I would like to create a custom app using the journal API.   The way it would basically work is that I would create a number of predefined events and then the users would be able to select one from a drop down list and update their journal.

I then want to be able to aggregate all the events so that I can create a display that looks like:

May 25, 2010 - 11:00AM

17 people just ran 2 miles
5 people felt like today is a new beginning
3 people feel like giving up


Can anyone give me some pointers?   I know there is a journal API, I'm just looking for some help to get started.

Thanks

I saw this today - www.activemodules.com/Community/For...fault.aspx - but I am also looking for more info. I'd like to set up Ventrian News Articles and a couple of other modules so that new posts and updates are shown in the journal.

Anyone else?

Will, is there going to be more info published on how to use the journal API?

More info will be available with 1.7. AS 1.7 will allow for publishing to the journal. Being able to build complete journal apps will be available with 1.8.

Thanks for the answer. Just two questions

1. How close are we to 1.7?

2. I assume whatever apps we create will be independent of AS and then somehow made to hook in in terms of updating the journal. If this is correct is it ok to go ahead and start building/designing an app that will be able to hook into AS later. Or.... is this an incorrect approach and all the journal apps will somehow be built using AS and therefore be constrained by its framework so we should not get started yet until 1.8 has been released?

Very close. Days, not weeks.


This depends on what you are building. The link that Ray pointed out is for what we will call "Journal Apps". A journal app is tightly integrated. Events is an example of a Journal App. Events was actually built using the majority of the API. Now, that doesn't mean the API is ready for public use. We still have more functionality to clean-up. That will be complete for 1.8. Active Social 1.7 will allow for "Journal Publishers". A journal publisher is our way of identify a source that can post information to the journal. Ventrian News Articles would be a good example of a journal publisher. Active Forums is actually a journal publisher as well that has been using the API since the start. We haven't posted how to do this yet because we needed a little more security in place to make sure Active Social provided the tools to manage various publishers.

This is very interesting Will.

Are you asuming that these journal publishers will be created by the original mdule developers or is this something that can be done by an admin user? I could see some possibilities using XMod and offer the queries to the Journal in Active Social so that one is not depending entirely on the release of a module developer (even though this is the easiest way).

That's what I was thinking too Mark. Creating some type of app in Xmod Pro and then have it return results to the journal. One idea of mine is for a product rating system.

The person would rate and review a product and the Journal would show something like this:

"John just rated and reviewed Nike Air, click here for the review."

Posted By SilverSurfer on 27 May 2010 01:46 AM
That's what I was thinking too Mark. Creating some type of app in Xmod Pro and then have it return results to the journal. One idea of mine is for a product rating system.

The person would rate and review a product and the Journal would show something like this:

"John just rated and reviewed Nike Air, click here for the review."

Can you do all this stuff in Xmod Pro? How difficult is to create application like these? Can a newbie do this?

I don't think it would be too difficult for a newbie to setup a simple rating system in Xmod Pro. You just have to create a table where you have fields for everything you want to capture, ie user ID, product title, product description, date, rating etc.

Its basically just a form that inputs all the data into a table for retrieval later.