For Sunlit 1.1 we decided to expand the import capabilities to include both Flickr and Instagram photos. One of my challenges in developing the interfaces was to simplify down the various functions available from Flickr and Instagram’s APIs and to try and provide a somewhat consistent interface across the two services for the app despite their differences. Writing this code was no mean feat for me as I had to implement OAuth not once, but twice because Flickr and Instagram use slightly different variations so I couldn’t simply reuse the code across the two classes.

By the time I was done, I was relatively happy with the interface I had created, and in the spirit of openness and sharing with the community in which I develop, I have decided publish the source for querying and requesting data from both these services in my open source toolbox code. Affectionately named UUFlickr and UUInstagram, the classes are relatively simple to use, and you should be able to get you up and running quickly. The only moderately tricky part is updating your app to handle the URL callback mechanisms required by the OAuth implementations. I had fun developing this code, and hopefully someone will find this useful. If you’re interested in using it in your project but need a little help, feel free to ping me and I’ll see if we can’t figure it out.

Enjoy!