June 2017 Summaries

Refreshing the online documentation for the Postman app involves creating a Postman Collection to automate link checking across the website, using two primary requests. The initial request sets environment variables, including an array for links, and starts the page crawling process. The subsequent request scrapes HTML to collect and check links on each page, looping until the entire site is covered. This process demonstrates Postman's capabilities in HTML scraping and workflow management through branching and looping, facilitated by the Cheerio library and the setNextRequest() method, which allows for automated and non-linear execution of tasks. Users can import a sample collection and environment template to their Postman app to customize link checking for their own websites, with options to monitor the process using the Postman Console. This approach is analogous to using Postman with Hypermedia APIs, where responses guide the navigation of links without predefined specifications.

Postman Pro, a widely used tool for collaboratively building and managing APIs, has introduced a version control system that addresses customer demands for managing changes to API documentation. Key features include revision history, which allows users to restore collections to any point in time, and an activity feed that tracks changes and ownership. The system aims for simplicity in tagging and versioning, and Postman plans to enhance it further with sandbox session variables and stress-free branch and merge capabilities. Users can also integrate Postman with existing developer tools and version control systems like GitHub and GitLab, and back up their collections in various API description formats. These features collectively enhance the efficiency and reliability of API management for Postman Pro users.

Postman has introduced custom team URLs for its Pro and Enterprise users, enhancing accessibility and streamlining the sign-in process. This feature allows users to access the Postman web view by entering a personalized URL format, such as <your-team-name>.postman.co, into their browser. By appending specific paths like /docs or /monitors, users can easily navigate to various Postman features. Teams can view and update their current team name and URL from the team page in the Postman web view, providing a more organized and user-friendly experience.

Postman has introduced a new feature in its data editor, allowing users to add a description column for better clarity and understanding of requests. This feature lets users include comments and details for query parameters, path variables, headers, and body elements directly within the Postman app, aiding developers by specifying if elements are required or optional and indicating accepted data types. For Postman Pro users, these descriptions appear in the automatically generated documentation for API collections, although descriptions for path variables and URL parameters are currently not shown in the documentation. Users can toggle the visibility of the value and description columns by clicking on the ellipsis in the editor's top right corner, and it's important to note that these descriptions are merely metadata and are not transmitted with HTTP requests.