[wp-xmlrpc] GSOC Proposal - Extending WordPress Remote API

[prasath nadarajah]

Hi hackers,

I,m interested in working on extending WordPress xmlrpc capabilities for
this years GSOC. I came up with some ideas for improving the current API.
Please let me know what you think of these ideas and possible additions to
this project. Thank You.

*User Management*

There is no methods to manage users via XMLRPC. Managing users using clients
would be a very useful feature. There would be new user tab in my wp-android
app ;). The proposed methods will allow only current user to manage user
with a capability check. New users can't register themselves because it will
allow spammers to create mass accounts. Also its better if we have a method
to get capabilities of the user when connecting at the first instance so we
can validate capabilities at the client end.

*Tags Management*

 There are enough methods to manage categories via XMLRPC. But not tags. For
example we cannot create a tag with description or a slug. Changing terms is
a frequent thing we do with our weblog. Instead of going through the
edit_post method it is good to have separate methods for managing terms.
This will decrease the server load by efficiently changing the terms.
Categories can be changed by mt_setPostCategories, mt_getPostCategories.
Having similar methods for tags will improve efficiency.

*Comment Management*

 Adding support to return comment meta values. This has been requested in
trac. I think having separate methods for comment meta values is good rater
than integrating into comment methods.

*Improved search API*

This has been addressed on tickets
#6850<http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/6850> and
#16316 <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/16316>. The current search
methods imposed unnecessary burden to the server, A more generalized search
API for all getters (posts, users, comments etc) will increase the
performance of both client and server.

   -

   Post/Pages - WP_Query class accepts a lot of parameters for querying
   post/pages. Modify the getRecentPosts methods to accept these parameters and
   pass it to the WP_Query. This includes retrieving posts by
   category,tag,date etc.
   -

   Users - WP_User_Query class can be used to query users. These parameters
   will be passed through the new wp.getusers method. This includes
   retrieving users by roles etc
   -

   Comments – Again WP_Comment_Query class can be used. wp.getComments will
   pass more paremeters such as author _email etc.

 There is also another option of separately querying using global $wpdb
similar to getPageList.

*Trash improvements*

 when you delete a post via xmlrpc it trashes it and the getRecentPosts
method does not return the trashed items. It would be useful to have methods
for deleting posts permanently and to retrieve trashed items. Pages,

*Post Revisions*

 Methods to support getting post revisions. This return a array of a posts
for a given post id.

*Flow Control Improvements*

This to improve efficiency and reduce the server load. metaweblog methods
can be used for post and pages. Putting common actions first and directing
according to post/page and doing specific things. Similar improvements can
be made wherever possible. Also capability checks can be made first before
processing through the logic.

Cheers
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