Share Images on Pinterest from Phimpme Android Application

After successfully establishing Pinterest authentication in Phimpme our next goal was to share the image on the Pinterest website directly from Phimpme, without using any native Android application.

Adding Pinterest Sharing option in Sharing Activity in Phimpme

To add various sharing options in Sharing Activity in the Phimpme project, I have applied a ScrollView for the list of the different sharing options which include: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Imgur, Flickr and Instagram. All the App icons with the name are arranged in a TableLayout in the activity_share.xml file. Table rows consist of two columns. In this way, it is easier to add more app icons for future development.

<ScrollView
   android:layout_width="wrap_content"
   android:layout_height="@dimen/scroll_view_height"
   android:layout_above="@+id/share_done"
   android:id="@+id/bottom_view">
   <LinearLayout
       android:layout_width="wrap_content"
       android:layout_height="wrap_content"
       android:orientation="vertical">
       <TableLayout

Adding Pinterest app icon on the icons_drawable array. This array is then used to inflate the icon on the list view.

private int[] icons_drawables = {R.drawable.ic_facebook_black, R.drawable.ic_twitter_black,R.drawable.ic_instagram_black, R.drawable.ic_wordpress_black, R.drawable.ic_pinterest_black);

Adding Pinterest text on the titles_text array. This array is then used to inflate the names of the various sharing activity.

private int[] titles_text = {R.string.facebook, R.string.twitter, R.string.instagram,
       R.string.wordpress, R.string.pinterest);

Prerequisites to share Image on Pinterest

To share an Image on Pinterest a user has to add a caption and Board ID. Our first milestone was to get the input of the Board ID  by the user. I have achieved this by taking the input in a Dialog Box. When the user clicks on the Pinterest option, a dialog box pops and then the user can add their Board ID.

private void openPinterestDialogBox() {
   AlertDialog.Builder captionDialogBuilder = new AlertDialog.Builder(SharingActivity.this, getDialogStyle());
   final EditText captionEditText = getCaptionDialog(this, captionDialogBuilder);

   captionEditText.setHint(R.string.hint_boardID);

   captionDialogBuilder.setNegativeButton(getString(R.string.cancel).toUpperCase(), null);
   captionDialogBuilder.setPositiveButton(getString(R.string.post_action).toUpperCase(), new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
       @Override
       public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which) {
           //This should be empty it will be overwrite later
           //to avoid dismiss of the dialog on the wrong password
       }
   });

   final AlertDialog passwordDialog = captionDialogBuilder.create();
   passwordDialog.show();

   passwordDialog.getButton(AlertDialog.BUTTON_POSITIVE).setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
       @Override
       public void onClick(View v) {
           String captionText = captionEditText.getText().toString();
           boardID =captionText;
           shareToPinterest(boardID);
           passwordDialog.dismiss();
       }
   });
}

A user can fetch the Board ID by following the steps:

Board ID is necessary because it specifies where the image needs to be posted.

Creating custom post function for Phimpme

The image is posted using a function in PDKClient class. PDKClient is found in the PDK module which we get after importing Pinterest SDK. Every image is posted on Pinterest is called a Pin. So we will call createPin function. I have made my custom createPin function so that it also accepts Bitmaps as a parameter. In the Pinterest SDK it only accepts image URL to share, The image should already be on the internet to be shared. For this reason, we to add a custom create Pin function to accept Bitmaps as an option.

public void createPin(String note, String boardId, Bitmap image, String link, PDKCallback callback) {
   if (Utils.isEmpty(note) || Utils.isEmpty(boardId) || image == null) {
       if (callback != null) callback.onFailure(new PDKException("Board Id, note, Image cannot be empty"));
       return;
   }

   HashMap<String, String> params = new HashMap<String, String>();
   params.put("board", boardId);
   params.put("note", note);
   params.put("image_base64", Utils.base64String(image));
   if (!Utils.isEmpty(link)) params.put("link", link);
   postPath(PINS, params, callback);
}

Compressing Bitmaps

Since Pinterest SDK cannot accept Bitmap I have added a function to compress the Bitmap and encode it to strings.

public static String base64String(Bitmap bitmap) {
   ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
   bitmap.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.JPEG, 100, baos);
   String b64Str = Base64.encodeToString(baos.toByteArray(), Base64.NO_WRAP);
   return b64Str;
}

Calling createPin function from the sharingActivity

From the sharingActivity we will call createPin activity. We will pass caption of the image, Board ID, Image bitmap and link(which is optional) as parameters.

PDKClient
       .getInstance().createPin(caption, boardID, image, null, new PDKCallback() {

If the image is posted successfully then onSuccess function is called which pops a snackbar and shows the success message. Otherwise, onFailure function is called which displays failure message on a snackbar.

@Override
public void onSuccess(PDKResponse response) {
   Log.d(getClass().getName(), response.getData().toString());
   Snackbar.make(parent, R.string.pinterest_post, Snackbar.LENGTH_LONG).show();
   //Toast.makeText(SharingActivity.this,message,Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();

}

@Override
public void onFailure(PDKException exception) {
   Log.e(getClass().getName(), exception.getDetailMessage());
   Snackbar.make(parent, R.string.Pinterest_fail, Snackbar.LENGTH_LONG).show();
   //Toast.makeText(SharingActivity.this, boardID + caption, Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();

}

Conclusion

In Phimpme user can now send Image on Pinterest directly from the application. This is done without the use of the native Pinterest application.

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Adding Pinterest Integration in Phimpme Android

After establishing Facebook and Twitter share in Phimpme, our next goal was to integrate more social networking sites. Pinterest is an ideal website for us as it is widely used among various photography enthusiasts. Our goal was to share the image on the Pinterest website without the use of any other native android application.

Note: First, we added Phimpme app in the developer section https://developers.pinterest.com/apps/. This step is crucial as it generates APP ID and it is necessary for authentication.

Adding Pinterest option in Accounts Activity in Phimpme

In accounts activity, we have added a list of accounts that we have integrated in a Recyclerview. Currently, we have integrated Facebook and Twitter. We need to add Pinterest App icon and Pinterest option in the Recyclerview.

To add Pinterest app icon I downloaded the icon from iconfinder in SVG format. Using SVG format allows icon to resize itself according to the screen sizes of the users. We saved the icon file name as ic_pinterest_black.xml

Pinterest icon SVG:

<vector android:height="24dp" android:viewportHeight="32.0"
   android:viewportWidth="32.0" android:width="24dp" xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
   <path android:fillColor="#231F20" android:pathData="M16,0.27C7.16,0.27 0,7.43 0,16.27c0,6.55 3.94,12.18 9.58,14.65c-0.05,-1.12 -0.01,-2.46 0.28,-3.67c0.31,-1.3 2.06,-8.72 2.06,-8.72s-0.51,-1.02 -0.51,-2.53c0,-2.37 1.37,-4.14 3.08,-4.14c1.46,0 2.16,1.09 2.16,2.4c0,1.46 -0.93,3.65 -1.41,5.68c-0.4,1.7 0.85,3.08 2.53,3.08c3.03,0 5.07,-3.89 5.07,-8.51c0,-3.51 -2.36,-6.13 -6.66,-6.13c-4.85,0 -7.88,3.62 -7.88,7.66c0,1.39 0.41,2.38 1.05,3.14c0.29,0.35 0.34,0.49 0.23,0.89C9.51,20.37 9.33,21.08 9.26,21.36c-0.11,0.4 -0.44,0.55 -0.8,0.4c-2.23,-0.91 -3.28,-3.36 -3.28,-6.11c0,-4.55 3.83,-9.99 11.44,-9.99c6.11,0 10.13,4.42 10.13,9.16c0,6.28 -3.49,10.97 -8.63,10.97c-1.73,0 -3.35,-0.93 -3.91,-1.99c0,0 -0.93,3.69 -1.13,4.4c-0.34,1.23 -1,2.46 -1.61,3.43C12.9,32.04 14.43,32.27 16,32.27c8.84,0 16,-7.16 16,-16S24.84,0.27 16,0.27z"/>
</vector>

We made an array of all the accounts list in the Accounts Activity. I added Pinterest in the array list. This array list is inflated in the Accounts Activity.

public static String[] accountName = {"Facebook", "Twitter", "Drupal", "NextCloud", "Wordpress", "Pinterest"};

To add the icon the recyclerview, we have to get the resource id from the drawable folder and then set is in the recyclerview. We have done it dynamically so that we don’t have to fetch the id of every accounts icons.

Integer id = getContext().getResources().getIdentifier(context.getString(R.string.ic_) +
               (accountName[position].toLowerCase()) + "_black"
       , context.getString(R.string.drawable)
       , getContext().getPackageName());

holder.accountAvatar.setImageResource(id);

Importing Pinterest SDK in Phimpme project

To import the Pinterest SDK in the project, please download the Pinterest SDK from the link: http://assets.pinterest.com/sdk/android-pdk.tar. Go to File->import new module->Import Gradle Project. Build the project, if there is any error resolve the error and then build Gradle again.

compile project(‘:pdk’)

Add APP ID in the manifest file of the project

We need to add the APP ID that was generated while making the app the Pinterest in the manifest folder of the Phimpme Android. In the case of Phimpme, we have added the APP ID in the intent filter in the Accounts Activity. This is necessary for the interaction of the Phimpme with the Pinterest website.

<activity
   android:name=".accounts.AccountActivity"
   android:screenOrientation="portrait"
   android:theme="@style/Theme.AppCompat.NoActionBar">
   <intent-filter>
       <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
       <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
       <category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
       <data android:scheme="pdk4910600717739247160" />
   </intent-filter>
</activity>

Establishing Pinterest authentication in Accounts Activity

First, we need to import all the necessary class from the Pinterest SDK. These class includes callback functions, PDKClient which manages the interface between the Phimpme app and the Pinterest website. We need to pass the APP ID in the PDKClient function as an argument and also the view in the onConnect function in PDKClient.

pdkClient = PDKClient.configureInstance(this, getResources().getString(R.string.pinterest_app_id));
pdkClient.onConnect(this);
pdkClient.setDebugMode(true);

Before signing In we need to check if we are already signed in or not. This is how we have done in  Phimpme app. If the app is already signed In a Toast will pop up showing that it already signed In.

if (accountPresenter.checkAlreadyExist(accountName[5])) {
   Toast.makeText(this, R.string.already_signed_in,
           Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
}

Authentication happens in these following steps:

Adding permissions in the List                                                                                These include the following permissions:

  • Read permission
  • Write permission
  • Read relationship
  • Write relationship
List scopes = new ArrayList<String>();
scopes.add(PDKClient.PDKCLIENT_PERMISSION_READ_PUBLIC);
scopes.add(PDKClient.PDKCLIENT_PERMISSION_WRITE_PUBLIC);
scopes.add(PDKClient.PDKCLIENT_PERMISSION_READ_RELATIONSHIPS);
scopes.add(PDKClient.PDKCLIENT_PERMISSION_WRITE_RELATIONSHIPS);

Passing the view, scope array and PDKCallback as arguments in the login function

I have passed the view, scope array list and PDKCallback as arguments in the login function in PDKClient class. This will initiate the authentication process and the user will be redirected to the Pinterest web page after the user has filled up the credentials properly and logged in to the Pinterest the user will be redirected to the Phimpme accounts page. If the user has logged In successfully onSuccess function with being called where PDKResponse will pass an argument. This response object can be used to fetch the username of the logged In user or the Pin and the BoardID of the user.

@Override
public void onSuccess(PDKResponse response) {
   Log.d(getClass().getName(), response.getData().toString());

   // Begin realm transaction
   realm.beginTransaction();

   // Creating Realm object for AccountDatabase Class
   account = realm.createObject(AccountDatabase.class,
           accountName[5]);


   // Writing values in Realm database
   account.setUsername(String.valueOf(response.getUser()));

   // Finally committing the whole data
   realm.commitTransaction();

   Toast.makeText(AccountActivity.this, R.string.success, Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
}

If the user fails to log in to the account onFailure function will be called and a Toast will pop up.

@Override
public void onFailure(PDKException exception) {
   Log.e(getClass().getName(), exception.getDetailMessage());
   Toast.makeText(AccountActivity.this, R.string.fail, Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
}

Inserting the credentials to the Realm Database

We have used the Realm database to store all the accounts credentials in one place. This is necessary for the maintenance and to check if the user is logged or not. AccountName array holds the list of the name which is added to the database.

// Begin realm transaction
realm.beginTransaction();

// Creating Realm object for AccountDatabase Class
account = realm.createObject(AccountDatabase.class,
       accountName[5]);


// Writing values in Realm database
account.setUsername(String.valueOf(response.getUser()));

// Finally committing the whole data
realm.commitTransaction();

Conclusion

Now, users can login into the Pinterest from the Accounts Activity. After authenticating the users, we can use the authentication to share the image from the app to the Pinterest website.

Github

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