JSON API Now Available for WordPress Wapuu Archive

Yesterday, prolific WordPress plugin developer Takayuki Miyauchi launched a JSON API for the Wapuu archive via GitHub Pages. The new API allows developers to easily build applications that fetch the wapuus with their images and details:

[html light=”true”]
[
{
"name": "original-wapuupng",
"wapuu": {
"name": "Wapuu",
"url": "https://ja.wordpress.org/",
"repository": "https://github.com/jawordpressorg/wapuu",
"src": "https://jawordpressorg.github.io/wapuu/wapuu-archive/original-wapuu.png",
"mime_type": "image/png"
},
"author": {
"name": "Kazuko Kaneuchi",
"url": "https://twitter.com/mutsuking"
},
"description": "Original Wapuu"
},
…
[/html]

Miyauchi said he is looking forward to seeing applications, well-designed galleries, and games that the community will build with it. The official Wapuu archive is already using the new Wapuu API.

Miyauchi also built a space Wapuu gallery with it based on THREE.js, a library that makes WebGL (3D in the browser) easy to use. The gallery works well in Google Cardboard to deliver a fun VR-type experience of the flying wapuus.

Miyauchi is part of the vibrant WordPress community in Japan, has three dozen plugins to his credit on WordPress.org, and enjoys building projects with the WordPress REST API. He said that the REST API hasn’t yet caught on in Japan, but he has been working on tools to make it easier for developers to create applications. Miyauchi built a WP API client for AngularJS and is also creating an Ionic starter template for WordPress + the WP API version 2.

After learning about how much work it is to maintain the official Wapuu archive page, Miyauchi was inspired to use his skills to create a JSON API for cataloguing the 80+ wapuus from around the world.

“If we can update the wapuu’s data via a CSV file, maintaining the archive is much easier,” he said. “The API is converted from a CSV of wapuus.”

Miyauchi worked with Taisuke Jotaki, maintainer of the archive, and Shinichi Nishikawa to create the Wapuu API. If you want to add your wapuu to the archive, you can fork the Wapuu API repository, add your wapuu information to the CSV, and send a pull request to the team.