October 2016 Summaries

Postman's enhanced Activity tab offers users a detailed and structured overview of changes made to shared collections, responding to customer feedback for more granular insights. The improved feed now provides line-by-line tracking of modifications, distinguishing additions in green and deletions in red, thereby allowing users to quickly comprehend updates within the context of the specific elements of a request. For instance, changes to input addresses or Slack postings are clearly outlined to facilitate easy comparison and understanding. Future enhancements are planned to include tagging capabilities, which would allow users to tag specific versions of a collection, creating snapshots that enable rollback to previous states, effectively introducing version control to support more flexible API code development within Postman Cloud.

Postman has launched a native Linux app, aligning with its promise to support Linux developers and complementing the existing native Mac and Windows apps built on Electron. This release comes in response to Chromium's announcement to end support for Chrome Apps by the second half of 2017, thus encouraging users to transition from the Postman Chrome app to native apps that offer similar features, such as building, testing, documenting, and sharing APIs, along with seamless request capturing and cookie handling. The native apps, which are free, eliminate the need for the Postman Interceptor Chrome Extension and ensure that users' history and collections are automatically synced upon logging into their Postman account. The Linux app is available in 64-bit, the Mac app requires OS X Yosemite or later, and the Windows app supports both 32-bit and 64-bit systems for Windows 7 and later versions. Users are encouraged to download the native apps from the Postman website or contact support for assistance.

Postman began as a simple client for HTTP requests, inspired by the complexities of cURL, and has evolved into a comprehensive API toolchain over four years. Initially focused on simplifying interactions with real-world APIs beyond basic GET and POST requests, Postman now addresses essential features like handling different request bodies, authorization complexities, cookie management, SSL certificates, and response rendering. Its development has seen two major platform shifts from a legacy app to Chrome apps and then to native Mac and Windows applications, enhancing user experience through features like the Interceptor bridge and a rewritten UI layer in React. Postman Runtime provides developers with full control over HTTP requests, ensuring performance without sacrificing simplicity and ease of use. Today, Postman stands as an advanced, cross-platform REST client that remains accessible and free on Mac, Windows, and Chrome.