I’ve been monkeying around with Flickr tools. I’ve even been getting my hands dirty with phpFlickr, a library that implements the API in classic friendly PHP style.

The API is powerful and well thought out, but can also be frustrating. Multiple HTTP requests are needed to get certain pieces of information. I’m sure there are good reasons, saving bandwidth being the main one. I do wish there was more statistics functionality. As it stands there are only views, favorite and comment counts, with no history of activity.

Getting the view count requires authentication, which is slightly tricky but doable. More annoyingly, Flickr only yields the view count when using flickr.photos.getInfo, which gives detailed info on single images one at the time. The more light-weight flickr.people.getPublicPhotos would have been more convenient. One might wonder if Flickr wants to discourage stats applications.

Some tools for an easy Flickr life:

• phpFlickr is a slick and transparent PHP implementation of the API. There’s little to simplify the basic API, but it lends itself easily to adding some Flickr magic to any web application.
• FlickrAide is interesting but experimental. It provides statistics, information about contacts and other details that can’t be seen so easily from Flickr. It’s a little unstable, and probably heavy-handed on its interactions with Flickr. But it gives an idea of what could be done with statistics etc. PC only.
• Portable Flicka is a good backup tool, particularly if you have more than 1000 images in your account. I tend to backup high-res images on Flickr for easy retrieval, this makes it even easier. PC only.
• Flickr Leech is a web interface for wallowing in Flickr’s “interestingness”. Not for people who are already showing signs of Flickr addiction, but good for avoiding flicking through sets page by page.

More can be found on The Great Flickr Tools Collection.