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Re: imgur / image-upload API specs

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not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) writes:

> 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.
>

The people sending you the links were screwing up, then. What you do is
upload the image, then right-click the image on the resulting page and
copy the image link. No JS, it's just a JPG.

>> 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!

If a variety of different self-hosted options accept POST requests to
/imageapi/upload, then it's easy to use them interchangeably. That's the
advantage of a standard API.


> 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.

The reason you use HTTP is because basically every device can access
it. Damn near every firewall lets port 443 out. I love non-HTTP
protocols on a philosophical level, but I don't suggest "oh well
obviously the best way to let my mom share a picture is to have her
mount a 9P filesystem via FUSE..."

If there's a common/standard way to throw images at a backend service,
that means you can interface with it via curl, via a little HTML+JS
application you hack up, or from basically any program written in any
application which supports HTTP.



john

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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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