Tumblr is a rails gem that allows you to use the Tumblr API. The idea is that you don’t have to worry about HTTP requests, you just want to fetch your posts right? But there’s more; you can also create, update and destroy Tumblr posts and do so as railsy as possible.
I have updated a few bug fixes from the original gem located at github.com/jeffkreeftmeijer/tumblr as there were a few functions that didn’t work properly, and updated the installation path for the environment file.
To install the gem, put this in your environment file;
config.gem "matenia-tumblr-api", :lib => 'tumblr', :source => 'http://gemcutter.org'
And install the gem;
rake gems:install
Include the gem within your gemfile
gem 'matenia-tumblr-api'
Don’t forget to
bundle install
To create, update or delete a post (or fetch private posts), you should be authenticated. The only thing you have to do is call initialize the User class by doing this:
user = Tumblr::User.new('your@email.com', 'yourpassword')
The user object holds your email and password. If also calls to the API to get the user’s data. If you don’t want to call to the API and just get a user object, call it like this:
user = Tumblr::User.new('your@email.com', 'yourpassword', false)
Fetching posts is easy. The first thing you have to do is tell the Tumblr gem which blog we’re talking about. So, If your blog is located on myblog.tumblr.com you do this:
Tumblr.blog = 'myblog'
When just fetching posts, you don’t have to worry about authentication, so let’s go and get your posts now, shall we?
@posts = Tumblr::Post.all
Congratulations! Now you’ve got all - with a maximum of 50 - of your posts!
Want the first/last post? No problem:
@posts = Tumblr::Post.first # gets the first post it can find @posts = Tumblr::Post.last # gets the last post it can find
And when you want a specific post, you can always just do this:
@posts = Tumblr::Post.find(12345) # gets the post with ID = 12345
Tumblr allows you to pass some parameters to you requests. In the functions described above, the Tumblr gem automatically sets the start, num and/or id parameters. But you can add more!
@posts = Tumblr::Post.all(:type => 'photo') # gets all posts with type = 'photo' @posts = Tumblr::Post.all(:filter => 'text') # gets all posts in plain text
Please check out www.tumblr.com/docs/api for Tumblr’s full documentation about their API and the parameters.
To be able to fetch private posts, you have to be authenticated. Just include the User object (see Authentication above) like so:
@posts = Tumblr::Post.all(user)
To create a post, you should include the authentication object. More information about the parameters you have to include to create posts can be found in the Tumblr API Docs -> www.tumblr.com/docs/api.
This is an example of a “regular” text post:
post = Tumblr::Post.create(user, :type => 'regular', :title => 'Tumblr', :body => 'Tumblr is a rails gem that allows you to use the Tumblr API.')
After a post is successfully created, Tumblr will return the newly created post’s id.
The ‘post` item that’s returned will consist of an ID. If you would like to save this to your database, please make sure the field type is a string (this has caused me grief in the past)
Updating posts is a lot like creating posts. The only thing you have to do is provide the id of the post you wish to edit (the parameters type, private and format are ignored and can be omitted.):
post = Tumblr::Post.create(user, :post_id => '12345', :title => 'Tumblr', :body => 'Tumblr is a super awesome rails gem that allows you to use the Tumblr API.')
After a post is successfully updated, the object post is the Tumblr post’s id.
Just provide the user object and the post_id of the post you’d like to destroy:
Tumblr::Post.destroy(user, :post_id => 12345)
rdoc.info/projects/jeffkreeftmeijer/tumblr
Copyright © 2009 Jeff Kreeftmeijer. See LICENSE for details.
I am a sydney based rails enthusiast who enjoys everything ruby. At the moment I would consider myself to be a rails-novice but I’m getting there. Feel free to email me regarding this gem at matenia@gmail.com
Cheers, Matenia