BuildingFlickrApps
Building Flickr Applications with PHP
Flickr is one of several new generation Web applications which have taken hold of the public's interest. Thousands of people now share their images with the world through their Flickr accounts.
The book "Building Flickr Applications with PHP", written by Rob Kunkle and Andrew Morton, introduces yet another way to use Flickr to present your photos. Aside from all the ways Flickr has provided on their site to share your pictures, they've also built an extensive API, accessible via PHP on your own web site.
"Building Flickr Apps" introduces this API, beginning with how to install the necessary tools, how to get the phlickr library, and how to get application keys from Flickr. It then walks through examples of the various API elements, from very simple tasks to some fairly complex examples of what can be done. It covers working with single photos and with your photo sets, how to use tags within the API, how to create an RSS photo feed, and how to use the API to interact with Flicker groups.
Each chapter of the book begins with simple, small examples and builds to a useful and robust web Page or useful task, giving you the basis to begin building your own application. Add a random photo from your Flickr stream to your own web page, or show your last six photos the way you want to show them. Get information about your photos, bring up tagged images, or create your own RSS feed for your friends and family. The beginnings are all here.
If you want to expand your use of Flickr to your own web site, this book is a good starting point. While there are instructions for getting and installing all the software needed (for both Windows and Linux) it is not an introduction to Apache or PHP. It does do a very good job of covering the link between Flickr and PHP, and the Potential there. If you're interested in photography and the web, give it a try.
-- Bob Nix