Tumblr Kit

A jQuery framework for ajax loading post content via Tumblr’s v2 API and rendering it in your document using customisable JsRender templates. See the demo.

Dependencies

Tumblr Kit requires jQuery 1.4+ and JsRender 1.0pre+.

Setup

Include the dependent frameworks listed above:

<script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery.js"></script>
<script src="http://borismoore.github.com/jsrender/jsrender.js"></script>

Declare global variables for your Tumblr OAuth Consumer Key (register one here) and your blog’s hostname:

<script>
	var TUMBLR_API_KEY = "U41Qn………0e6aR";
	var TUMBLR_HOSTNAME = "matthewb.tumblr.com";
</script>

Replace the values above with your own details.

Use in public themes

If you’re including Tumblr Kit in a public theme, you’ll need to have your users generate their own key, which isn’t ideal. I believe Tumblr is looking at a solution to make this easier for theme authors, but for now you’ll need to provide a custom text tag for the Consumer Key and output the blog’s hostname using the undocumented {Host} tag:

<meta name="text:Tumblr OAuth Consumer Key" content=""/>

var TUMBLR_API_KEY = "{text:Tumblr OAuth Consumer Key}";
var TUMBLR_HOSTNAME = "{Host}";

Post templates

Tumblr Kit uses JsRender templates to define the markup for each imported post. JsRender supercedes the now-deprecated jQuery Templates plugin. Boris Moore provides basic demos and documentation for JsRender, and I’ve put together a sample template for each post type as part of this repository.

Include a JsRender template in your HTML page for each post type you intend to import. For example, the template for a text post might look like this:

<script id="tmpl-text" type="text/x-jsrender">
	<article id="post-{{:id}}" class="post-{{:type}}">
		<h1>{{:title}}</h1>
		{{:body}}
	</article>
</script>

Tumblr’s API documentation provides a JSON schema for each post type that will help you to define your templates.

JsRender Helpers

JsRender provides a mechanism for registering helper functions to assist with the processing of data within templates. The following helpers are included with Tumblr Kit:

Helper function	Post type	Description
getHostname()		Returns the blog hostname as declared in the TUMBLR_HOSTNAME global variable.
getTintedAudioPlayer(view[, color])	audio	Returns the embed code for the Flash audio player, optionally tinted with the specified hex `color` value.
getPhotoURL(view, size)	photo	Returns the best image URL from available photo sizes based on the specified `size` parameter.
getPhotoOrientation(view)	photo	Returns the image’s aspect ratio as "portrait", "landscape" or "square".
getVideoEmbed(view, size)	video	Returns the best embed code from available video sizes based on the specified size parameter.

*Pass #view to the above helpers (where required) to set the current context for the function.

Usage

With your globals and templates declared, importing post data is easy. Tumblr Kit provides a single function to import posts, getTumblrPosts(), which is called on a jQuery selector, like this:

$("#posts").getTumblrPosts();

By default, this loads the 20 most recent posts from the target blog and renders them inside the #posts element using the JsRender templates defined in your page. When no template ID is specified in the options, the default template naming scheme is expected: #tmpl-audio, #tmpl-chat, etc.

If you include an element inside your container with a class of tumblr-api-loading it will be hidden on completion of the ajax load.

Options

The getTumblrPosts() function supports these options:

Option	Type	Default	Value(s)
hostname	string	TUMBLR_HOSTNAME	Eg. "matthewb.tumblr.com", "matthewbuchanan.name"
id	integer	null	The ID of a particular Tumblr post
type	string		"answer", "audio", "chat", "link", "photo", "quote", "text" or "video"
tag	string		Eg. "sports", "tech" or "design"
limit	integer	20	The number of posts to load (1 – 20)
offset	integer	0	The starting index of the first post, useful for implementing pagination
format	string		Empty string (for HTML), "text" or "raw"
template	string		The ID of the JsRender template to use, eg. "#myTemplate"
success	function	null	Function to run upon successful data retrieval
error	function	null	Function to run upon unsuccessful data retrieval
complete	function	null	Function to run following execution of success and error callbacks

The success, error and complete functions are modelled on those defined in jQuery’s $.ajax() function, and implement the same arguments in each case.

Version history

0.9.1

• Added support for beforeSend() callback.
• Changed approach to hiding the loading message, now requires a class of .tumblr-api-loading.

0.9

• Initial public release.

License

The Tumblr Kit source is copyright © 2012 by Matthew Buchanan and released under the WTFPL license.