At some point some applescripts I found for posting from NetNewsWire to Instapaper broke. A few days ago, during one of my rare jaunts to the bottom of the Instapaper homepage I came across a reference to the Read Later API. I wrote it down on my todo list as a thing to deal with over lunch some day.

The API involves nothing more than an HTTP request with a half-dozen parameters, a few of which are optional. I stopped shy of simulating the wonderful Instapaper response popup, settling instead on a system beep:

   #!/usr/bin/env ruby

   require 'rubygems'

   require 'open-uri'

   require 'openssl'

   require 'appscript'

   include Appscript

   require 'osax'

   include OSAX



   username = "USERNAME"

   password = "PASSWORD"

   nnw = app("NetNewsWire")



   OpenSSL::SSL::VERIFY_PEER = OpenSSL::SSL::VERIFY_NONE



   item = nnw.selectedHeadline.get

   url = URI.encode(item.URL.get).gsub!(/^htt.+?\/\//, "")

   title = item.title.get

   description = item.description.get.gsub!(/<.+?>/, "") 



   selection = description.length > 150 ? description.slice(0,150) + " ..." : description



   base_url = "https://www.instapaper.com/api/add?"

   params = "title=#{title}&url=#{url}&username=#{username}&password=#{password}&selection=#{selection}"

   post_url = "#{base_url}#{params}"





   begin

     response = open(URI.encode(post_url))

     osax.beep

     # or display a dialog:

     # osax.display_dialog("Posted.")

     rescue => ex

       case ex.message.gsub(/\s.*/, "")

         when "400" : message = "Error: Bad Request."

         when "403" : message = "Bad password/username."

         when "500" : message = "Server error."

       end

       osax.display_dialog(message)

   end