Freshbooks JS

A NodeJS ES Harmony project. Provides a thin, semi-transparent view of the Freshbooks API, masking XML as JSON.

The freshbooks API only returns XML and requires XML for queries. This JS API tries hard to completely abstract away the XML and provide a JSON based interface.

Status

In progress, basic connections and test coverage.

Install

npm install freshbooks-js

Usage

A simple example that appends a string to an existing expense note.

1. Setup the subdomain and token and connection endpoint

    freshbooks.config.update({
        subdomain:"your_username.freshbooks.com",
        token:""
    });
   

2. Fetch an expense by ID and modify the notes field.

    co(function* () {
        var expenses = yield freshbooks.expense.list(null,{basic_auth:true});
        var expense_id = expenses.get("expenses").expense[0].expense_id; 
        var data1 = yield freshbooks.expense.get({
          expense_id:expense_id
        },{basic_auth:true});
        var data2 = yield freshbooks.expense.update({
          expense_id:data1.json.response.expense_id,
          notes:data1.json.response.note + "This is an updated value"
        },{basic_auth:true});
        console.log("Results", data1.json, data2.json);
    })();
   

Documentation

http://gregory80.viewdocs.io/freshbooks-js

Testing

You will need to signup for freshbooks, it's free, in order to properly test the API.

Uses Mocha for testing via npm. To run test:

npm test

Project Goals

1. Leverage ES Harmony specific updates

TODO

1. fix tests around subdomain => oauth_consumer_key

2. the 'optional' items like oauth and subdomain arent optional, fix code to reflect this maybe freshbooks should be a function() that returns an instance, killing off config.update it should move the managing of credentials into the parent application where they originate

3. passing basic auth, oauth token etc is too tedious per method. allow me to create an instance

4. deprecate Object.assign in favor of deepcopy node.extend port, or consider lodash

5. consider using lodash

6. normalize response from lists / model items

7. OAUTH

8. freshbooks oauth signature is 'PLAINTEXT' but request.oauth uses HMAC. Must extend / code around.

9. support pagination

10. submit (?) to https://github.com/visionmedia/co/wiki

11. submit to freshbooks ([e-mail])

12. consolidate xml2json and js2xmlparser for xml i/o

13. refactor test/main.js

14. fix staff_memebers/members as non conforming to plural_noun.noun .list format

Always arrays

Need these to always be arrays, something that isn't consistent w/ the current XML parsing setup

• project.list tasks.task staff.staff (use staff_members?) contractors.contractor

• staff.list projects.project

Getting Started, Development

1. Checkout this repository

2. Install packages:

    npm install
   

3. Create .config.json

   In the root directory of the project add the file .config.json and set your Freshbooks subdomain and token. See sample.config.json

   https://YOUR_COMPANY_NAME.freshbooks.com/apiEnable

4. Syntax Highlighting for ECMAScript 6

   https://github.com/Benvie/JavaScriptNext.tmLanguage

Support Indicators, ES Harmony

• Browsers: http://kangax.github.io/es5-compat-table/es6/
• Firefox: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/ECMAScript_6_support_in_Mozilla
• http://pointedears.de/scripts/test/es-matrix/
• Jan 7, 2014: http://bahmutov.calepin.co/partial-ecmascript6-harmony-support-on-node-today.html
• Aug 17 2013: http://addyosmani.com/blog/tracking-es6-support/

Resources about ES Harmony / ECMASCript 6

• https://medium.com/code-adventures/174f1fe66127
• http://www.2ality.com/2014/01/object-assign.html
• http://www.sitepoint.com/javascript-generators-preventing-callback-hell/
• http://blogs.atlassian.com/2013/11/harmony-generators-and-promises-for-node-js-async-fun-and-profit/
• http://addyosmani.com/writing-modular-js/
• http://h3manth.com/new/blog/2013/es6-on-nodejs/
• https://labnotes.org/yield-to-the-test-using-mocha-with-es6-generators/
• http://addyosmani.com/blog/a-few-new-things-coming-to-javascript/
• http://www.nczonline.net/blog/2012/10/09/ecmascript-6-collections-part-2-maps/
• http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=harmony:iterators

License

(The MIT License)

Copyright (c) 2014 Gregory Tomlinson <[e-mail]>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.