
Session and user permission functions are supported including role based photo filtering

Getting started

To get the WebApi up and running we recommend to start with the following configuration parameters in picapport.properties and restart the server:

webapi.enabled=true
webapi.testpageenabled=true
webapi.has.public.content=true
#the following will work only if a user picapport exists with password picapport (public user)
webapi.default.uid=picapport

If everything is configured properly you should see the following in PicApport About-Page (click on the image to enlarge):

URL Scheme

[protocoll://picapportserveraddress]/picapportapi/version/function?parameter

Click on the following example URL to see it working: https://en.onlinedemo.picapport.de/picapportapi/1.0/getSharedGallerys

Web-interface for tests and examples

PicApport provides an optional Web-interface that can be used to test and play with the API in your own environment: (Or on our Demo: https://en.onlinedemo.picapport.de/picapport-webapitest.html)

Click on the image below to see how it works.

Sample Workflows

Work with shared Photos

See the sourcecode of our example on https://en.onlinedemo.picapport.de/public/sharedgalleries.html
Download the example file and copy it to your .picapport/public directory and change it to your demands.
(make sure that configuration parameter webapi.has.public.content=true has been set first).

Run a Query against PicApports photo database

call createWebApiSession to get a valid apisid (API session ID)
dependent on your configuration it may be required to call authorizeWebApiSession with userid and password to authorize your session
call runQuery to execute you query and get a vid (viewID) and number of photos in the result
call getPhoto, getPhotoMetadata, getThumbnail, getOriginalFile, with apisid, vid and zero based index to access the photos and metadata.

Upload photos

call createWebApiSession to get a valid apisid
dependent on your configuration it may be required to call authorizeWebApiSession with userid and password to authorize your session
call upload to upload photos with metadata

Documentation of available functions

Configuration parameter to control Web-API functions in picapport.properties

For a general description of the picapport.properties see: PicApport-Server Guide

webapi.enabled	not set (false)	7.4	YES	This parameter must be set to true to activate the Web-Api
webapi.testpageenabled	not set (true if webapi.enabled)	7.4	YES	If this parameter is set to false the WebApi-Testpage [http:toServer]/picapport-webapitest.html will not be available on the PicApport server.
webapi.has.public.content	not set (false)	7.4	YES	This parameter must be set to true to activate the delivery of content in the .picapport/public directory. This can be used to create your own html-files using the Web-Api to create stylish galleys etc.
webapi.public.dir.allowed	not set (true if webapi.has.public.content)	7.4	YES	If this parameter is set to true (default) the the content of the .picapport/public directory can be queried by just entering the URL [YourPicapportServerAdress]/public This is only relevant if webapi.has.public.content is set to true.
webapi.functions	not set (empty)	7.4	YES	Optional comma separated list of functions that should be available for the web-api. If this parameter is not defined all functions will be available. Example to just support access to shared gallery’s: webapi.functions=getSharedGallerys,getGallery,getPhotoMetadata,getPhoto
webapi.apikey	not set (empty)	7.4	YES	Optional parameter to define a key that must be set to call the createWebApiSession
webapi.default.uid	not set (empty)	7.4	YES	Optional parameter to set a UserID used for the WebAPI session. (technical user) If set and the uid exists a call to createWebApiSession automaticaly creates a WebAPI session for this user. In this case a call to authorizeWebApiSession is not required. Important: *userId* and password for the user used as webapi.default.uid must be identical!
webapi.session.timeout.seconds	not set (default = 30 * 60 seconds = 30 minutes)	7.4	YES	Time until a web-api session on the server will be terminated if no activity detected. A value of at least 60 seconds must be set
webapi.max.sessions.per.ip	not set (default=20)	7.4	YES	Maximum number of concurrent open sessions per remote IP-address. It is recommended to use closeWepApiSession if a session is not required anymore. A value of at least 1 seconds must be set
webapi.DISABLE.PASSWORD.ENCRYPTION	not set (false)	7.4	YES	Use with care Optional. Use only for testing in secure networks. If set to NoPwEncryptionForWebApi then unencryped passwords will be accepted by the authorizeWebApiSession function.