- Overview
- Transcript
1.1 Introduction
In this course I'll show you how to use the WPCOM API to leverage WordPress.com as a back-end for your app. In this lesson, I'll introduce the API and explain what we'll cover in the course.
1.1 Introduction
Hello, everyone. I am Reggie Dawson. Welcome to the Get Started with WPCOM.js course for Tuts+. If you're involved with web development, you have no doubt heard of WordPress. Originally conceived as a blog system, it has evolved into a platform capable of hosting a variety of sites. WordPress is built on top of a SQL database, and as a result it can be useful as the backend of a web project. WordPress has added a REST API that allows web developers to manipulate the data in the WordPress installation. Wordpress.com is a place where you can host your WordPress projects. There are for free and paid plans with varying levels of features. Of course, there's access to the WordPress API here, but along with that there's a JavaScript library available for us to use. WPCOM.js is the library designed for use with wordpress.com and the REST API. Now you may be wondering why we need a JavaScript library when we have the REST API. A JavaScript library is useful because we don't have to write the methods to handle the data returned, as well as traversing all of the end points that are available to us with REST API. The library makes extracting the data easier since we don't have to deal with AJAX requests and responses, and instead we will just worry about the WordPress data. WPCOM.js doesn't have a lot of documentation, but between this and the documentation for the WordPress REST API, we can figure out how to find the data that we are looking for. Understanding how to use WPCOM.js will allow you to leverage wordpress.com as the backend of your apps. Configuration of wordpress.com sites is simple. We can then use WPCOM as a library inside of our mobile and web apps. With that we can pull in blog posts, media, and other information stored in our wordpress.com site. Now that you know why you need WPCOM.js, in the next video we will get started with authentication.
