The Highrise API is here May 08
17 comments Latest by DHH
By crazy popular demand we present the Highrise API. The Highrise API now joins the Basecamp API, Backpack API, and the unofficial Campfire API.
So what can you do with the Highrise API? You could create useful things like Dashboard/Yahoo/Vista widgets for quick contact lookups or adding notes or tasks. You could write a tool to sync Highrise with Outlook, the Mac Address book, Plaxo, or your mobile phone. You could make a Highrise Quicksilver plug-in like this Backpack Quicksilver plug-in. There are a thousand ideas out there waiting for you. Here are some of the things developers have done with the Basecamp API.
Let us know what you build and we’ll happily help you promote it to our Highrise customers. Have fun and build something useful!
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17 comments so far
AaronS 08 May 07
Fantastic!
Caleb Elston 08 May 07
This will come in very handy when I get my iPhone and want to sync it with my address book contacts and Highrise.
creamcitian 08 May 07
oooh, i was waiting with baited breath
Ismo Ruotsalainen 08 May 07
Great! Now, who’s going to write Address Book-Highrise sync? Anyone??
Tim 09 May 07
Why on earth would people want to create occasionally connected widgets for quick contact lookups Jason?
They’re not on a f*cking plane! ;-)
B 09 May 07
occasionally connected
Huh? Jason didn’t say anything about occasionally connected.
Oren T 09 May 07
Why all your API examples are so small and green?
It would be much better if they were more readable…
Let’s say white background and black/dark-blue font color and 12px font-size can improve it.
BradM 09 May 07
What is with all the whinning?
Lourens Naude 09 May 07
Just a small note on a typo found here: http://developer.37signals.com/highrise/reference.shtml .... ‘Basecamp API ’ ?
CamelotAkademie.de 09 May 07
Fantastic!
Almar 09 May 07
Can it be made into a Netvibes-module, so I can get a task-overview there?
Josh Walsh 09 May 07
Hooray!... Implementing into our product now.
JF 09 May 07
We’ve got our first taker… Highrise Task Quicksilver Scripts.
Greg Harris 10 May 07
Most Excellent!
We have already begun development of a mobile & SMS version in anticipation of this release.
Stay Tuned!
Digger 11 May 07
Like Ismo
Looking for an Apple address book and iCal sync tool too.
David Chartier 11 May 07
This is something that’s been bothering me for a while: you’re a company providing a commercial product. Shouldn’t you be writing all the extra handy tools that will make us want to use your product – and give you our money – instead of just tossing some access out there and relying on people to do this out of passion, often working for free?
Some of these external tools can become pretty vital to the use and experience of a product. Given that desktop software is still quite a bit more functional than web UIs, I would argue software tools are a necessity, and that at least a fundamental batch of tools should be coming straight from the source. Like that stellar Backpack widget that Chipt makes; don’t get me wrong, the guy does a stellar job, but he isn’t being compensated very well for his work so he doesn’t have much motivation to update or improve his widget.
Instead of just tossing an API out into the wind, how about providing some software tools that are designed by the same crew that provide the service? I’m willing to bet it would do wonders for the spread of your service if you begin making your own services easier and more integrated with our workflows.
DHH 12 May 07
David, as far as I know, we don’t run any forced labour camps for the APIs. Developers pretty much free to do whatever they want with it.
If that means creating a small in-house tool to bind Highrise and some internal application together, they do that. If they create a widget or other add-on for their own enjoyment, they can choose to share it with the world. If they want to base a business on extending the products, they can do that.
You might feel that desktop hooks are “a necessity” for your usage of the products, but obviously that’s not the case for the vast majority of our customers who happily used Basecamp and Highrise before the APIs even existed.
For now, though, we’re focused on providing the best web applications we can and leave the platform-specific hooks for others to work on. That may well change in the future (though we have no immediate plans for that) and if it does, we’ll be sure to announce it.
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