ExpressionEngine 2: Rest Module
Phil Sturgeon recently posted a screencast demoing his new Rest module for ExpressionEngine 2. The module allows you to easily set up REST requests right inside the EE control panel and then easily display the data returned from those requests in your EE templates (using EE tags).
My first reaction: this is great. A simple way to pull in external data without relying on a different add-on for each data source. Very, very cool. Some of this, of course, could be handled with other tools (like MagPie) or even with a wee bit of PHP in the template, but Phil’s module looks to be much more flexible. I’m looking forward to playing with this when it’s available. Update: this module is now available and costs $30 US.
Watch the video: ExpressionEngine 2: Rest Module
Posted on Jul 02, 2010 by Ryan Irelan
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James — 13:01 on 07.02.2010
This looks pretty cool for aggregating my social media activity, but can someone explain why I’d use rest vs parsing an RSS/XML feed using on of the other available addons? Would it make for instance a live feed that auto-refreshes easier?
Phil Sturgeon — 23:45 on 07.02.2010
The only advantage of using this Rest module over parsing an RSS/XML feed as usual is that this thing is generic, it can do any damn thing.
Not only can it parse your Twitter stream but it could send off statistics to a third party server, grab your favourite Delicious posts, all sorts of crazy.
The idea is that it can do everything in the same easy way so cuts out your need for MagPie and other plugins.
Tom Stoecklein — 06:07 on 07.04.2010
Phil,
To set it up with POST, is the plugin looking for whatever’s between the tags to be in any specific format/order/etc. (with obvious respect to the differences between whatever you’re submitting it to)?
Phil Sturgeon — 09:56 on 07.04.2010
You only use the Template syntax to loop through the response, so the parameters you send handle everything. The HTML in your template is just to loop through whatever comes back.
Tom Stoecklein — 18:39 on 07.04.2010
D’oh! Sorry about that; wasn’t thinking—makes sense now :LOL:.
Cheers,
Tom