API for Java Ranch

[Anand Athinarayanan]

Hi There,

I would like to know if there are any API's available for Coderanch or java ranch something that stackoverflow provides to get the questions and the answers.I couldn't find anything in google.
I'm just thinking of developing an application which would enable the users to search java ranch for previously posted questions or may be even post a question or an answer through my application instead of accessing it with the browser. My application would be a desktop app which (if connected to the internet) will allow the user what i just said before.

Does Java ranch provide any API calls for these or do you guys have any other suggestion for me ?

[Henry Wong]

Anand Athinarayanan wrote:
I would like to know if there are any API's available for Coderanch or java ranch something that stackoverflow provides to get the questions and the answers.I couldn't find anything in google.
I'm just thinking of developing an application which would enable the users to search java ranch for previously posted questions or may be even post a question or an answer through my application instead of accessing it with the browser. My application would be a desktop app which (if connected to the internet) will allow the user what i just said before.

Does Java ranch provide any API calls for these or do you guys have any other suggestion for me ?

No official API that I know of -- but ... it does have a good search capability, see link above (to the left of the FAQ link). As for posting, what is wrong with the browser interface? JR is a moderated site, and I can't imagine any application that can also automatically deal with the moderators.

Henry

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

My suggestion is... please don't. You're proposing to create a way to access our site without any chance for the user to see the advertisements that support it and the announcements that make it into a community. This will in no way improve the quality of our site or the experience of our users; quite the contrary, it can only be damaging.

Javaranch has a mobile site already -- if you visit with a mobile browser you should see the simplified version of the site.

[Andrew Monkhouse]

I kind of like what StackOverflow has done with the posting API - you can use the APIs to post, but you must have registered your application before doing so (so that they can block you the moment you do anything bad), and posting through the API is throttled so that you can actually post more data, in shorter amounts of time, if you go through the web interface. Initially you can only post 3 comments a day.

About the only API I saw that I thought might be marginally useful was the unanswered posts API, which might enable you to get the first post in before anyone else. But that functionality also exists as a straight URL within their web interface - again, you would be better off using the web interface.

[Anand Athinarayanan]

Wong,
I don't find anything wrong with the browser interface, i was looking for ideas for developing a desktop application and thought of something that would be useful to developers. No problem with the java ranch search.

Friedman-Hill,
Thanks for that wonderful insight. Java Ranch has helped me countless times and I would never ever do anything to cause any damage even inadvertently. I'm going to change my requirement a little.
Instead of displaying the results in my application, I'm going to open the user's browser and post the query in Java Ranch's search box and all other interactions will happen through the browser only.
I'm sure its allowed because instead of the user directly launching the browser my application does it for him. If you can think of any problems this may cause to JR, do let me know. I'm not going to have the posting questions/answers feature yet. Even if I do, its going to be the same as the search. Launch the browser with the url and let user do the rest.

Andrew,
Thanks for the tip about StackOverflow. Honestly, I'm just going to restrict myself to searching questions/answers.