Exporting web app data to external websites

[Truffle Digital]

Hello

Is there a way to automatically upload web apps to external websites?

My client is a boat broker and needs his staff to upload boats to their system and then they are automatically uploaded on trade boating websites. Similar setup to a real estate website.

I was thinking of his staff listing web app items and having them displayed on the site. I know you can export webapp items however this needs to be done automatically instead of a manual export.

Please let me know if there is any other ways this can be done.

Thank you in advance

Val

[Liam Dilley]

Hi Val not at this time no.

[TheBCMan]

What sort of data is it? It is possible to store the same data in a form? You could access form data from the API.

[Liam Dilley]

Well he said web app and you cant access web apps via API yet.

[TheBCMan]

Yes I know, that is why I asked if you could store the same data in a form which you do have access to.

[Liam Dilley]

Staff listings - not really.

[Truffle Digital]

Thanx for getting back to me.

Is it possible to have web app listings converted to an xml page so that other websites can use this as a feed to update their websites?

Eg:

boatmerchant.com.au/securezone1.xml

boatmerchant.com.au/securezone2.xml

Does anyone know how real estate websites list with 3rd party websites?

[TheBCMan]

Liam: Think outside the box, form (storage) are essentially a database, you can store information in it and get it out whenever you need it, just store what you need into a form and access it and get the info out like a database.

OntheBall: What XML format is required? Where are you wanting to export the data too? There are thousands of XML "formats".

[Liam Dilley]

Always thinking out the box, but that is not going to be very practicle at all, and the construction for that is pretty wasteful. I personally would not ever scope your sollution, I know what you mean but never would use that method.

You cant also then on top of that re-scope an existing project to a point where its an inefective managed approach.

@OnTheBallWebDesigns - No, sadly.

I have asked BC to have modules render in other file types as it would give a lot of control and options but no word on if that can be done any time soon.

BC are also working on new web app stuff but thats a year off.

[Truffle Digital]

TheBCMan

An example of a site that does what I want is below.

http://listingloader.com.au/

An example of the XML is:

http://boatdeck.com.au/sample_boat.php

[TheBCMan]

That is their own custom XML feed, to do something similar you would have to generate your own (public) XML via querying the BC API and then formatting it into your own XML format. You would be essentially making a public API for (your site's) BC API.

But as Liam and I both have said (in different ways) there is no way to get the data from a webapp inside BC via the API. You could add them as products in the e-commerce system of BC and access it that way. But products can only hold so much information. To generate the extra fields and variable information you might need you would have to use something like a JSON string to save in the long description field and then use a Javascript / jquery to pass the JSON string and show what is required in human readable format on the front end.

This is not an ideal solution and more of a "if you really must get it to work solution" as inside the BC admin tool the description wouldn't be easily readable and have to be saved in a strict format (JSON).

To generate the XML feed (at least a public one) you would have to host externally some function / script that queries the BC API and formats as required.

Nothing out of the box for any of this.