BungeeConnect Basecamp API version 0.1.4 "Green Bar" - Release Candidate

I revved the BungeeConnect Basecamp API tonight, with the following improvements:

• Time Entries have complete test coverage. Thanks to Yamato Engine Specialists for allowing testing of the API with their account.
  
• Messages and Comments now have complete test coverage (and yes, the tests pass).
  
• Todo-Items now update all recommended fields; v0.1.2 only updated the text of the todo-item.
• Milestones update successfully; Milestone due-dates were incorrectly types as DateTime - they are now properly typed as Date.
• An issue with properly identifying responsible parties for milestones, and todo-items was resolved.
  

The following issues are still outstanding:

• There is currently no support for Attachments.
  

Prerequisites (unchanged):

• A BungeeConnect account.
• A Basecamp account. To use SSL and manage Time Entries, you need at least a Plus Account.

Just as a reminder, this code is released completely free to the BungeeConnect community; feel free to use and abuse it to your hearts content.

CampHappier Project

I'm also proud to announce that this code is also the first Release Candidate from the CampHappier Project: a group of code components arranged around the concept of making 37Signals' Basecamp Project Management app more feature rich via the API. Chime in on the Wiki or via GetSatisfaction.

Drop me a comment and let me know how you're using the code.

BungeeConnect Basecamp API version 0.1.2

I (finally) updated the BungeeConnect Basecamp API this morning, with the following improvements:

• Milestones and Todo-Items no longer error out during the uncomplete function.
• Getting archived messages correctly uses the AbbreviatedPost class, instead of the Post class.

The following issues are still outstanding:

• TimeEntry methods are not well tested, as this is a premium feature. I've asked 37Signals for access to TimeEntries for testing & development.
• Update methods are still failing out. BungeeLabs is working with me to resolve this issue.

Prerequisites (unchanged):

• A BungeeConnect account.
• A Basecamp account. To use SSL and manage Time Entries, you need at least a Plus Account.

Basecamp API for BungeeConnect

+ = ?

12 classes. 60 functions. 6 test applications. 30 unit test functions. One big fat API wrapper. BungeeConnect applications can now completely integrate with 37signals' Basecamp Project Management application.

Why?

Well, 37s are an arrogant group of developers; they even admit to it in their book. Ask them for a new feature and the answer is "no", or in my case "there's an API, build it yourself." So I am, in BungeeConnect, and you can too. (My own itch is moving todo-items from one project to another, something 37s has been reluctant to offer.)

Prerequisites.

• A BungeeConnect account.
• A Basecamp account. To use SSL and manage Time Entries, you need at least a Plus Account.

Getting Started.

• Login to the Bungee Builder, and create a new Solution.
  
• Modify the Solution's Depencies to include the Basecamp API
  
• If you want to modify the API, Import it (you'll probably want to, as there aren't any inbuilt Adapters).
• In a class in your TypeLib, add BasecampAPI as a field.
  
• Before you can go to town, you'll have to setup the API. Now there's nothing stopping you!
  

Issues.
I've got two rather minor functions that are still throwing 404 errors - I'm working with 37s (via the forums) to get to the bottom of it, but again, they are minor, and I don't consider them showstoppers.

A bit larger, is an issue I found with BungeeConnect: their HTTP Utility doesn't properly auth PUTs, so none of the Update functions currently work. Bungee Labs has labeled this as Issue #7889 - hopefully it will be resolved sooner rather than later.

In Conclusion...

I'll be maintaining the BungeeConnect code until someone else steps up with better code, so drop me a line with any issues you encounter, or just let me know what cool tool you're building!

P.S. I'll be dropping another blog post soon about a new site I'm building for making Basecamp better using a variety of small tools.

Tango for Free!

Jimmac announced today on the Tango Mailing List that thanks to about a bazillion requests and the negotiation skills of Michael Meeks, the Tango Icon Library will be changing licenses from CCASA2.5 to Public Domain. Yes, folks, free as in free. Put those beautiful icons in any app you want; they're yours!

There are a few sticky issues that have to be resolved; the free icons will likely publish from a new repository, and only icons where the authors have explicitly approve the license change will appear there.

For me, this should mean better adoption in the BungeeConnect platform, where I maintain a set of the Tango Icons.

Here's the original post:

[Tango-artists] relicensing tango-icon-theme

---

Jakub Steiner	Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 4:25 AM
To: Tango Artists List Cc: Steven Garrity , Ulisse Perusin , Rodney Dawes
Hello fellow tango artists! One of the most frequent debates here has been the licensing surrounding the tango style's first implementation, the tango-icon-theme. Licensed Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.5, it has been problematic to ship along with GPLed software and create derivative artwork for many major software projects. The licensing has created a barrier where we needed quick adoption. A lot of time has been wasted recreating the same asset in gnome-icon-theme and OpenOffice. So I'm relieved that after a _long_ debate with Novell legal and the open source review board, Novell is agreeing to relicense its share of tango-icon-theme under a more liberal license. The talk has been about CC-BY-SAv3, LGPL, but in the end the license that is the least restricting and clear wrt to artwork (as opposed to code) is giving up copyright and going Public Domain. This will allow the assets to be used in free software regardless of the projects' license as well as proprietary software. Huge thanks goes out to Michael Meeks who has been the negotiator finally managing getting this through. I've done the majority of work on tango icon theme, but there is a lot more contributors. I'd like to ask everyone to either approve or refuse their work to be relicensed to public domain. I have cc:ed people listed in the AUTHORS file. Luckily I have been mandating people to provide the authorship metadata in the SVGs themself, so we can figure this out on a per-icon basis. One negative aspect of the theme may be that people are free to claim authorship of your work. But realistically, people who do that, will do it regardless of the license (as has been seen on many occasions in the past). We can simply keep on kindly asking for people to give proper credits to the tango project and linking to the website. Suggest rather than mandate. I don't know how this applies to the autotools scripts and configurations. I would take this opportunity and suggest to start from scratch on the new 'tango-icon-theme'[1]. Create a git repository on freedesktop in place of the clumsy CVS, stop worrying about legacy (icon-naming-utils), stop depending on a build system for an icon theme, and simply use an artist-friendly workflow to edit icons in vector form. I have been very happy using a one-canvas workflow I will follow up on. Let's resurrect and scavenge the good that's left in tango icon theme! cheers [1] I actually have -- http://jimmac.musichall.cz/i.php?i=Tango-NG -- Jakub Steiner <jimmac@novell.com> Novell, Inc. _______________________________________________ Tango-artists mailing list Tango-artists@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/tango-artists

BungeeConnect Delivers on 'Rocket' Promise -or- Real-Time Smart Trips Statistics!

The news is starting to get out that Whatcom County, WA's Smart Trips program is not just environmentally smart, but tech-savvy too. Last week they launched a Web Service providing real-time stats on the environmental impact of not driving alone. This is something I've been pushing for, in order to make the impressive stats a bit more accessible.

A few hours after receiving a link to the WSDL, I had a working demo running in BungeeConnect. A bit of wrangling back and forth on the style, and within a couple days, I have a functioning Google Gadget that mimics a printed poster of the statistics. Of course the poster's size is more impressive, but it's not real-time!

This is, without a doubt, the fastest I've ever delivered anything on the web. It's also my first Google Gadget, and the first time I've consumed a WSDL.

Props to the team at Bungee Labs for making it easy, Yamato Engine Specialists for sponsoring the effort, and the staff at Smart Trips for being flexible enough to jump into the web services pool.

So, add it to your iGoogle page, or any web page for that matter!

I've Been Podcasted!

At the tail end of their most recent podcast, Ted Haeger, (co-)host of the Bungee Line, mentioned yours truly. Feels like winning something on the radio. There goes 3 more of my 15 seconds.

Oh yeah, he mentions the upcoming LinuxFest Northwest 2008 as well. I'll be presenting on some lessons I've learning bringing open source into a business. Ted will be presenting on sneaky ways of making money renting free software ;-)