API Access
I can see you block XML access for non-logged in users. I understand the decision, but is there any chance you may relent on this, and allow access to your free resources (at least those without licensing restrictions) as a web API?
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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We'll be considering API access in the future, but for now we're focusing on getting our own sites working. Then we'll have time to think through the implications of others. Feel free to email me your ideas/proposals, though, on what you'd want to do with API access.
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Bob, any developments on making a Web API (XML/JSON/whatever) available? If so, how do we find out more about it?
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We're busy with some other major projects, so I can't promise it will be soon, but our goal is to offer better API access via the developer interfaces at http://biblia.com.
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am fairly new to Logos and am wondering if it can be used if online in a situation like chrome laptop from samsung
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Is there any hope to enable API access for the books available for Logos? I'm thinking it would be nice to search via API if a certain book is available for Logos, as well as basic book info. It would also be nice to be able to pass a users credentials to get a list of all the books a user owns. This would be really nice for ebook library management, so one could import easily the 1000's of books one has in Logos.
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Okay, as I can read here, the answer to the OP was "potentially in the future".
That was 6 years ago. The future is now
Any update on this?
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Nearly another 7 years have gone by and no word on this?
It seems pretty backwards to not allow an ecosystem of apps and services that talk with the resources you build to sprawl up. My main need for a proper API is to collect and manage my highlights and personal notes. Pretty much every single digital resource marketplace includes this. The fact that you don't seem open to this worries me, from a purely data perspective: it's my data, I should be able to have access to it. Legally, I can maintain excerpts of books for my own personal research, so I don't even see how that's an issue.
Let my comment stands as an exhortation: don't expect your company to hold the absolute best ideas for what to do with the resources you have/provide. Open an API, with whatever restrictions legally needed, that allows us, students of the Word but also developers and entrepreneurs, to come up with ideas and solutions for problems that you guys don't have foresight of or coverage for… Focus on doing what you're doing well, and let "us" build on that.
In Christ always,
--LF
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Levi Figueira said:
. My main need for a proper API is to collect and manage my highlights
The approach that will e effective is to add the API as a suggestion at Roadmap | Faithlife At this time the only related request is Extend API to Manage Personal Books | Faithlife which has only one vote. A Proclaim API project went through feedbear to completion. To get an improved API show that it is a user priority.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Hi MJ,
Based on my experience in tech support and then as a developer, I appreciate the value of informing people about current procedures.
And, this situation predates those procedures and involves promises to customers:
1) API already promised -- We were told that FaithLife would be working on an API. If you look at the second post, Bob Pritchett indicated that FaithLife was already aware of the need and would address it after FaithLife address the website problems it was happening at that time.
2) Request predates current procedure -- This is a standing item that either pre-dates that system _or_ that system was so poorly publicized that FaithLife's employee's weren't aware of it when this request was raised.
Generally, companies have escalation procedures. Some up the chain then gets to make a decision on how to handle a situation. Please use that procedure to escalate our request that FaithLife honor what it appears to have promised over ten years ago.
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I spent more than 30 years in the industry and am very aware of prioritization of projects assisting different subsets of users. For Faithlife, the use of voting for prioritization has been in place for the better part of a decade. There was a recent change from using uservoice to using feedbear. Faithlife is aware of significantly more need than they have staff to produce ... hence the need to allow users input into the prioritization. There are other promises made to users from the release of L4 that have yet to be implemented, and at least in one case, an explicit withdrawal of the promise. You are free to decide whether or not you wish to use the official means for affecting priorities.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Levi Figueira said:
Nearly another 7 years have gone by and no word on this?
Hey Levi - I originated this thread before I was a Faithlife employee.
One of the problems is that Logos does so much, and different users want access to different APIs. It would be a ton of work to open up everything, and if we only open up some things, they might get very little use. It's very hard to know whether developing public-facing APIs is the best use of our limited development resources. Threads like this help us understand it, but the fact that this thread has had only a handful of posts in the last seven years may help you to understand why we haven't yet built public API endpoints.
Levi Figueira said:My main need for a proper API is to collect and manage my highlights and personal notes.
Levi Figueira said:it's my data, I should be able to have access to it.
You do have access to your data, in the app. If you wish, you can also access your data by accessing the underlying SQLite file that's used by the desktop app (although that method is not officially supported, of course). Depending on your use case, you may find that a relatively easy way of getting the data you need.
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Mark Barnes said:
Threads like this help us understand it, but the fact that this thread has had only a handful of posts in the last seven years may help you to understand why we haven't yet built public API endpoints.
I wholeheartedly disagree here. While I sympathize with the need to manage your time and attention wisely, having a few basic API endpoints is common and desirable. You have to understand that, because of your self-admitted "limited development resources", you'll never provide all the tools and solutions that users could use and take advantage of. The fact that they don't ask for it doesn't mean that they wouldn't want to had they access to it. I would venture guessing that 99% of your clients are not developers or "developer-aware". They might complain about something but they are unlikely to figure out the root cause of their complaint. Here's where developers come it: they see a problem or a gap in the product, and they try to solve it or at least think of a solution.
I'm sure quite a few developers have dropped by threads like this, seen how little motivation you guys have to open your platform up, and simply go elsewhere…
Here a are a few ideas for API endpoints:
- user
- user/resources
- user/highlights
- user/notes
- user/sermonsBeing able to pull the list of resources on my account, pull my highlights, pull my notes, pull sermons… More and more folks are developing their own PKM (Personal Knowledge Management) systems, and having these things integrated is valuable.
At first, do it "read-only": let me export this stuff elsewhere. Then, consider "read-write" access to some of the endpoints, to let folks build tools that integrate with your product.
Just some quick ideas and suggestions.In Christ always,
--Levi Figueira
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I hope this message finds you well. I am writing to express a keen interest in the potential integration of API access within Logos Software. Understanding the importance of prudent resource management, I believe that enabling API access could significantly enhance the software's functionality and user experience. By leveraging advanced tools like ChatGPT, users would be able to access and process information from their libraries more efficiently, opening up new avenues for research and study.
The introduction of API access in the upcoming iteration of Logos could be a transformative feature, setting a new benchmark for digital Bible study tools. Such a feature would not only enhance the value of Logos Software but also underscore its position as a forward-thinking leader in the market.I understand that implementing such a feature requires careful consideration and resources.
Please know that there is a community of users, including myself, who are more than willing to contribute our expertise and support to make this a reality. We are motivated by the shared goal of improving the utility and impact of Logos Software for the greater good.I sincerely hope you will consider this proposal. I am looking forward to any opportunities for collaboration or to assist in making this vision come to life.Thank you for your time and consideration.
Best regards,
Ariel Salinas
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Mark, I suspect I never bothered to reply to this because I doubt it would make a difference. But, as several other posts have pointed out, opening up even basic API would allow others to greatly expand what the product could do. Vis-a-vis the number of replies, you're not counting all the additional people who would take advantage of what would be built on top of that API.
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What I'd really love is to be able to use Logos Bible Software on my Linux Mint machines. The web application is passable, but I don't always have internet access.
Failing that, I might consider writing my own Linux desktop program if Logos made a web API available. (I used to be a software developer before I went to seminary.)
Unfortunately, this is apparently a no-go as well.
Logos, please seriously consider supporting Linux. As Windows 10/11 becomes more intrusive and more resource heavy, many of us would like to leave Windows. Mac is not a better answer. The Linux community is growing and deserves some love.
Thanks. God bless!
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Bill Gross said:
What I'd really love is to be able to use Logos Bible Software on my Linux Mint machines. The web application is passable, but I don't always have internet access.
It's not officially supported, but some users have had reasonable success using WINE.
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