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Re: imgur / image-upload API specs

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In comp.misc John <john@building-m.simplistic-anti-spam-measure.net> wrote:
> The recent decision by imgur to delete non-account-associated uploads
> got me thinking about WWW resource persistence and self-hosting yet
> again. People used imgur because it was convenient and free; uploading
> an image and sending a link was a simple process.

It wasn't convenient for me receiving those links. Links to Imgur
images don't work without Javascript, so not in my preferred
lightweight web browsers, and even in Firefox it takes ages to load,
and (with my configuration, at least) sometimes a few page reloads.
99% of the time I just ignore Imgur links, and for the other 1% it
usually turns out that it wasn't worth the effort.

> Imgur also had an API which applications could integrate with, so for
> example flameshot can just upload your screenshots directly to imgur if
> desired. Most of these applications just assume you're uploading to
> imgur, but if some other server implemented the same HTTP API endpoints,
> it would be a drop-in replacement--but I haven't heard of anything like
> that!

If the applications are hard-coded to use the Imgur server, would
changing the server really be much harder than replacing that code
with a dead-simple HTTP POST to another server, without the fancy
API?

> Is anyone aware of open-source servers which implement an
> Imgur-compatible API, or of efforts to define a "standard" set of
> endpoints for image uploading and retrieval?

Why does it need to be a standard? HTTP makes this very easy to
build from scratch, it's a typical HTML form example task. If Imgur
makes it so complicated that it could be its own standard, that's
their problem. Rip all that out and put in something sensible
instead!

A quick search suggests that Imgur use OAuth 2 in the API for
restricting API access, so that's just for their own benefit.

Even better, set up an SFTP (FTPS, FTP) server and allow people to
use that for uploading photos without a clunky web interface. Bulk
uploads are _far_ easier using SFTP than via web interfaces, and
photos are often uploaded in large numbers. Heck that's probably
why those API applications get used instead of the Imgur website
in the first place. Use SFTP and you've got lots of wonderfully
easy to use FTP clients available already. Just write a script that
post-processes them for displaying in HTML after they've been
uploaded. HTTP is the wrong route from the get-go, if you ask me.

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Thread

imgur / image-upload API specs John <john@building-m.simplistic-anti-spam-measure.net> - 2023-06-28 03:34 +0000
  Re: imgur / image-upload API specs not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2023-06-29 09:14 +1000
    Re: imgur / image-upload API specs John <john@building-m.simplistic-anti-spam-measure.net> - 2023-06-29 01:49 +0000
      Re: imgur / image-upload API specs Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> - 2023-06-29 13:20 +1000
      Re: imgur / image-upload API specs Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.netNOSPAM.invalid> - 2023-06-29 08:12 +0000
  Re: imgur / image-upload API specs Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> - 2023-07-03 01:47 +0000

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