April 2019 Summaries

Postman has been actively enhancing its platform with frequent releases, averaging new updates nearly every two days, to simplify API development. In 2018, significant advancements included making teams available to free users and launching new plans and features such as Workspaces and Sessions. Moving into 2019, the first quarter saw the addition of OpenAPI 3.0 support, which was highly requested by the community, providing more flexibility for working with different specifications. The introduction of in-app interactive Bootcamp lessons and live online training courses aimed to enhance user skills and knowledge. New integrations with GitHub and GitLab were implemented to facilitate synchronization with Git repositories, while the addition of forking and merging features improved collaborative workflows. Enhanced commenting capabilities and extended roles and permissions were also introduced to streamline communication and team organization within the app. These updates reflect Postman's commitment to ongoing innovation and responsiveness to community feedback.

In this blog post, the AirVisual API, a member of Postman's API Network, is highlighted for its ability to provide comprehensive global air quality data available to developers. The AirVisual API offers three API versions—Community (free), Startup (paid), and Enterprise (paid)—with this post focusing on the Community version, which provides current air quality data for countries, states, and cities. One of the standout features is the ability to retrieve the nearest city's air quality data using IP geolocation or specific coordinates. Users can access detailed reports that include weather conditions and pollution data, although only real-time data is available with the free version; historical and forecast data require upgrading to the enterprise version. The practical applications of the AirVisual API are vast, enabling real-time updates or warnings about air quality, and users can explore these features by downloading the collection from the Postman API Network and obtaining an API key from the AirVisual website.

The Postman May Mashup is a contest running throughout May, inviting participants to submit Postman collections as templates to compete for prizes, including a trip to POST/CON 2019 in San Francisco. Participants can submit templates that teach how to use an API, automate tasks, or creatively use public APIs, with each submission requiring at least two API endpoints. The popularity of entries, based on download numbers, determines the grand prize winner, while honorable mentions are selected for their documentation quality, creativity, and usefulness. Participants are encouraged to submit well-documented and innovative templates early to maximize visibility and engagement, with the deadline for submissions set at May 31st and winners contacted on June 17th.