Hi,
I’m trying to connect to an external database, however I can’t seem to figure out how to connect to it. Can somebody take a look at their api documentation and explain to me how to connect to it on Adalo?
link - ISBNdb API Documentation v2 | ISBNdb
Thanks in advance!
Post up what you have tried so far
Have tried adding the http connect - https://api2.isbndb.com
and added my api key as a Header
As a header?
The docs specify some other parameters required in the header.
Post up what you have in full. Redact the auth key.
OK, I think you are trying to get a list of ALL books, which you can’t do. You need to supply some search criteria.
Your endpoint base should be https://api2.isbndb.com/books/{search_term}
With query param **column:**title, author, etc…
So you can’t have it as an external collection exactly, but you could setup some filters stored under the ‘Logged In user’, then pass these as params.
I would look for another API, if that doesn’t exist, go for the approach I described above. If you need help with that book a slot with me 
I’ve been able to successfully integrate the ISBN DB into one of the apps I’ve developed for a client.
how?
You need to pass some search parameters, you can’t just have an external collection of Get/ ALL. Their endpoint does not allow for this, but as I have said it can be done via passing parameters. I’ve messaged you privately to do this on a 1-1 basis. You may not have seen that message.
I want access to all their books and that my users can find them and add them to their own reading list / collection is that possible?
Yes it can. I’ve explained how it can be done. Store the search parameters in logged in user and add those params to your external collection endpoint.
Then save the isbn or whole record to an Adalo collection when the user ‘adds’ to their collection.
You asked me about google books API. It is possible. You just need to read the documentation and apply the same method as I have described before in this thread.
Adalo is quick and mistakes cost nothing, so just start putting something together.
any way you can show me how you made this? I’m a little lost at the moment…
Post up what you’ve got and I’ll take a look
Ok I got it to work but it looks like I’m only getting 10 books, how do I get access to all the books?
Awesome, well done you are getting the hang of it.
This still applies. You have searched for books with the term “search term”.
That needs to come from your logged in user table, as I have said above.
Regarding 10 records, you need to implement pagination. Pagination of external collections is well documented both for Adalo and in the Google Documentation.
FYI, the search bar of a simple list will likely not hook up to the External Collection param, so use a custom list and update the logged in user with the search term, the external collection then gets the search term from the user record.
how do I add a search function to a custom list? any way you can show me how you did it?
You are not adding a search to the list. Your search actually updates the logged in user and that is what your external collection references. It’s all in this thread.
