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My command line interface for Gliffy is relatively complete. It works pretty well, though the error handling isn’t very clean. It’s written in Ruby (RDoc here) and can be used as a Ruby client for Gliffy.

I decided on Ruby since that would be the most fun and didn’t require learning a new programming language. I initially tried to make an ActiveRecord-style domain-based interface, but it was just too difficult and it was hard to see the real benefit. At the end of the day, I think integrating Gliffy into another application is a relatively simple thing, and a procedural interface would probably be the easiest way to do that. So, I modeled it after the PHP client library, more or less.

The command line interface uses the Ruby client library and provides just the basic functions I need:

> gliffy ls
321654 Some Diagram
987654 Some Other Diagram
> gliffy edit 321654
# Takes you to your browser to edit the diagram

I live on the command line, so this is much more expedient than logging into Gliffy and navigating the UI to edit a diagram.

I’m already feeling like providing access to the folders via the command line would be helpful (they are exposed in the Ruby client of course). Not sure how much the API will ultimately change (it’s in private beta now), but hopefully not too much.

Gliffy hooked me up with access to the private beta of their API (which I helped design and implement). I create a PHP client and experimental MediaWiki plugin to validate the API while working for them, and now I want to get something else going in my spare time.

My first thought was to make a Ruby client, because I think it would be fun and relatively easy. But, I have to admit that a Wordpress plugin would be more useful to me personally. That being said, A Trac extension would be useful at work, since we are using Trac (which is python based, and I can’t say I’m too interestedin Python at the moment). I think if GitHub allowed git access to project wikis, it would be cool to allow easier integration of Gliffy diagrams to GitHub project wikis.

At any rate, I don’t have tons of time outside of work, so I want it to be something easily achievable, and also something Chris and Clint are not likely to work on themselves….