Glossary

From KickApps Documentation

Contents 1 Overview 1.1 Affiliate Center 1.2 Callback Function 1.3 Deserialize 1.4 Developer Key 1.5 JSON 1.6 REST 1.7 Resource 1.8 RSS 2.0 1.9 SSO 1.10 Token 1.11 URI

Overview

The following terms and acronyms appear in this document.

Affiliate Center

A web-based dashboard for affiliate publishers and editors, the Affiliate Center contains powerful tools for working with the layouts, managing media and members, and growing member communities.

You can access the Affiliate Center at KickApps.com, by going to the Affiliate Login section at the top right-corner. You can use the AC to:

• View reports of API use. See Error! Reference source not found. on Page Error! Bookmark not defined. for more information.
• Tailor the look and feel of their site using the layout controls.
• Insert headers and footers.
• Completely customize their cascading style sheets.
• DNS-mask community pages to match the domain name/URL of their own sites.
• Create widgets and feeds to syndicate their site content on the internet.
• Review detailed metrics reports of site performance.
• Manage both the community media and the members.
• Promote members to editors who can take on a role in moderating content.

Callback Function

Also called an "event handler," a callback function is a mechanism that notifies other parts of an application when a certain task finishes execution.

Deserialize

A process where information is converted into another state; for example, from an object into a stream as shown in Processing and Storing Tokens. The links to converters in Understanding and Working with JSON Payloads will enable your app to deserialize objects.

Developer Key

A value issued by KickApps to individual developers. The developer key is used along with a valid username and affiliate site ID to authenticate a developer's rights to work with information belonging to a specific affiliate site.

Developer keys are issued for individual sites and cannot be used for another site and can also not be used for another site owned by the same affiliate. The developer key is a parameter used in a call to create a token (see also, the Token entry below).

JSON

JavaScript Object Notation. A subset of the JavaScript scripting language, JSON is an easy to read and parse format for representing data and is commonly used to transmit data over a network. KickApps uses this format to deliver payloads for API calls. For more, see understanding and working with JSON payloads and http://json.org/.

REST

REST (REpresentational State Transfer) is a way to transport information via networks such as the web. For example, a member selects a media file to play. The client software (what the member "uses") contains instructions on how to get a media file from the KickApps servers. To request the file:

1. The client makes a request for the file using an HTTP URL which points to the file's location on the KickApps server.
2. The client application knows it's made the request. For any request, the client contains all the instructions necessary to handle the request and the returned file and so does not need additional information from the server. The server is "stateless" and focused on processing the request.
3. The server receives and authenticates the request.
4. The server then passes back a "representation" of the requested file. This representation is the file in the format requested by the client.

For more information about REST, see Wikipedia's REST Topic at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_State_Transfer.

Resource

The area of the KickApps server that handles each type of API request.

RSS 2.0

Really Simple Syndication. An XML-based format for delivering syndicated web content. RSS 2.0 offers extensibility through use of modules and an easy migration path from the RSS 0.9x branch.

SSO

Single Sign On. Logs in a member to multiple systems. All login, join, and forgot password links are pointed to your existing pages. You will be able to configure this through the Affiliate Center, by specifying registration and log in URLs. Since your site handles all authentications, it only needs to notify the KickApps server that the member is logged in. KickApps never needs to know your members' passwords. Also, since all communication is one way, you never need to synchronization with the KickApps database.

Token

A required value in API calls (other than the token call itself). Tokens contain a developer's permissions to call the REST API. For more information, see the Create Token call.

URI

Uniform Resource Indicator. The address to a given resource available on the internet. Each API call includes a URI in order to access resources on the KickApps Rest Server.