DEV Community: bbookman

16 Ugly Bugs Snap Didn’t Bother To Fix For Snap Kit And Lessons They Teach

bbookman — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 17:34:21 +0000

Snap has many business problems, including the poor rollout of Snap Kit SDK

I’m an iOS Hobbyist developer using Swift 4 and iOS 12 and have been working with Snap Kit now for many months. With over 10 Medium posts, I have been chronicling my struggles and victories with the SDK. I have run into a number of problems.

Snapchat Snap Kit SDK Primer

Snap Kit is Snap’s attempt to go beyond its primary app offering. To grow and stay relevant, Snap login must be as prevalent as Facebook, Twitter, or Google’s authentication on Apps. GIFY has inserted itself into many other apps and Snap has the opportunity to do the same thing with AR content, Stories, Lenses, and Filters.

Snap Kit SDK is Snap’s attempt to become sticky.

The bugs described are purposefully written in “Bug Style” with the hope that each will actually get filed against Snap Kit SDK for Snapchat App

Some of the bugs documented below are nit-picky, however, Snap is in no position to allow even the slightest developer friction to occur. Snap’s future is partly riding on the success of Snap Kit, and the business has very little wiggle room to get things wrong. Winning over the developer community is paramount to Snap Kit SDK adoption.

Also, some of these could be considered feature requests, documentation requests or things that are “not bugs”. As someone with 20 years of software industry experience, I say these are “FAILURES” that need to be addressed (aka Bugs).

Business Lessons

For each of the bugs, I have added advice on improving the business approach to software release

Bugs

1 — Single Point Of Support

Steps To Reproduce

Go to https://docs.snapchat.com/docs/
Note the text > Feedback? We regularly update our documentation to give you everything you need for creative, easy integrations. If something’s not working for you, please report it to snapkit-support@snap.com.

Automated response text says:

Hi there!” Learn more about Snap Kit by visiting support.snapchat.com/news/snapkit. If you have further questions please reach out to us at support.snapchat.com/i-need-help. Thanks!

There are a few issues with the automated response:

Tells the customer who is seeking customer support to look at the news blog. The news blog is not designed as a customer support tool.
Tells the customer if they need further assistance to go to “I need help”. This part of the Snapchat website is not designed to deliver developer nor customer facing support for Snap Kit. A look at that URL will show that there is no way to report a specific Snap Kit SDK issue and the user will feel like anything they report there will end up in a black hole.
The automated response does not say that anyone will actually read the email the customer sent nor help. It only talks about where to go and what to read. It is far from customer friendly.

Suggested Mitigation

Reword the automated response:

Thank you for contacting Snap Kit Support. This automated response is to let you know we received your request and will be reaching out to you shortly

Business Lesson

When introducing a product that is outside current offerings, review all customer engagement vectors. Staff appropriately. Involve Quality Assurance and Technical Support from the start (involve all stakeholders)

2 — Add Snap Kit SDK Support Options To ‘I Need Help’

Steps To Reproduce

Go to http://support.snapchat.com/i-need-help

Result

Note the available options:

What can we help you with?

My account login

Report a safety concern

My Snapchat isn’t working

My Snapstreaks disappeared . . .

None of these provide a clear option for someone seeking Snap Kit SDK assistance

Suggested Mitigation

Add an option for Snap Kit SDK Support

Business Lesson

Same as bug #1. A release of any product is more than just the product. It is
much more than just an announcement. A product launch team must be holistic and
represent every part of the company that has customer touchpoints or is
otherwise a stakeholder

3 — Snapchat Support On Twitter Not Providing SDK Support

Steps to Reproduce

Go to https://twitter.com/snapchatsupport
Ask a Snap Kit question such as “Do we ask this account for help with Snap Kit?”

Result

A number of problematic results occur. However, the key is that the team
delivering support through twitter is clearly not staffed to handle Snap Kit SDK
questions.

The initial response after step #2 above was a bot with a link to
https://kit.snapchat.com/. Clearly not a helpful
response to the question. Also, see the image directly above this bug writeup

The next response also seemed canned and perhaps a bot

We’ll need to look further into this. Head over to spr.ly/help and select the
options that match your issue . . .

That URL leads to the ‘I Need Help’ page and yields bug #2 above and is somewhat
related to bug #1 as well.

Suggested Mitigation

Modify the bots/automated response on Snapchat Support Twitter account such that
it handles Snap Kit queries appropriately.

Business Lesson

Think like your target customer. Follow the workflow of your target and test,
test, test. The website experience, the licensing experience, the onboarding,
test everything that could be an interaction with a customer — especially when
delivering a product whose likeness is brand new to your product line.

Stakeholders should have sign off authority on every customer touch point prior
to release

4 — Code Sample Error in Creative Kit Documentation

Steps To Reproduce

Go to https://docs.snapchat.com/docs/creative-kit/
Scroll down to this

Result

This line is not correct

It should be SCSDKPhotoSnapContent rather than SCSDKSnapPhotoContent (see
also bug #5 below)

Suggested Mitigation

Please correct the documentation.

There is a larger issue with the SDK itself. The naming is inconsistent — see
bug #5

Business Lesson

All documentation should be tested by professional Quality Assurance Engineers.
Documentation is a product. Documentation is just as much a part of the product
as any other piece.

Also, eat your own dogfood!

5 — Naming Inconsistencies with Creative Kit

In Creative Kit there is a method with the name ‘SCSDKSnapPhoto’

Carefully notice the pattern of the name. The first word is Snap and second
the word Photo

Creative Kit also has the method ‘SCSDKPhotoSnapContent’

Notice the naming method is not consistent. The word Snap comes before
Photo, but in this case, the word Photo comes before the word Snap

SCSDK*SnapPhoto*
SCSDK*PhotoSnap*Content

This same issue is repeated with these pairs of methods from Creative Kit:

‘SCSDKSnapVideo’ and ‘SCSDKVideoSnapContent’

In ‘SCSDKSnapVideo’ the word Snap comes before Video, however here
‘SCSDKVideoSnapContent’ the word Video comes before the word Snap

Suggested Mitigation

Scan all documentation and sample code for accuracy
Consider renaming such that the pairs are consistent
Provide multiple paths for developers to learn about the change and conduct a comprehensive documentation review

Business Lesson

Have multiple code reviews and involve people in the organization with fresh
eyes and perspectives

6 — Login Scopes Information Misplaced

Steps To Reproduce

Go to https://docs.snapchat.com/docs/login-kit/

Result

The entire section titled Understanding Scopes seems misplaced. The section
is the first section for Login Kit.

Further, the section provides code for iOS Info.plist yet this page is a
generic page contains both iOS and Android instruction. So starting the document
off with strictly iOS information is odd at best.

Suggested Mitigation

Move this text to the Getting Started section on this page to a more logical
location.

Business Lesson

Test the documentation. Run “eat your own dogfood” testing sessions.

7 — Embedded Binaries Documentation Can Be Replaced Or Augmented To Include

Cocoapod

Steps To Reproduce

Go to https://docs.snapchat.com/docs/login-kit/
Inspect the Getting Started section

Result

In your app project in Xcode, add SCSDKCoreKit.framework and
SCSDKLoginKit.framework into General — Embedded Binaries.

The above text is correct, yet incomplete. Snap Kit now offers a Cocoapod
install solution.

Suggested Mitigation

Add information about how to use the Cocoapod option for installing Snap Kit

Business Lesson

Put in place checklists, sign-offs, and workflows such that when a change occurs
(such as releasing a cocoapod) others who have customer reach can act and review
customer-facing assets.

8 — Snap Kit SDK Naming

Steps To Reproduce

Go to https://github.com/SnapKit/SnapKit or http://snapkit.io/

Result

The name of this well-established code line is SnapKit, which can cause
confusion with Snap Kit.

Suggested Mitigation

Although it is late, it is important to note this issue. SnapKit has existed for
at least 4 years and is fairly popular with iOS developers. A google search
prior to choosing the name of Snap Kit would have been wise. Further, if Snap is
not using an outside name search service, it would be helpful to consider doing
that for future naming

Business Lesson

Run naming searches

9 — UI of Developer Portal Confusing

With a user id and password login at http://kit.snapchat.com

This UI does not lend itself to a clear understanding that there are two
distinct areas. The above image explains the problem best. It is not very clear
that there are two sections here. There is no line between them and the title
App Info on the right side does not clearly denote the left side as applying
to production (rather than development on the right side).

Suggested Mitigation

At a minimum, place a vertical line between the two areas App Info and
Development App Info.

Also, change the titles of the OAUTH2 CLIENT ID fields so that they read
**PRODUCTION **OAUTH2 CLIENT ID and **DEVELOPMENT **OAUTH2 CLIENT ID

Business Lesson

Don’t assume anything. Involve professional Quality Engineers in all aspects
of the product launch. Hire UX/UI designers when a UX/UI is part of the product.
And yes, consider anything customer facing — such as a dev portal — to be part
of the product!

10 — Unlink Sessions Methods Do Not Include Thrown Errors

Go to https://docs.snapchat.com/docs/login-kit/
Inspect the information on unlinking Sessions

Result
Neither of the two methods throws errors in the case of unlink
failure

SCSDKLoginClient.unlinkCurrentSessionWithCompletion
SCSDKLoginClient.unlinkAllSessionsWithCompletion

Suggested Mitigation

Include code to throw errors

Business Lesson

Think through the use cases for the product. Think through the possible failure
points.

11— Snap Kit Twitter Account Not Active Nor Informative For Devs

Steps To Reproduce

Go to https://docs.snapchat.com/docs/
Note the text

To stay up to date with our SDKs, see what’s new and follow @snapkit on Twitter.

Review the tweets from @snapkit on Twitter

Although the twitter account @snapkit was established on May 2018, and it is now
September 2018, there are 4 total tweets. None are directed to software
developers

Suggested Mitigation

The marketing team who owns this account needs to start producing and posting
more content and the account should also post with information that reflects the
“see what’s new” statement in the documentation.

Business Lesson

As with bug #7 and others, there must be a cohesive release strategy that
includes all aspects of the product and its delivery to market. All departments
that could have customer facing assets should be consulted

12 — API Reference For iOS First Paragraph Seems Out Of Date

Steps To Reproduce

Go to https://docs.snapchat.com/docs/api/ios/
Note the text

Result

This documentation assumes you already made contact with us

I think this text was written when Snap Kit was in beta or had a small and
managed audience. And, the text is confusing. There are no instructions here
about how someone makes contact.

Suggested Mitigation

Remove the sentence or, if contact is required, explain how and why

Business Lesson

Test the documentation.

13— Snap Kit Support Boilerplate Not Helpful

Steps To Reproduce

Send a support request to snapkit-support@snap.com
After the initial automated response documented in bug #1 above and others, wait for and then read the “live human” support response

Result

Chuck (Snap Connect) Hello there, Thanks for reporting this! In order for us to
debug this better, could you please provide the following information

- Username

- Client ID

- Specific URLs or assets used

- Info.plist (if there’s no sensitive information) Code sample if possible
Screen recording and or screenshots

- IP address

Suggested Mitigation

I have sent a number of different requests to support and have seen this
boilerplate response from Chuck. Since every SDK engagement is different, this
text is not helpful. In face, I had asked a specific question about the
developer portal and then saw this text. It made me feel that my support issue
was not even read, and that the support tech did not bother to read or care
about my issue.

Either modify the text for inclusiveness, or change SOP such that support reps
no longer use the boilerplate (or use it with greater thought)

(IP Address .. really? For what? This isn’t an enterprise app.)

Business Lesson

Walk through mock customer experiences prior to release. Test the customer
workflows.

14 — Missing Example Code

Steps To Reproduce

Go to https://github.com/Snap-Kit

Result

No code samples for Android
One sample exists for iOs, but only covers Bitmoji

Suggested Mitigation

Supply Example Code For All Kits and both iOS and Android

Business Lesson

Over-support your target customer, rather than under-support. This is even more
critical when the product is new and when the product is an important piece of
the wider company strategy. Clearly Snap Kit is a critical part of Snap’s
marketplace moves

15 — Snap Kit Support (more) Boilerplate Not Helpful

Steps To Reproduce

Send a support request to snapkit-support@snap.com
After the initial automated response documented in bug #1 above and others, wait for and then read the “live human” support response

Result

Our team is investigating and will follow up if we need more information.

Thanks, Chuck

This response does not include any information on timing for a response. The
customer has no idea what to expect.

Suggested Mitigation

Either do not use boilerplate or change the boilerplate text to include verbiage
for expectation setting

Business Lesson

See bug #13 and others. Technical Support and Quality Assurance should act as
the last line of defense for the customer prior to releasing any product

16 — Unexpected status code

Steps To Reproduce

I’m working with snap support now on this. I do not currently know how to
reproduce other than the fact that my code can reproduce this at will. The code
segment related is:

let api = SCSDKSnapAPI(content: snap)

api.startSnapping { error in

if let error = error {
         print(error.localizedDescription)
     }

Result

Snap Kit Server responded with an unexpected status code.

2018–09–14 15:22:22.249561–0700 FunSnap[7881:4578160] [SnapKit]
path=/v1/sdk/metrics/operational headers_subset={

“X-Cloud-Trace-Context” = “D55DD084290C4941BB1149CE33521F98/0;o=1”;

Suggested Mitigation

Errors need to be human readable and text should, as much as possible, assist in self-service troubleshooting
Whatever the root cause is, there is a bug here
Publish a Knowledge Base or other customer-facing self-service tool

TL;DR

Snap’s release of Snap Kit is faulty in almost every conceivable aspect

Business Lessons Include:

Release management must bring all stakeholders to the table early in the release process. They must also consult with these stakeholders throughout the release cycle
Stakeholders for a release include representatives from all customer-facing departments as well as Quality Assurance
Documentation is a part of the product and must undergo the same rigorous review as any other part
A web portal is part of the product and must undergo the same rigorous review as any other part
Conduct “eat your own dogfood” prior to releases
Test the end to end customer experience, which includes technical support engagement, website, social media platforms where you have an outlet, documentation, licensing and more
Conduct a “blind corner” review to help root out incomplete, inaccurate or out of date documentation and announcements. For example, there may be code on GitHub that requires updating.

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Contact

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Mastodon: @brucebookman@mastodon.technology
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One iOS Swift developer's journey. Problems, solutions, opinion and more

Snapchat Snap Kit SDK Tutorial for iOS Swift

bbookman — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 19:23:38 +0000

Original post on medium

About Snap Kit

Snap Kit lets developers like you integrate some of Snapchat’s best features across your platform — and lets your community share their favorite moments from your app with their friends, and Snapchatters across the world! — Snapchat

The following tutorial assumes some familiarity with Xcode, Swift, and Cocoapods

Repository for this tutorial can be found here

Snapchat Snap Kit Developer Portal

Step 1

If you don’t have a Snapchat account, register for one . Otherwise you can log in to the portal with your Snapchat credentials.

Creating an app on the portal (really registering for OAUTH keys) is self explanatory.

Step 2

Note / copy the value in Development App Info > OAUTH2 CLIENT ID

Step 3

While in the developer portal, add your app’s iOS Bundle ID (See Finding Your App’s Package Name for help)

Step 4

Add at least one Redirect URL in the section Redirect URLs.

You may choose any URL you wish as long as the URL conforms to these requirements:

Must be unique (to the world of apps. Perhaps choose your name plus the app name)
Must be in the format someschemename://somedestination
Must be the same as the SCSDKRedirectUrl which you will set in your project’s Info.plist (instructions below). In other words, you will copy the value you add to the developer portal and paste it into Info.plist later in these instructions

Snap Kit SDK

Step 5

Initialize your project for cocoapods and add SnapSDK

pod 'SnapSDK', :subspecs => ['SCSDKLoginKit', 'SCSDKCreativeKit', 'SCSDKBitmojiKit']

Then run

pod install

Info.plist

Skip to the bottom of this section if you just want to get to the gist.

Step 6

The SCSDKRedirectUrl and the CFBundleURLSchemes are related, as well as the value of the Redirect URL you added in the Snapchat Developer Portal.

The values can be completely made up. As long as the values match and are unique (see below). For example, if my app is named This Crazy App I could set these values:

<key>CFBundleURLSchemes</key>
                <array>
                    <string>thiscrazyapp</string>
                </array>

And

<key>SCSDKRedirectUrl</key>
        <string>thiscrazyapp://myapp</string>

Then you would add thiscrazyapp://myapp to the Snapchat Developer Portal in the Redirect URLs section by clicking the Add button to the right

A note from a snapchat dev:

The redirect URL itself doesn’t need to have any meaning associated with it — so in general, the only real criteria would be to pick a URL with a scheme that is unlikely to collide with a scheme of another app.
If your app already has a URL scheme that it uses, then you’d probably just want to reuse that. Otherwise, a URL scheme of yourfirstandlastname might work well for you. In your case then, you may want to use the redirect URL yourfirstandlastname://snap-kit/auth
The string value for SCSDKClientId is the OATH2 CLIENT ID from the developer portal.

The LSApplicationQueriesSchemes would also need to be added to a new Info.plist.

LSApplicationQueriesSchemes (string-array): This should contain snapchat, bitmoji-sdk, and itms-apps.


<key>LSApplicationQueriesSchemes</key>
    <array>
        <string>itms-apps</string>
        <string>snapchat</string>
        <string>bitmoji-sdk</string>
    </array>

Add all three SCSDKScopes (there is really no good reason not to)

https://auth.snapchat.com/oauth2/api/user.external_id: Grants access to a stable user ID specific to your app
https://auth.snapchat.com/oauth2/api/user.display_name: Grants access to the user's Snapchat display name
https://auth.snapchat.com/oauth2/api/user.bitmoji.avatar: Grants access to the user's Bitmoji avatar; toggleable by user

<key>SCSDKScopes</key>
    <array>
        <string>https://auth.snapchat.com/oauth2/api/user.external_id</string>
        <string>https://auth.snapchat.com/oauth2/api/user.display_name</string>
        <string>https://auth.snapchat.com/oauth2/api/user.bitmoji.avatar</string>
    </array>

Info.plist gist:

Login Kit

Step 1

Anyplace you need the Login Kit code (such as the initial ViewController)

import SCSDKLoginKit

Step 2

This code needs to be added in the AppDelegate.swift file.

func application(_ app: UIApplication, open url: URL, options: [UIApplicationOpenURLOptionsKey : Any] = [:]) -> Bool {

        return SCSDKLoginClient.application(app, open: url, options: options)
    }

Step 3

Choose a login button and the code that goes along with it

Snapchat Official Login Button

Position the official button as you like in code

let loginButton = SCSDKLoginButton()

Custom Login Button

Consult the Snapchat Design Guidelines for button UI

@IBAction func loginButtonTapped(_ sender: Any) {
    SCSDKLoginClient.login(from: self, completion: { success, error in

        if let error = error {
            print(error.localizedDescription)
            return
        }

        if success {
            self.fetchSnapUserInfo() //example code
        }
    })
}

Snapchat does not gather much data from users:

User ID (A Snapchat internal generated value)
Display Name (User’s chosen display name)
Bitmoji (Avatar, if user has created one) Notice there is no ability to gather email address or real name.

Use SDSDKLoginClient.fetchUserData to get the user data. The code below is one of many approaches to parsing the values returned.

private func fetchSnapUserInfo(){
    let graphQLQuery = "{me{displayName, bitmoji{avatar}}}"
    SCSDKLoginClient
        .fetchUserData(
            withQuery: graphQLQuery,
            variables: nil,
            success: { userInfo in
                if let userInfo = userInfo,
                    let data = try? JSONSerialization.data(withJSONObject: userInfo, options: .prettyPrinted),
                    let userEntity = try? JSONDecoder().decode(UserEntity.self, from: data) {
                    DispatchQueue.main.async {
                        self.goToLoginConfirm(userEntity)
                    }
                }
        }) { (error, isUserLoggedOut) in
            print(error?.localizedDescription ?? "")
    }
}

Step 4

For logout or “unlink”


SCSDKLoginClient.unlinkCurrentSessionWithCompletion { (success: Bool) in
  // do something
}

Creative Kit

Users must be logged into Snapchat to use Creative Kit’s features in your app

SCSDKSnapPhoto and SCSDKPhotoSnapContent

Pass photos to the Snapchat app

SCSDKSnapPhoto is a photo that the user can get from the camera, photo library, or your app and pass to Snapchat. This class lets you initialize images that users can share to Snapchat.

SCSDKPhotoSnapContent is an implementation of the SCSDKSnapContent protocol. It provides a way to model a photo Snap for sharing to Snapchat.

See Snapchat iOS API Reference

import SCSDKCreativeKit
// Copied from Snapchat Documentation

/* Main image content to be used in the Snap */
let snapImage = /* Set your image here */
let photo = SCSDKSnapPhoto(image: snapImage)
let photoContent = SCSDKSnapPhotoContent(snapPhoto: photo)
// Alternately, you can set the photo using a URL
let photo = SCSDKSnapPhoto(imageUrl: snapImageUrl)

Pass a photo with a caption, sticker and url

You can choose to add a caption, sticker, or URL attachment to a set photo or video.

Conditions

Only one sticker is allowed.
A still sticker must be a PNG 1MB or smaller.
An animated sticker must be a GIF or WebP (preferred) 1MB or smaller.
Captions are limited to 250 characters.
The attachment URL must be a properly formatted URL in string format.

// Copied from Snapchat Documentation (modified for clarity)

/* Stickers to be used in Snap */
let stickerImage = /* prepare a sticker image */
let sticker = SCSDKSnapSticker(stickerImage: stickerImage)
/* Alternatively, use a URL instead */
// let sticker = SCSDKSnapSticker(stickerUrl: stickerImageUrl, isAnimated: false)
// Caption
snap.caption = "This is a caption"
// URL
snap.attachmentUrl = "https://myawsomeappurl.com"

SCSDKSnapVideo and SCSDKVideoSnapContent

Pass a video to the Snapchat app. Stickers, captions and URLs follow the same patterns as above for photos. See Snapchat Creative Kit Documentation

let videoUrl = /* prepare a local video URL */
let video = SCSDKSnapVideo(videoUrl: videoUrl)
let videoContent = SCSDKSnapVideoContent(snapVideo: video)

Sending your photo, video, or sticker to Snapchat
The final step is connecting to Snapchat. Use the SCSDKSnapAPI interface to let your users start sending their creations to Snapchat:

let api = SCSDKSnapAPI(content: snap)
api.startSnapping { error in

    if let error = error {
        print(error.localizedDescription)
    } else {
        // success

    }
}

Bitmoji Kit

Get Bitmoji (Snapchat avatar)

Users must be logged into Snapchat to use Bitmoji Kit’s features in your app

import SCSDKBitmojiKit

let iconView = SCSDKBitmojiIconView()

Sticker Picker

To add the sticker picker UI, create a sticker picker view, and add a delegate to be notified whenever a user selects a sticker:

// Code sample copied from Snapchat docs
import SCSDKBitmojiKit

override func viewDidLoad() {
   super.viewDidLoad()
   ...
   let stickerPickerVC = SCSDKBitmojiStickerPickerViewController()
   stickerPickerVC.delegate = self

   addChildViewController(stickerPickerVC)
   view.addSubview(stickerPickerVC.view)
   stickerPickerVC.didMove(toParentViewController: self)
   ...
}

func bitmojiStickerPickerViewController(_ stickerPickerViewController: SCSDKBitmojiStickerPickerView, didSelectBitmojiWithURL bitmojiURL: String) {
   // do something
}

// Optional delegate method for listening to search field
// focus changes
func bitmojiStickerPickerViewController(_ stickerPickerViewController: SCSDKBitmojiStickerPickerView, 
                                        searchFieldFocusDidChangeWithFocus hasFocus: Bool) {
   // do something
}

The code below retrieves the bitmoji to set in the scene

//Code contained in this article's sample app
extension CameraViewController: SCSDKBitmojiStickerPickerViewControllerDelegate {
    func bitmojiStickerPickerViewController(_ stickerPickerViewController: SCSDKBitmojiStickerPickerViewController, didSelectBitmojiWithURL bitmojiURL: String) {
        bitmojiSelectionView?.removeFromSuperview()
        if let image = UIImage.load(from: bitmojiURL) {
            DispatchQueue.main.async {
                self.setImageToScene(image: image)
            }
        }
    }
    func bitmojiStickerPickerViewController(_ stickerPickerViewController: SCSDKBitmojiStickerPickerViewController, searchFieldFocusDidChangeWithFocus hasFocus: Bool) {
    }
}

Story Kit

Story Kit is in Beta as of this post date 08/21/18

I Need Love

Did you like this post? Hearts, Unicorns, Bookmarks and Shares make me happy!

Contact:

References

Snapchat Snap Kit Central

bbookman — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 18:09:50 +0000

Interested in integrating Snapchat elements into your iOS or Android apps? Come by - contribute and learn.

bbookman / Snapchat-Snap-Kit-DIY-Docs

Just Get Me To The Good Stuff
Purpose
Open Issues
Contributing
Bugs and Feature Requests
Contact

Purpose

Snapchat’s Snap Kit is new and there are holes in the documentation. As developers implement Snap Kit, they will find answers and gain best practices. This document exists to help developers obtain success with Snap Kit.

Copying Snap Kit Documentation

The wiki for this repository will contain copy/paste from Snapkit documentation. The purpose of which is to make it easy to see what is there as well as what should be there. Contributsions from sources other than the Snap Kit documentation will be noted as such.

For text that did not orignate from Snapchat, two markers are inserted:

DIY INSERT START
DIY INSERT END

Open issues

In this repository wiki you will see a link Pending Snap Support which indicates a question has been filed with Snapchat support and is awaiting…

View on GitHub

Bad Product Ideas

bbookman — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 19:09:18 +0000

PeerTube, the “Decentralized YouTube”, succeeds in crowdfunding

I'm seeing folly all over the startup and tech landscape. The Yuser app wants to be the next Facebook - with the added wrinkle that users get blockchain coin for eyeball grabbing content and no advertising. And now PeerTube promises to break YouTubes' grip on video.

Sorry PeerTube, I don't think it will happen. You are just a new Napster, and we all know what happened to Napster. Sorry Yuser, the cost of policing your platform will eat you alive.

The bottom line is that PeerTube and Yuser have the same fundamental problem: user generated content with next to zero policing. Both are designed with little to no oversight built in. Because of this, all of the worst of humanity will spill into these communities. They will become cesspools of trash.

I see a new security paradigm coming. Yes we worry about DDoS attacks and fishing. And the new security frontier is security from the nastiness of humanity. PeerTube and Yuser will either have to spend tons of money securing their user generated footprints or be relegated the the corners of the internet where porn, terrorism, human trafficking, arms sales, and NeoNazi's find refuge.

Have they never heard of 4chan?

Snapchat Snapkit Developer Support Sadly Sad

bbookman — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 19:08:52 +0000

Original post on Medium

Part 1 of a periodically updated diary of my attempts to work with Snapchat’s Snapkit

As an iOS Developer I thought it would be interesting to try to add Snapchat’s Snapkit features to an app I have under development.

Snapchat is playing catch-up in a race to keep its platform relevant and wants software developers to embrace its tools. Facebook and Twitter have long had development kits available for apps such that logging in to an app with Facebook and Twitter is commonplace. And posting to both is built in to probably thousands of apps.

After just scratching the surface of the offerings, I am not impressed with Snapchat’s documentation nor support.

Oh for the love of good documentation

These are the very first lines of the iOS API Reference

This documentation assumes you already made contact with us. The Snap Kit developer portal is the place for adding your application, exchanging keys, and getting set up with the proper API credentials.
It is not at all clear to me how or why one would “make contact” with Snapchat. I suspect this document is out of date and that it was written when Snapchat was working with partners. As far as I can tell, the API is now completely open to anyone interested. So I’m either wrong and need to contact Snapchat (How?) or this very first paragraph is utterly misleading and out of date.

Next up I thought I would integrate Snapchat login. My app already has authentication via Google, Twitter and Facebook (do you see that Snapchat… you need to blow me away just to enter the game)

Here’s some instruction from the Login Kit documentation

This line about SCSDKRedirectUrl is mind boggling

SCSDKRedirectUrl (string): The URL that will handle and complete login requests; must be a valid URL in the form foo://bar—without bar, redirects will fail

I’m sorry, what? What URL will complete and handle the login? And what does “foo://bar” without the bar mean? And if it means what I think it does — why would you write something like that? (I think it means .. ‘someurl://’)

I guess as a developer I’m supposed to know what the URL syntax should look like. But wait, Snapchat has a few GitHub repositories with examples.

But wait, only one of the examples is written in Swift (remember I’m developing for iOS).

Since I like to try to solve my own problems, I thought perhaps the sample app would shed some light on the mysteries of SCSDKRedirectURL. This URL is supposed to go into the info.plist. Let’s see what the example app from Snapchat has in the info.plist

<dict>      
      <key>CFBundleTypeRole</key>
      <string>Editor</string>
      <key>CFBundleURLSchemes</key>
      <array>
      <string><!-- Insert your redirect url scheme here -->    
      </string>
      </array>
</dict>

Fantastic, that clears things right up.

As I was already in GitHub and already looking at the sample app supplied by Snapchat, I thought I’d file this lack of clarity as a bug against the sample repo. It’s issue #3 Redirect URL—Clarity in documentation please

Someone named David cleared things up in response to the bug. He says

So if you registered my-app://auth/snap then you would have this entry in your Info.plist:

<key>SCSDKRedirectUrl</key>
<string>my-app://auth/snap</string>
as well as:
<key>CFBundleURLTypes</key>
 <array>
 <dict>
 <key>CFBundleTypeRole</key>
 <string>Editor</string>
 <key>CFBundleURLSchemes</key>
 <array>
 <string>my-app</string>
 </array>
 </dict>
 </array>

As a side note, Snapchat support has no idea how to handle Snapkit requests. I can’t stop giggling when I read the response when I ask if they are the right folks to get help from.. “We’ll need to look further into this”

Yes, yes you will!

DEV Community: bbookman

16 Ugly Bugs Snap Didn’t Bother To Fix For Snap Kit And Lessons They Teach

Snap has many business problems, including the poor rollout of Snap Kit SDK

Snapchat Snap Kit SDK Primer

Business Lessons

Bugs

1 — Single Point Of Support

2 — Add Snap Kit SDK Support Options To ‘I Need Help’

3 — Snapchat Support On Twitter Not Providing SDK Support

4 — Code Sample Error in Creative Kit Documentation

5 — Naming Inconsistencies with Creative Kit

6 — Login Scopes Information Misplaced

7 — Embedded Binaries Documentation Can Be Replaced Or Augmented To Include

8 — Snap Kit SDK Naming

9 — UI of Developer Portal Confusing

10 — Unlink Sessions Methods Do Not Include Thrown Errors

Suggested Mitigation

11— Snap Kit Twitter Account Not Active Nor Informative For Devs

12 — API Reference For iOS First Paragraph Seems Out Of Date

13— Snap Kit Support Boilerplate Not Helpful

14 — Missing Example Code

15 — Snap Kit Support (more) Boilerplate Not Helpful

16 — Unexpected status code

TL;DR

If You Liked This Post, Try One Of These

Contact

Bruce Bookman

[Adventures in iOS mobile app

Snapchat Snap Kit SDK Tutorial for iOS Swift

About Snap Kit

Snapchat Snap Kit Developer Portal

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Snap Kit SDK

Step 5

Info.plist

Step 6

Login Kit

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Creative Kit

SCSDKSnapPhoto and SCSDKPhotoSnapContent

SCSDKSnapVideo and SCSDKVideoSnapContent

Bitmoji Kit

Get Bitmoji (Snapchat avatar)

Sticker Picker

Story Kit

I Need Love

Contact:

Snapchat Snap Kit Central

bbookman / Snapchat-Snap-Kit-DIY-Docs

Contents

Purpose

Copying Snap Kit Documentation

Open issues

Bad Product Ideas

Snapchat Snapkit Developer Support Sadly Sad

Part 1 of a periodically updated diary of my attempts to work with Snapchat’s Snapkit

Oh for the love of good documentation