Integration of search api

[Julian]

Hi,

am trying to integrate the pexels api, which seems fairly easy. https://www.pexels.com/api/
Intended outcome is that the user searches for an image and then sees a list of the photos found. He can then choose one which saves this image url into some user property.

My questions is: Would I use the external collection or the custom action ?
Using the external collection seems to be only possible when I already know the search term, as I have to hard enter it into the query parameter.
Using the custom action seems to to return only the first item of the search results.

Update: Ok I just realized that I can use a query parameter as a filter in external collection… but how would I save the external collection without this one parameter then?

Thanks

[Julian]

it is very close to this solution here:

Problem with sheetdb and query parameters

Hi @Mykhailo, This is a tricky one The first issue is that SheetDB.io uses different URLs / endpoints for GET - All Data [image] and Get - Search documents [image] You can start using the first URL: [image] But you need to change the endpoint for the GET endpoint: [image] The challenge is that you need to get data back to be able to save the configuration in Adalo. So we need to select something. That is why you find the ?Name[]=! at the end of the URL Why the [ ] and ! ?? …

however the pexels api would not let me use 2 parements, but I have to enter one…

@karimoo would you have a suggestion for this one as well? Thanks a lot

[anon78309838]

Hi Julian,

Although I cannot provide an exact solution to this, perhaps this forum topic also might give some clues on to how to achieve this: External Collection Pagination

[Julian]

Thanks. Filters are great because they take variables, however the API itself requires the search term as mandatory and to save the collection in Adalo I need to fill it…
Solution would be to fill it with a variable, or to be able to save an external collection that has a missing parameter…

[pford]

Yes Julian, this is definitely an issue I have brought up several times to the Adalo team as well. I go over this in my tutorial for the Pixabay API, which is an API that lets you retrieve images without a required search parameter. But hopefully the Adalo team will take a look at API setups and make improvements here. Part 1: Using the Pixabay API to Dynamically Search for Images in Adalo - YouTube

[Devops]

I was messing around with this today and I can confirm that this isn’t currently possible to query Pexels API using a list filter parameter

And let’s face it, their rate limit is 200 requests per hour, depending on your application and user collection you might run into problems down the line.

Looks like @pford solution with Pixabay’s API is definitely the way to go!
(Awsome video tutorial )

[pford]

Update on my tutorial though, I think someone said that Pixabay doesn’t allow hotlinking (referencing the URL of an image in the app) but that Unsplash does, and also works without a search parameter. I will see if I can find where I saw that.

[pford]

Here it is: Paging Through API Results in Adalo (using Pixabay) - #14 by ChristopheHK

[Devops]

@pford

but that Unsplash does, and also works without a search parameter.

Cool, this might be the best solution! but 50 requests per hour for a demo account
The good news is that they have a partnership program that lets you use their API for free