Fetch images from Instagram and provide them to websites

[juliandoucette]

Background

We would like to show images from Instagram on eyeo.com (See #4959).

If we fetch images from Instagram on the frontend then we will break our privacy policy & principals.

What to change

Provide a means for:

• Fetching images and associated meta data from Instagram
  • It's been suggested that this could happen once per day
  • I suggest making this configurable per website via settings.ini
• Accessing these images and meta data in website templates

[juliandoucette]

Note: Jeen would like to bump this in priority.

[kvas]

At the first glance, this feature seems very specific to a particular task to be included into CMS core. Could this be achieved with a global script perhaps?

[juliandoucette]

Replying to kvas:

At the first glance, this feature seems very specific to a particular task to be included into CMS core.

Agreed.

Could this be achieved with a global script perhaps?

I think so.

Will you write it?

[juliandoucette]

Note: I forgot to CC kvas before I asked him this question.

Could this be achieved with a global script perhaps?

I think so.
Will you write it?

[kvas]

Yes, I can write it. I don't think I would be able to fit it in this week and I will be on vacation next week, so it might take a bit of time. Maybe Jon could do it earlier though, I'll ask him.

[ire]

Replying to kvas:

Yes, I can write it. I don't think I would be able to fit it in this week and I will be on vacation next week, so it might take a bit of time. Maybe Jon could do it earlier though, I'll ask him.

Any update on when you think this will be ready?

[kvas]

Replying to ire:

Any update on when you think this will be ready?

It seems that this hasn't moved forward in the last 3 months. Now that I look at it, it also seems rather underspecified. Here are some questions that I have:

1. Do we want to fetch specific images from Instagram or last images from the feed or something else?
2. Should the images to download be configurable from settings.ini and what variables would we like to have for that? (e.g. url of the feed, urls of images, number of images, some other parameters?)
3. What should happen to the images that are fetched by this script? Do they become part of the output, as static resources?
4. What additional information should be fetched from Instagram?
5. How should the fetched images and metadata be available to the templates? What I can imagine is something like this (let me know if this is right):
   • the templates call the global script created by this ticket,
   • it downloads the images and metadata and caches them, so that this is only done one per website generation,
   • the return value is a list of dictionaries that contain information about the image name/path/urls and related metadata.
6. Will the global script that this issue creates go into website-defaults or into some other repo?

It seems like we might need to add functionality to CMS core to implement this. Right now global scripts can't add new output files and this seems to be necessary here, especially if this is to also work in preview mode.

[juliandoucette]

Do we want to fetch specific images from Instagram or last images from the feed or something else?

Latest images.

Should the images to download be configurable from settings.ini and what variables would we like to have for that? (e.g. url of the feed, urls of images, number of images, some other parameters?)

I suggest configuration vai function parameters. Whatever is necessary for the requests e.g. URL or Account name, number of images to retrieve.

What should happen to the images that are fetched by this script? Do they become part of the output, as static resources?

Yes. Unless you suggest otherwise.

What additional information should be fetched from Instagram?

That depends on what additional information is accessible. Image alt text wouldn't hurt. Nothing else was asked for.

(let me know if this is right):

I think you have the right idea.

Will the global script that this issue creates go into website-defaults or into some other repo?

eyeo.com unless another site needs images from instagram too.

[kvas]

@juliandoucette: given that ​https://gitlab.com/eyeo/websites/web.eyeo.com/issues/17 has been closed, do you think this functionality will still be needed?

[juliandoucette]

Replying to kvas:

@juliandoucette: given that ​https://gitlab.com/eyeo/websites/web.eyeo.com/issues/17 has been closed, do you think this functionality will still be needed?

No.