Businesses expect capability to build and nurture an effective and active community of subscribers and consumers from any API management solution. As a result, the WSO2 API Manager has been designed with various community features, implemented after careful research and study of the customer needs and industry expectations.
WSO2 has identified a range of functional and non-functional requirements that directly impact the social and community aspects of the WSO2 API Manager.
Documentation
Capability to associate comprehensive documents with an API so that API consumers get a better understanding of its use in implementing their solutions. Shown below is how documentation of a published API is visible to consumers through the API Store.
All documents have unique URLs to help better SEO support.
For more information on various types of documents, how to add and maintain them, refer to section Adding API Documentation.
Rating and Commenting
Consumers can rate APIs per version and comment on them, which can be used as a guideline on its quality and usefulness by potential subscribers. Commenting and rating help create a community around a particular API. Comments appear sorted by the time it was entered, alongside the author's name. Commenting is similar to a forum for subscribers, who can discuss common issues/features pertaining to a given API version.
Shown below is how comments/rates of a published API is visible to subscribers through the API Store. To rate an API, Signup to API Store and click on any available API.
Searching
Before subscribing to an API, potential users can search for an API. Signup to API Store and the search facility will be available at the top of the screen.
APIs can be searched by name, API provider, version or context.
Tagging
When adding an API through the API Publisher, providers can include meaningful tags to an API. Tags allow API providers to group/categorize APIs having similar attributes/behavior/domain. Once a tagged API gets published to the API Store, its tags will appear as clickable links to the API consumers, who can use them to quickly jump to a category of interest.
Signup to API Store and the tags will be shown in the right-hand panel. Shown below is an example how tags are visible to subscribers through the API Store.
