Vino

Vino is a Vine.co API client written in JavaScript. It is targeted toward Node.js, but should be usable via the browser, CORS issues notwithstanding.

This library was not authorized by the good folks over at Vine HQ. I built it by using the excellent Fiddler2 network monitoring software to watch what the official iOS client did while running on my iPad. It may not work at all for you, or may contain terrible bugs, or may piss off Vine.

Features

• Can log in to your account (but not via Twitter; you need to have set an actual email and password)
• Can fetch your home feed
• Can find posts by tag
• That's about it.

Example usage

Assuming you already have Node and NPM installed...

git clone [email protected]:tlack/vino.git
cd vino
npm install
node

Then...

var vino = require('./vino');

client = new vino({username: '[email protected]', password: 'noodles2000'});
client.login(function(err, key, username) {
	
	if (err) throw new Error(err);
	console.log('successfully logged in, key and username: ', key, username);

	client.homeFeed(function(err, feed) {
		if (err) throw new Error(err);
		// console.log('your timeline', feed);
		for (var i in feed.records) {
			var entry = feed.records[i];
			console.log(entry.description, entry.videoUrl);
		}
	});

});

In the pipeline

• Research workaround for Twitter OAuth
• Get other users feeds
• Improve request() boilerplate disaster

Random Vine API notes

Here's some random stuff I've sussed out with Fiddler2.

• The protocol is delightfully simple. It's just HTTP over SSL using standard verbs, etc. This was a walk in the park compared to Snaphax.

• Every few minutes the client requests http://vines.s3.amazonaws.com/static/status.json with some headers to check cache expiration. What is this URL used for? To alert users when the service is down?

• (Updated) The user profile endpoints (/users/profiles/[SuperLongUserIdInt]) returns the users phone number. I find that strange. Perhaps it's useful for finding people to follow using your contacts, but even so I feel that functionality should be server side. Update: This no longer occurs. The phoneNumber field still appears for some users, but its value is null.

• There's a "secret" web interface for the Explore pane that can be accessed without login via your web browser: http://vine.co/explore . I'm a bit puzzled about what this is needed for or why they implemented the system this way. Alas, all the links are using proprietary in-app URIs

License

(C) Copyright 2013 Thomas Lackner [email protected] MIT license

Disclaimer

I am not employed by Vine.co, nor have they blessed this project.

Warranty

Absolutely none