The Quizlet Blog

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated the blog, so it might be hard to believe that a lot of work has gone into Quizlet since the last post. We’ve made the Quizlet search engine a ton better, we’ve added some exciting new technology that does voice recognition (more on that later), and made a lot of performance enhancements to keep the site running as growth increases.

Now, as we head into summer (and the accompanying dive in traffic as people get of school), we have the opportunity to experiment with lots of cool new features. We’re building a lot of cool tools set to be done before the summer is up — one of which we’re ready to announce today:

The Quizlet API is now available! For those who don’t know, API stands for Application Programming Interface. The Quizlet API is a tool that lets programmers develop tools that work with Quizlet’s massive content library (we now have about 30 million flashcards on our site!) This will let people build cool things like cell phone applications and screensavers that use Quizlet data. Developers have been asking for this for years, so it’s great that it’s finally available.

The Quizlet API is free to use and only requires you to be a registered Quizlet user (which you can also get for free). This is our first release so you may not be able to do everything you want just yet, but you should find that it’s surprisingly powerful. If you have suggestions for stuff we should add or bugs you find, please post a comment in the blog.

Are you a developer? Get started here.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 1:14 pm by Andrew and is filed under New Features, Technical Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

48 Responses to “Announcing the Quizlet API”

June 29th, 2009 at 5:48 pm rawr:

Very nice! :O

The API seems fairly simple to use, now all I have to do is figure out how to parse the JSON data or load it into a variable. Maybe something like this:

var http = new XMLHttpRequest();
http.onreadystatechange = function() { if (http.readyState == 4) { /* somehow parse the JSON data and assign it to a variable */ }

http.open(”get”, “http://quizlet.com/api/1.0sets?stuffhere”, true);
http.send(null);
June 29th, 2009 at 5:51 pm rawr:

Actually, I don’t think that will work because certain browsers don’t allow Ajax calls to be made to other websites. I could probably use PHP’s file_get_contents function as an alternative but then I need allow_url_fopen to be on… that would be a problem.

But anyway very nice work! I’m starting to think of new ideas for a Quizlet application! :O
June 29th, 2009 at 5:53 pm Andrew:

@rawr: Using JSON-P, you can circumvent that. If you add this element to your page: <script src=”quizlet.com/api/1.0/sets?dev_key=…&q=…&callback=function_name”></script>

then function_name() will get called with the JSON data as the argument.
June 29th, 2009 at 6:22 pm rawr:

Alright, thanks! I’m thinking something like this should do:

function parse(data)
{
// do whatever with the JSON data here…
}

Now I just have to figure out what to make
June 29th, 2009 at 6:57 pm rawr:

Got a simple test demo running. Not much, but it’s a start.

[code]

Quizlet API

function parseJSON(data)
{
if (data["response_type"] == "ok")
{
var content = "";

content += "Total Results: " + data["total_results"] + "";

for (var c in data["sets"])
{
content += "" + data["sets"][c]["title"] + " - Owner: " + data["sets"][c]["creator"] + "";
}

document.getElementById("content").innerHTML = content;
}
}

[/code]
June 29th, 2009 at 6:58 pm rawr:

Eh, there were supposed to be HTML tags there. Guess they got cut off
July 1st, 2009 at 6:01 am Genu:

Probably not the right place to ask, but it would be really useful to implement laTeX formatting in flashcard creation. It would help a lot in displaying mathematical formulas. I’m curious if this is planned, because with the API release, it can be done by a third party…but its not worth the trouble…
July 4th, 2009 at 4:50 am Tamweh:

I have a suggestion for something to add: A new quizlet forum, but without all of the bugs that turned it into a social networking site. Or at least the PM’s and private forums.
July 10th, 2009 at 7:25 pm Chase:

Hey guys,
If you haven’t seen my posts on the developer comments, check out my app:
http://www.cardcram.com

I agree with Tamweh, we really need a forum for developers at least.
July 20th, 2009 at 8:24 pm michael:

when is the iphone app comming??
July 21st, 2009 at 9:50 pm Name:

yeah when the hell is the app coming just release what u have and add updates as u improve it i dont care the price either
July 24th, 2009 at 9:33 am langarts:

I don’t really care. I don’t have an ipod touch, anyways. (or an iphone.)
July 30th, 2009 at 6:16 am Anonymous:

How much is the iPhone application going to be priced at?
August 2nd, 2009 at 8:13 pm Nakatsu:

“Suggestions for stuff we should add…”
When making/studying flashcards, they should have a separate box with accented letters… unless there’s some other way to do that. This way I could study French, with the accents. Yes, I know you can download programs for that, but it’d be very convenient to have that option. And perhaps they could make it possible to make flashcards with pictures? It’d be very useful for identification. I would really appreciate some feedback! Thanks!
August 2nd, 2009 at 10:11 pm Andrew:

Nakatsu — click on “Show Symbols” on the create set page and all the study pages.
Quizlet with images is going up this week
August 3rd, 2009 at 6:44 am Nakatsu:

Oh, I guess that was listed under “Creating Flashcards”. I can’t believe I didn’t notice before… Well thanks Andrew! This week? Sweet!
August 5th, 2009 at 2:23 am Drewvt:

I like the enhancements, but I am compelled to comment on the bold font of the editing page (when editing a flash card, the terms are now displayed as bold, whereas before they were regular).
This is perfectly fine for the roman alphabet, but when it comes to more complex sign systems in languages such as Chinese, Japanese (and probably a few others), these alphabets become considerably less readable because the bold font makes their many lines and curves blend together.

I certainly don’t blame you for limiting the testing to western languages, but the fact is that this one change does negatively affect a considerable number of users.
September 5th, 2009 at 9:46 am Maulik:

Exellent!
September 5th, 2009 at 11:57 am diddy:

you guys should make a iphone/ipod touch app!
September 10th, 2009 at 7:38 pm kitt:

I think you guys should make it so you can add a picture as the word too and not just the definition so that we could be quized on what the picture is. For example, I could post a picture of sodium and i would be quizing on what the picture is.
September 20th, 2009 at 2:01 pm soccer girl:

i like tht idea
September 23rd, 2009 at 1:12 am Morgante Pell:

Could you please implement something in the API besides simply viewing public sets? As it is, the API isn’t very CRUD.

Mainly:
—Set creation
—Set updating
—Set deletion
—Private set reading
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:38 pm soccer girl:

i think quizlet is fine.
It has helped me get so many good grades to start off the new year. Thank for everything!!!!!
September 26th, 2009 at 1:41 pm football dude:

at least we can spell
September 26th, 2009 at 1:42 pm soccer girl:

ok :confused:
September 28th, 2009 at 11:50 am blade:

lol whatever
September 29th, 2009 at 12:20 pm soccer girl:

whtev :(:cry:
September 30th, 2009 at 11:49 am hockey guy:

i really like this web site for my study needs
September 30th, 2009 at 1:10 pm soccer girl:

ya it is really use ful it saves alot of time. Plus it helps me memerize vocab faster. this site really helped me when i has like 4 vocab quizes in a row. And i Ast them all i love this site!!!!!
October 1st, 2009 at 12:06 pm hockey guy:

Does anybody know who made this website i do not know who or what company did?
October 7th, 2009 at 8:45 am Anonymous:

yea quizlet
October 7th, 2009 at 11:04 am soccer girl:

we got a funny guy here
October 7th, 2009 at 1:00 pm soccer girl:

ps who ever wrote tht ya i was not on quizlet today other than now
October 9th, 2009 at 11:47 am hockey guy:

How do you do the smily face things
October 12th, 2009 at 12:15 pm soccer girl:

: lol : =
: mad : =
: opps : =
: roll : = :roll
: ) =
: ( =

or click over dthe smileys with ur mouse and it tells u how to make them
October 12th, 2009 at 4:16 pm Lewis:

Cool!!
October 12th, 2009 at 8:00 pm tommy:

-multiple choice in learn function
October 14th, 2009 at 4:54 pm Ineedhelp:

Make an Iphone App! PLEASE!
October 21st, 2009 at 11:21 am Anonymous:

ya lol quizlet rocks!!!!!
October 21st, 2009 at 1:10 pm soccer girl:

lol im back to say tht quizlet is the best !!!!
October 29th, 2009 at 3:14 am NarutoFan1012:

Hey this thing sounds cool! I can’t wait to try it!
October 30th, 2009 at 11:49 am hockey guy:

quizlet is the best in the world i love this web site
November 3rd, 2009 at 9:20 am Anonymous:

?
November 7th, 2009 at 2:54 pm ClaireBear222:

I don’t really understand what you can do with this app.
November 20th, 2009 at 1:17 am Anonymous:

Can I use this with Mozilla Labs’s Prism?
November 20th, 2009 at 2:37 am AJHunter:

Is there a specific method to use when coding this? or API key? or format? I’m new to this…
November 20th, 2009 at 4:18 am AJHunter:

Some help would be… helpfull…
November 20th, 2009 at 4:21 am AJHunter:

Maybe if someone would post a template of sorts. saved as a text document (*.txt)