RavenPlus Version 1.0.507 - Picture Uploads To PicasaWeb Via OAuth2

I know some of you have been waiting for this. So here it is: RavenPlus version 1.0.507, which contains the fix for uploading pictures to PicasaWeb via the Google OAuth2 protocol.

I have been testing this version out for over the last couple of weeks and I believe I have a stable version that is fit for release. Pictures in my last 3 blog postings (totalling 17 in all) were uploaded to PicasaWeb with this version and I did not notice anything out of the ordinary. They all went through smoothly as far as I could tell. Even my edited pictures were detected by RavenPlus and they got updated on PicasaWeb when I subsequently republish my blog post.

Not tested though is video uploads to PicasaWeb - simply because I do not have the bandwidth nor any videos to share.

If you do not upload pictures to PicasaWeb, you can safely ignore this version.

Version 1.0.507 only works for existing users of Raven and RavenPlus. New users will have to wait a little while as I haven't started work on making a clean import of blogs hosted on Google's Blogger/Blogspot yet. That's next on the to-do list.

What I Did

As I have said, I had problems interfacing between RavenPlus and Google GData Photo API previously.

After having spent many hours and getting nowhere, I decided in the end to modify the GData API itself (by creating a local copy within the RavenPlus source tree). I created a few new methods in the class GDataService (in gdata_service.py) and PhotoService (in photos/service.py) that return the PicasaWeb meta-data in the format that RavenPlus expects. To say the least, it works perfectly - luckily.

Change Log

• Picture uploads to PicasaWeb is now authenticated via Google's OAuth2.

• I have removed the "password" field (now redundant with OAuth2) in the "Edit Picasa Settings" dialog box (in the Main Window under Tools -> Media Storage Settings -> New Storage). This dialog box now looks like in the picture above. The "Google Account Email" field is still required though - GData API actually uses it.

• Error handling during the picture uploads is a little crappy. No error is reported (via a dialog box, for example) even though picture uploads failed. Because of this, I have made some changes so that errors during picture uploads, if any, is logged in the RavenPlus's background tasks log. You can be viewed this log file via RavenPlus's Tools -> Background Tasks ... in the main window. I can only think of two reasons that will cause an upload failure:

  • there is no Internet connection;
  • the "Google Account Email" address is incorrect (you will see a [404, 'Not Found', 'Unable to find user with email ... @gmail.com ] error in the log file);

  Also worth mentioning is some problems that I had, though not serious, when creating a new album while testing. The following error was registered in the background tasks log:
  
  sslerror instance has no attribute 'getMessage'
  
  I am not sure why? I can only speculate that perhaps I had been doing a repeated create-delete PicasaWeb album of the same name. By renaming the album to something else, the problem went away.

Backups

Changes will be made to your Picasa Media Storage registry when uploading pictures to PicasaWeb. So do remember to backup your Raven/RavenPlus data before you begin. The instructions for backing up your Raven/RavenPlus data is available at How To Backup Your Data at the Zoundry Raven development blog.

Download Link

I have uploaded RavenPlus Version 1.0.507 to my Google Drive and you can download the ZIP file here. Do read the Disclaimer below before downloading.

To install, just unzip the downloaded Zip file into a directory, and copy your existing RavenPlus's "profiles.xml" file into this new versions profiles directory.

Granting Access

Login credentials to PicasaWeb uses the user's Google Email Address and password previously. But with OAuth2 authentication, this no longer applies. Instead, Google login credentials now is contained in the file "client_secrets.json".

If you are now using an OAuth2 aware version of RavenPlus, you should already have this file in the Raven/RavenPlus data directory/folder - there is nothing for you to do.

Otherwise, you will have to download "client_secrets.json" from the Google Developer Console and save it in the Raven/RavenPlus data directory/folder.

On your first picture upload to PicasaWeb, your default web browser will get launched and you will be prompted to login to your Google account if you have not login previously. The screen above will then be displayed in your web browser. Just click on the "Allow" button, and the login credentials for PicasaWeb will then be downloaded and stored in the file "picasa.dat" in the Raven/RavenPlus data directory/folder - the place where "client_secrets.json" is located (see picture below). RavenPlus will then begin to upload your picture files to PicasaWeb.

Note:

• In the "RavenPlus would like to:" screen above, I think you have to click on the "Allow" button within a certain time limit. If your picture upload failed or the "picasa.dat" file was not created, just repeat the process again i.e. just republish your blog post.

• To upload pictures to PicasaWeb, you will need to have a Picasa Media Storage defined and assigned to your blog in RavenPlus. If you have been happily blogging and uploading pictures to PicasaWeb from Raven or RavenPlus prior to the introduction of OAuth2 authentication back in 28th May 2015, you should already have one defined. If what I am saying doesn't make sense, just leave a comment below and I will explain.

Happy Blogging.

Disclaimer:
This software is provided "as is" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. You, the user, accept the full responsibility for the usage of this application RavenPlus, excluding the developer, ie. me the owner of this blog, from any liability and any consequence that may derive. Remember to do an Anti-virus scan of the downloaded ZIP file before unzipping it into a folder. You might want to consider doing a full backup of your computer hard drive with Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost before installing and running this application.