Connecting to API / Web services

[Joe Glines]

APIs are Amazingly helpful! We had a great AutoHotkey webinar on using Webservices / APIs.

Be sure to check out the 2 hours worth of video as well as the references!. The webinar introduces API calls and compares / contrasts them to a browser call / Web scraping. It also covers a ton about pluses & minuses between the two.

I use Fiddler to help monitor network traffic. Check out my videos on Fiddler for monitoring Network Traffic. They can really help understand what is being sent from the Apps / Website so you know what you need to replicate.

Here is a link to my AutoHotkey API Syntax writer. It can save you significant amount of time writing your AutoHotkey Code!

In most of the below examples I use the below function I wrote to parse the parameters. Please make sure you add it to your scripts!

Example API Calls

1. FullContact- Company & Person lookup
2. Clearbit- Contact Search
3. Data24-7- Return email address for a mobile phone number
4. reddit- Return top 20 AHK posts from Reddit; avoid oAuth2 by leveraging browser cookies!
5. SmartSheet- Extract JSON as well as binary data (CSV)
6. OpenWeatherMap- Grab the current & forecaster weather conditions in XML or JSON
7. Yahoo Query- Play with the highly-flexible Yahoo queries!
8. Yelp- Work through oAuth1 & oAuth2 to connect to the Yelp API
9. Zillow- Extract some great Real estate data from the Zillow API
10. Zoom- Vendors often offer APIs to access your data. I demo connecting to Zoom.us here.
11. Google Maps– I work through 4 APIs: Directions, Timezone, Places, and GeoLocation
12. RingCentral- API Calls (Automate Texting, calling, etc.)

Comparision of Web Scraping to API calls

[burque505]

Joe, another great post. Thank you!!!!!!

[Joe Glines]

Joe, another great post. Thank you!!!!!!

Thanks!

[ziair]

Thank you for sharing these APIs, I find it really interesting.

[Joe Glines]

Thank you for sharing these APIs, I find it really interesting.

You bet! It opens up so many doors it is amazing!