Warning: There are a couple reasons why enabling the API could be a bad thing. One reason is because there is no cooldown period for submitting queries, allowing users to submit a massive number of stories or attempt to try login credentials at unlimited rates. Another issue is that the post function (for submitting stories) doesn’t have any type of spam checking feature. I recommend only enabling the API’s post function if you are actively monitoring your website’s stories. We recognize that there are issues with the API and would love to get some input from our users on how to improve functions and what features need to be added. Leave a comment below to share your thoughts.

First lets talk about enabling the API functionality, because by default we have it disabled on all sites as a way to protect sites that don’t want to use it. To enable the API you will have to perform a very quick edit to a single file stored at /3rdparty/API/api.php. Search for the two lines that contain the text “REMOVE TO ACTIVATE”, delete the line, save the file, and upload it to your server.

Now that you have the API enabled you can make use if it through a series of POST variables:

• List – Returns a category list in XML format
• Login – Check if Pligg login credentials are valid
• Ping – Check a Pligg website’s API status
• Post – Submit a new story
• Version – Get the Pligg API version

List

The list function will return a category  list for your website, as well as ID numbers for each category. These ID numbers will be needed when you go to use the Post function later on.

Arguments
&username={USERNAME}
(required) the username of a member account.

&password={PASSWORD}
(required) the password of a member account.

Example URL: http://DOMAIN.com/3rdparty/API/api.php?fn=list&username=demouser&password=demopass

Example Successful Response

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<categorylist>
    <cate>
        <id>1</id>
        <name>Automative</name>
    </cate>
    <cate>
        <id>2</id>
        <name>Finance</name>
    </cate>
</categorylist>

Login

The login function is useful if you want to check if the account credentials provided are valid. When the username and password provided are correct it will return a unique user ID number. On failure it will return a zero (0).

Arguments
&username={USERNAME}
(required) the username of a member account.

&password={PASSWORD}
(required) the password of a member account.

Example URL: http://DOMAIN.com/3rdparty/API/api.php?fn=login&username=demouser&password=demopass

Ping

Ping is one of the simplest function provided because it doesn’t have any arguments. It will return a response of “Active” to indicate that the site is online and the API is enabled.

Example URL: http://DOMAIN.com/3rdparty/API/api.php?fn=ping

Post

The post function is the most complicated because it has so many variables. It is also the most useful because it can be used to submit stories to a site from a third party website by submitting a simple POST form.

Arguments
&username={USERNAME}
(required) the username of a member account.

&password={PASSWORD}
(required) the password of a member account.

&url={URL}
(required) the url associated with the story that you are submitting. This is what you typically put in the first submit step on Pligg websites.

&category={CATEGORY_ID_#}
(required) the ID number for the category that you are submitting to. To retrieve the category ID see the list function above.

&title={TITLE}
(required) the title of story being submitted.

&content={CONTENT}
(required) the content for the story being submitted.

&tags={TAGS}
(required) tags for the story separated by commas ( , )

Example URL: http://DOMAIN.com/3rdparty/API/api.php?fn=post&username=demouser&password=demopass&url=http://google.com&category=1&title=Hello World&content=Story Description&tags=tag1,tag2

On Success: Submit complete!
On Failure: Duplicate Story!!!

Version

The version function is used to return the Pligg API version number. A successful response will be a number, often with a decimal place.

Example URL: http://DOMAIN.com/3rdparty/API/api.php?fn=version

1. Users can now select multiple categories during story submission. This feature can be turned on or off from the admin panel configuration area.
2. Fix for password reset email being blank.
3. Pligg now stores old URLs in database to allow for URL forwarding when a story title changes.
4. Fix for related stories. Now returns only upcoming or published stories.
5. Fix for story URLs having a -1 at the end when they use original titles. Duplicate article title URLs should now start appending at -2 rather than -1.
6. Moved CAPTCHA check position to allow the submission process to save form progress in case of wrong CAPTCHA.
7. Changed character encoding used in emails to UTF-8 to allow for a greater variety of languages.
8. Fix for when adding a comment to a story causes a blank page
9. Live pages pagination fix for friendly URLs
10. If someone tries putting in a url into the story url field that doesn’t include http:// at the start we now automatically add that for them.
11. Fixed a bug related to category management messing up subcategories when adding a new subcategory. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwNdhulXB9c
12. Changed how we handle deletion of categories with subcategories. Subcategories can now be moved up a level.
13. Fix for group pagination.
14. Tags are now included in admin story management search.
15. Added select all option for users in admin panel.
16. Added option to turn parent category visibility off when viewing a subcategory.

New Features and Fixes:

1. New mobile version of the forums
2. The Pligg Gallery is back online! Sign in with your forum user details and submit your unique Pligg designs for others to vote on.
3. Leave feedback for members through a rating system that is similar to Ebay. If you deal with a forum member who offers a commercial service or product, we highly recommend that you leave a review.
4. Log in using your traditional forum username OR your email address
5. We now offer Facebook user integration for faster registrations and logins
6. Improved downloads section for official Pligg CMS releases
7. Avatars are now powered by Gravatar. Don’t have a Gravatar yet? Either sign up for one, or a unique MonsterID will be automatically generated for you.
8. Unsubscribe from email alerts with one click. Want to do that now? Click here. This will prevent us from sending you update alerts via email when new versions of Pligg are released.
9. Are you a module or template developer? Accept Paypal donations for your hard work.
10. Securely store Pligg and FTP login information in your profile, which admins will be able to view for support purposes
11. We’ve replaced the old Wiki system with something we call “The Glossary“. Glossary entries can be edited by any registered user to help improve our documentation. We’re working hard on adding new articles every day

Use the coupon code SPRING2012 during checkout to receive 33.33% off your order!

In addition to our store-wide sale coupon, we will be dropping prices on a variety of products on different days of the week. Act fast because you only find deals this good once a year.

{if $pagename eq 'index'}
	{php}
		if(!isset($_COOKIE['PliggWelcome'])){
			setcookie("PliggWelcome", "visited");
			// Change this line to point to your welcome page...
			echo '<meta http-equiv="REFRESH" content="0;url=http://pligg.com/demo/">';
			exit;
		}else{
			// echo "No cookie was found.. Continue loading page"; 
		}	
	{/php}
{/if}

Having trouble reading or copying the text above? Try this pastebin.com url.

This snippet of code works by checking if the person browsing the page has a specific cookie installed on their browser. If the cookie does not exist, it will add it and then redirect the user to another page. If the user does have the cookie, then the page will continue loading like normal. I haven’t personally tested this out on a Pligg myself, so let me know if you have any problems or comments.

In first place, and winner of an Amazon Kindle, is Sirwanme’s Last Logged In Users widget. This brilliant widget will display users who recently logged into your website. Not only does it show when they logged in, but Sirwanme went the extra mile and made it so that members who have registered in the last week show up in red. Hovering over each user’s last login time brings up even more details about the user including their email address, registration timestamp, and IP address.

The second place widget goes to Sansui’s Pligg Shortcut widget. While the first two tabs of this widget prove useful, it’s the third one that lets you send a message to all of your site’s members that I find to be most useful.

In third place is Lowster11 for his Alexagraph widget. This widget displays a graph from Alexa.com displaying your estimated traffic from the past several months. When installing this widget you will need to edit a line in one of the widget’s template files to define your domain, but it is still pretty simple to setup.

Click to view Status Update Module Screenshot

For a detailed description and screenshots of the Status Update Module, see the module’s official forum thread. The module will be included with the next release of Pligg CMS, but until then you can download it from this page.