API: Being able to fetch Topics based on answered state

How nice this sounds :- )

Yes categories seems like a good idea too. Maybe upvotes too (if many students have the same question).

I'll have a look at this during the weekend and/or next week (together with some other API improvements).

Hi Julian, Short message: Maybe the filter will look like: filter: { waiting: true, solved: false }.

Because, details:

I think maybe it can be good with, in addition to Solved = true/false,
have question status Waiting = true/false,
and status Pending = true/false, too.

Consider this: A student asks a question. Then that question is solved == false, and the student is waiting (for help) == true. Then someone tries to help, but needs more info, and replies "To help you I need to know what's the fuzz bazz?".

Thereafter, until the student has provided more info, it's less interesting for the ones trying to help, to see that topic listed among the other unsolved topics.

The topic is still solved == false, but now the student is not waiting — waiting (for a reply) == false. Instead, the topic is pending more information from the student.

Then, the student replies with more info. And thereafter, the student is waiting == true, and the topic is pending more info == false.

***

A topic can be both waiting and pending, at the same time. Say, 1) someone replied "We need more info: ...", thereafter, pending == true. Then the student replies "What is that, can you explain?" — now the student is waiting == true whilst the topic remails pending == true. And the other students get to see it, among the unsolved & waiting topics, and can reply to the "please clarify" question.

Or 2) a topic can be pending (something external to happen) == true, and the student asks for a status update — then, the student is waiting == true.

***

So I think, for future compatibility, you can specify this topic filter: filter: { waiting: true, solved: false }.
(I'll provide more details at the end of the week.)
solved: false will start working in the upcoming Ty version
— waiting: true hasn't been implemented yet though.

Some time later, Talkyard will get somewhat good at knowing who's supposed to reply / do-something next,
and can include / exclude topics properly, based on if the question asker is waiting, or if it's his/her turn to reply.
And if the filter already includes waiting: true this'll start working "automatically" some day without you having to edit & redeploy the Slack bot.

Hi Julian, status update: Now I just need to write e2e tests, code review & release a new version.

I spent some days last week looking at how various other software have built their APIs (e.g. GraphQL, Dgraph, MongoDB, Clickup) — just so as to not do anything weird with Talkyard's API now when adding more features.
And all seems fine ... So it took like 1 hour to write the actual code, and about 3 - 4 days to think about the API :- )
not saying Ty's API is good / perfect, just that it's better than what it would otherwise have been o. O

I guess this new filter feature will be available at the end of the week — there're [some other things also included in the new Ty version] that also need code review.

Status update: Code review done, e2e tests done, building a new server today, to try out here at Ty .io for a day or two.

Will most likely deploy to Prod on Friday the latest. (Then you can use this.)

(Sorry this took a bit longer than what I thought, partly because of some private life things happening in between.)

@jwolf sorry I forgot, your site is access restricted. So you'll need an API secret in a Basic Auth HTTP header.

I'll write a bit about that shortly — until then, if you want to get started coding on the bot, you can use https://www.talkyard.io instead as API endpoint and http://localhost:8080 as origin:

curl  -X POST  -H "Origin: http://localhost:8080"  -H 'Content-Type: application/json'  -d '{
    "listQuery":{
      "listWhat": "Pages",
      "xx_lookWhere": { "inCategories": ["extid:specificCatExtId"] },
      "filter": { "isAuthorWaiting": true, "isOpen": true }
    },
    "pretty":true
    }' \
    https://www.talkyard.io/-/v0/list