Inbox Ruby bindings

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'inbox'

And then execute:

bundle

You don't need to use this repo unless you're planning to modify the gem. If you just want to use the Inbox SDK with Ruby bindings, you should run:

gem install inbox

Requirements

Ruby 1.8.7 or above. (Ruby 1.8.6 may work if you load ActiveSupport.)
rest-client, json

Example Rails App

A small example Rails app is included in the example directory. You can run the sample app to see how an authentication flow might be implemented.

cd example

RESTCLIENT_LOG=stdout rails s

Note that you will need to replace the Inbox App ID and Secret in config/environments/development.rb to use the sample app.

Usage

App ID and Secret

Before you can interact with the Inbox API, you need to register for the Inbox Developer Program at http://www.inboxapp.com/. After you've created a developer account, you can create a new application to generate an App ID / Secret pair.

Generally, you should store your App ID and Secret into environment variables to avoid adding them to source control. That said, in the example project and code snippets below, the values were added to config/environments/development.rb for convenience.

Authentication

The Inbox API uses server-side (three-legged) OAuth, and the Ruby gem provides convenience methods that simplify the OAuth process. For more information about authenticating with Inbox, visit the Developer Documentation.

Step 1: Redirect the user to Inbox:

require 'inbox'

def login
  inbox = Inbox::API.new(config.inbox_app_id, config.inbox_app_secret, nil)
  # The email address of the user you want to authenticate
  user_email = '[email protected]'

  # This URL must be registered with your application in the developer portal
  callback_url = url_for(:action => 'login_callback')

  redirect_to inbox.url_for_authentication(callback_url, user_email)
end

Step 2: Handle the Authentication Response:

def login_callback 
  inbox = Inbox::API.new(config.inbox_app_id, config.inbox_app_secret, nil)
  inbox_token = inbox.token_for_code(params[:code])

  # Save the inbox_token to the current session, save it to the user model, etc.
end

Managing Billing

If you're using the open-source version of the Inbox API or have fewer than 100 accounts associated with your developer app, you don't need to worry about billing. However, if you've requested production access to the Inbox API, you are billed monthly based on the number of email accounts you've connected to Inbox. You can choose to start accounts in "trial" state and sync slowly at a rate of one message per minute so users can try out your app. If you use trial mode, you need to upgrade accounts (and start paying for them) within 30 days or they will automatically expire. You may wish to upgrade accounts earlier to dramatically speed up the mail sync progress depending on your app's needs.

Starting an Account in Trial Mode

When you're redirecting the user to Inbox to authenticate with their email provider, pass the additional trial: true option to start their account in trial mode.

  redirect_to inbox.url_for_authentication(callback_url, user_email, {trial: true})

Upgrading an Account

  # Initialize an Inbox object with your app ID and secret, and the API token
  # for the user account you'd like to upgrade.
  inbox = Inbox::API.new(config.inbox_app_id, config.inbox_app_secret, inbox_token)
  inbox.upgrade_account!

Cancelling an Account

  inbox = Inbox::API.new(config.inbox_app_id, config.inbox_app_secret, inbox_token)
  inbox.downgrade_account!

  # Your Inbox API token will be revoked, you will not be charged

Fetching Namespaces

inbox = Inbox::API.new(config.inbox_app_id, config.inbox_app_secret, inbox_token)

# Get the first namespace
namespace = inbox.namespaces.first

# Print out the email address and provider (Gmail, Exchange)
puts namespace.email_address
puts namespace.provider

Fetching Threads

# Fetch the first thread
thread = namespace.threads.first

# Fetch a specific thread
thread = namespace.threads.find('ac123acd123ef123')

# List all threads tagged `inbox`
# (paginating 50 at a time until no more are returned.)
namespace.threads.where(:tag => 'inbox').each do |thread|
  puts thread.subject
end    

# List the 5 most recent unread threads
namespace.threads.where(:tag => 'unread').range(0,4).each do |thread|
  puts thread.subject
end    

# List all threads with '[email protected]'
namespace.threads.where(:any_email => '[email protected]').each do |thread|
  puts thread.subject
end    

# Collect all threads with '[email protected]' into an array.
# Note: for large numbers of threads, this is not advised.
threads = namespace.threads.where(:any_email => '[email protected]').all

Working with Threads

# List thread participants
thread.participants.each do |participant|
  puts participant['email']
end

# Mark as read
thread.mark_as_read!

# Archive
thread.archive!

# Add or remove arbitrary tags
tagsToAdd = ['inbox', 'cfa1233ef123acd12']
tagsToRemove = []
thread.update_tags!(tagsToAdd, tagsToRemove)

# List messages
thread.messages.each do |message|
  puts message.subject
end

Working with Files

# List files
namespace.files.each do |file|
  puts file.filename
end

# Create a new file
file = namespace.files.build(:file => File.new("./public/favicon.ico", 'rb'))
file.save!

Working with Messages, Contacts, etc.

Each of the primary collections (contacts, messages, etc.) behave the same way as threads. For example, finding messages with a filter is similar to finding threads:

messages = namespace.messages.where(:to => '[email protected]`).all

The where method accepts a hash of filters, as documented in the Inbox Filters Documentation.

Creating and Sending Drafts

# Create a new draft
draft = namespace.drafts.build(
  :to => [{:name => 'Ben Gotow', :email => '[email protected]'}],
  :subject => "Sent by Ruby",
  :body => "Hi there!<strong>This is HTML</strong>"
)

# Modify attributes as necessary
draft.cc = [{:name => 'Michael', :email => '[email protected]'}]

# Add the file we uploaded as an attachment
draft.attach(file)

# Save the draft
draft.save!

# Send the draft. This method returns immediately and queues the message
# with Inbox for delivery through the user's SMTP gateway.
draft.send!

Open-Source Sync Engine

The Inbox Sync Engine is open-source, and you can also use the Ruby gem with the open-source API. Since the open-source API provides no authentication or security, connecting to it is simple. When you instantiate the Inbox object, provide nil for the App ID, App Secret, and API Token, and pass the fully-qualified address to your copy of the sync engine:

require 'inbox'
inbox = Inbox::API.new(nil, nil, nil, 'http://localhost:5555/')

Contributing

We'd love your help making the Inbox ruby gem better. Join the Google Group for project updates and feature discussion. We also hang out in ##inbox on irc.freenode.net, or you can email [email protected].

Please sign the Contributor License Agreement before submitting pull requests. (It's similar to other projects, like NodeJS or Meteor.)

Tests can be run with:

rspec spec

Deployment

The Inbox ruby gem uses Jeweler for release management. Jeweler should be installed automatically when you call bundle, and extends rake to include a few more commands. When you're ready to release a new version, do something like this:

rake version:bump:minor (or :major or :patch)
rake build

Test your new version (found in pkg/) locally, and then release with:

rake release

If it's your first time updating the ruby gem, you may be prompted for the username/password for rubygems.org. Members of the Inbox team can find that by doing fetch-password rubygems.