Use the Community Features

The API Store provides several useful features to build and nurture an active community of users, for your APIs. This is required to advertise APIs, learn user requirements and market trends.

Let's see what community features are available in the API Store:

Use the search facility

You can search for APIs in the API Publisher or Store in the following ways:

Clause	Syntax
By the API's name	As this is the default option, simply enter the API's name and search.
By the API provider	provider:xxxx. For example, provider:admin Provider is the user who created the API.
By the API version	version:xxxx. For example, version:1.0.0 A version is given to an API at the time it is created.
By the context	context:xxxx. For example, context:/phoneverify Context is the URL context of the API that is specified as /<context_name> at the time the API is created.
By the API's status	status:xxxx. For example, status: PUBLISHED A state is any stage of an API's lifecycle. The default lifecycle stages include created, prototyped, published, deprecated, retired and blocked.
By description	description:xxxx A description can be given to an API at the time it is created or later. There can be APIs without descriptions as this parameter is optional.
By the subcontext	subcontext:xxxx. For example, subcontext:/checkphonenumber. A subcontext is the URL pattern of any resource of the API. API resources are created at the time the API is created or later when it is modified. For example, if you create a resource by the name `checkphonenumber`, then `/checkphonenumber` becomes one subcontext of the API.
By the content of the API documentation	doc:xxxx You can create API documentation in-line (using the API Publisher UI itself), by uploading a file or referring to an external URL. This search enables you to give a sentence or word phrase that is inside the in-line documentation and find the API that the documentation is added for.

Rate and comment

Rates and comments give useful insights to potential API consumers on the quality and usefulness of an API. You can rate and comment on each API version.

Log in to the API Store and click on a published API.
The API's Overview page opens. Note the rating and commenting options there:
Add a rating and a comment. Note that the comments appear sorted by the time they were entered, alongside the author's name.

Share on social media/e-mail

Log in to the API Store and click on a published API.
On the API's Overview page, you get the social media options using which you can share and advertise APIs.

Embed an API widget

A widget is an embeddable version of the API in HTML that you can share on your website or other web pages. This is similar to how YouTube videos are embedded in a web page.

Log in to the API Store and click on a published API.
Note the Embed tab under the API's sharing options.

Participate in the forum

Log in to the API Store.
Click the Forum tab to go to the forum, where you can initiate conversations and share your opinions with other users.
Click Create New Topic to start a new topic in the Forum.
Enter the Subject and Description of your topic and click Create.