New Box Enabled Blog!
Hello everyone! We’ve started up this blog for two reasons. First, so we can have a central place for announcements regarding the API. So everything from new features to backwards-incompatible changes will be announced here. Second, so we can gather feedback on the API. We want to hear all your thoughts, suggestions, criticisms and concerns. After all, the API exists for YOU guys, the developers, so we plan on doing everything in our power to cater to your needs.
We look forward to working with all of you. Here’s to a long, fruitful partnership!
The Box API seems to be missing some functions.
First, although there is a “get_file_info” method to access the details of a given file, there is no comparable “get_folder_info” method for folders. The only method that returns information about a folder is “get_account_tree”, which also unnecessarily returns the folder tree—hence the function name. Thus, there is no way to determine the size, creation date, last modification date, description, or parent folder ID of a folder (as you can with a file). The lack of a function to read a folder description makes the “set_description” method for a folder pointless, which would explain why I haven’t found a Box-enabled program that makes use of it like so.
Then, there are tags. The method “add_to_tag” exists, but a comparable “remove_tag” method does not. Unless “add_to_tag” actually sets the tags for a file or folder (in which case it’s name would be misleading), the function cannot be undone. And, wouldn’t it have been more intuitive to name the function “add_tags”? That is, after all, what it does.
Also, I would recommend that “get_file_info” also return a tags list so that the more memory-intensive “get_account_tree” need not be called for this.
Similarly, while there is a method “add_to_mybox”, there is no “remove_from_mybox”. I don’t even know if you can do that from within Box.net. (What makes that a bad idea?)
Finally, given an ID by itself (from, say, user input), how would you check whether that ID points to a file or a folder? Is it possible for a file and a folder to share the same ID? If not, wouldn’t the “target” attribute for several of the API’s methods be redundant?
Just a few thoughts.
July 20th, 2007 at 9:50 am