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MAE - Mirror API Emulator

Mirror API Emulator

Description

This is an attempt to recreate the behaviour of the Mirror API (based on the official documentation) to allow developers like me who can't be part of the Glass Explorer program, to test potential applications that could be feasible using Glass.

And even if the real Mirror API turns out to be completely different from what I envision it to be you can use this as a learning place for different Google technologies:

  • Google Cloud Endpoints, with JavaScript and Python clients

  • Google+ Sign-in, client-side flow (Glass emulator)

  • Google+ Sign-in, server-side flow (Web app)

  • Google App Engine for Web applications in general

  • Channel API for push notifications to the browser-based emulator

  • And how they all can work together

See this document for a detailed description of what this does and how it works.

Parts

This package is meant to be hosted on Google App Engine and includes several parts.

mirror_api is an implementation of the Mirror API using Google Cloud Endpoints.

emulator contains a browser based emulator for Glass. (can be accessed at yourapp.appspot.com/glass/)

service/service.py is a simple playground implementation for a Web Application that makes use of the Mirror API.

service/auth.py handles all authentication and storing of credentials when a user signs up for the demo services. Sets up contacts and subscriptions when the user first connects. Also handles disconnection by removing all contacts and subscriptions and deleting credentials when the user wants to disconnect.

service/notify.py handles subscription post requests coming from the Mirror API and forwards the requests to the relevant demo services.

demos/*.py are demo services that react to incoming notifications. You can find more advanced examples in this repository

Getting and setting up the repository

  1. Clone (or fork and clone) this repository

    git clone https://github.com/Scarygami/mirror-api.git
cd mirror-api

  2. Fetch the endpoints_proto_datastore repository:

    git submodule init
git submodule update

Setup

  1. Create a new App Engine application at https://appengine.google.com/ The name of the application will be referred to as yourapp for the following steps.

  2. Create a new project in the Google APIs Console

  3. Activate the Google+ API in Services, and the Places API for one of the demo services.

  4. Create a new Client ID for web applications in API Access.

    1. Click on Create an OAuth 2.0 client ID....
    2. Fill out a Product name and click Next.
    3. Keep Web application and select (more options) next to Your site or hostname.
    4. Make Authorized Redirect URIs empty.
    5. Set Authorized JavasSript Origins to https://yourapp.appspot.com and http://localhost:8080 for local testing.
    6. Click on Create client ID.

  5. Create a new Simple API Access server key.

    1. Click on Create new Server key....
    2. Keep the IP field empty if you want to accept all IP adresses, or fill in the IP subnets that you got from your ISP.
    3. Click on Create.

  6. Edit mirror_api_server/client_secrets.json and change YOUR_CLIENT_ID, YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET and YOUR_API_KEY to the information from the APIs Console. Also enter a random long string as RANDOM_SESSION_SECRET (Click here to get a string with 20 random characters).

    If you have additional Client IDs you want to access the Mirror API with add them in additional_client_ids

    Important: Don't commit that file if you contribute to this project. One possible solution to prevent this: http://blog.bossylobster.com/2011/10/protecting.html

  7. Edit mirror_api_server/app.yaml to change the name of the application to yourapp.

  8. Follow the steps in the Google App Engine Python 2.7 Getting Started to install the necessary dependencies and deploy the application. Specifically you will need the steps The Development Environment and Uploading Your Application

Testing

To register contacts and subscriptions you will first have to sign in at the web app hosted at https://yourapp.appspot.com/test/. The functionality of this app is very limited so far but will be improved.

(Plan is to have your real web app hosted at https://yourapp.appspot.com/ using the same UI as the test UI, but with the difference that the real web app will use calls directly to the Mirror API while the test web app uses the self-hosted Mirror API clone.)

You can then use the API Explorer at https://yourapp.appspot.com/_ah/api/explorer#p/mirror/v1/ to directly send requests to the API. You will have to turn on OAuth (in the upper right corner of the Explorer) with the https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.email scope.

You can then see the result at the Glass emulator available at https://yourapp.appspot.com/glass/. The Glass emulator will display actions and shares correctly and send them to the Mirror API Server which forwards the information to the relevant subscriptions.

Deviations from the actual Mirror API

For simplification (and because it's easier to implement like this for Cloud endpoints) this assumes that there is only one application (i.e. one Client ID) that uses the Mirror API, so you will have access to all timeline cards of a user, whereas in the real Mirror API you would only have access to cards created by or shared with your application.

Not all features of the Mirror API are implemented yet. For example pagination and voice commands are not supported yet.

Disclaimer

I'm not part of the Glass Explorer program so there are no guarantees that the final Mirror API will work anything like I suppose it will in this demo implementation, even though I follow the official documentation as closely as possible.

Licenses

Copyright (c) 2013 Gerwin Sturm, FoldedSoft e.U. / www.foldedsoft.at

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not
use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of
the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT
WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the
License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under
the License