Openverse support?

I didn’t realize Openverse had an API available for public use.

Do you know, Can you register for an API key without using OAuth2? If not, that could be an issue with integration unless I refactor quite a bit of code.

I’m not too familiar with Openverse integration, but I’m interested in it & have looked into things a bit more just now.

I do see https://api.openverse.engineering/v1/, https://github.com/wordpress/openverse-api, and https://github.com/WordPress/openverse-frontend (among elsewhere) have been updated to use WordPress as the owner/maintainer so it looks like the Automattic acquisition isn’t removing what’s there.

https://api.openverse.engineering/v1/#section/Introduction outlines that this can technically be used as an anonymous user, but it’s rate limited to 100/day and 5/hr. Meanwhile, authorized clients get 10,000/day and 100/min. That said, they then go on to say “Openverse can give your key an even higher limit that fits your application’s needs.”

https://plugins.trac.www.ads-software.com/browser/ls-wp-ccsearch/trunk/index.php#L180 (within the lswpcc_search_ajax function) and https://plugins.trac.www.ads-software.com/browser/ls-wp-ccsearch/trunk/assets/js/backend.js#L15 (where it pulls the providers) has it appear that plugin is using this as an anonymous request. However, that anonymous request limit of 5/hr & 100/day is probably prohibitive for any serious use/integration as that’s likely quickly used up when searching/browsing.

Now, I did just try variants of https://api.openverse.engineering/v1/images/?format=json&shouldPersistImages=true&q=grass&page_size=20&page=1 with “grass” as a search across all providers (per provider not being specified in the request) just now (went from page 1-10, tried different search terms, etc.) all within a matter of a minute or so and it never failed to return a result so I’m not sure how that rate limiting of anonymous users is actually taking effect (I did find it limits the page_size to 20 as an unauthenticated user, though.)

If the unauthenticated/anonymous approach is problematic for any reason (it doesn’t appear to be from initial findings with client-based AJAX call for a JSON response with the rate limit not coming into play from what I saw), I suppose OAuth2 may need to be done & possibly have the site self-register upon activation to have each site get its own client access (using the site name, admin email, etc. for the registration details) to open things up further. Otherwise, I’m curious on what Openverse would be open to when they detail that they can unlock limits if a particular application calls for it where this plugin could potentially be given a single set of client access details that simply has unlimited access (if Openverse agrees to it [or see what they recommend instead] via the [email protected] contact the API documentation provides.)

At that point, I’m not 100% sure how that would factor into what this plugin has for its existing providers, but I’m hopeful as this could become the best Openverse option for WordPress (among the other providers already available.)

Curious if there’s been any development/exploration on this front. WordPress/Automattic seem pretty invested in growing & supporting Openverse based on https://twitter.com/hashtag/WPOpenverse, https://make.www.ads-software.com/openverse/, and other updates they’ve been making.

Another plugin implemented Openverse:
https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/free-images/

@krstarica Good catch. Looks like that is the one other new plugin currently found at https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/search/openverse/ which seems like it offers a decent approach that can hopefully be referenced and shows that this plugin could/should ideally add Openverse support alongside its existing offerings as well.

Hi @kzeni! I’m currently one of the maintainers on the Openverse project ?? We’ve actually had some movement and interest in adding Openverse as an option when inserting media via a Gutenberg block in the core editor, you can check out the issue here!

On the API front, yes we do allow anonymous usage but encourage folks to register an Oauth application for more extended use. Registered applications have higher limits as you’ve noted, and we do have the option to alter those limits depending on the application (please do reach out to us at [email protected] if you’d like to discuss your application and its use!). We’ve had to scale back the request rate for anonymous usage in the last few months due to some out of terms usage that was impacting service performance for all users. Additionally, results are currently limited to 20 pages for both anonymous and authorized users in order to reduce impact on the stability of our search services.

You also mentioned that you were able to get more than 5 requests within an hour; this may be due to page caching we perform at the CDN layer. Since “grass” is a fairly common search term, those pages might have been recently rendered and served from the cache, thus preventing them from being subjected to the anonymous rate limit.

Thanks for your continued interest in the Openverse project, we hope that we can continue to provide the community with useful, impactful, and easily searchable openly-licensed media!

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by Madison Swain-Bowden.

@aetherunbound Very appreciative of your update on the matter. Also very curious to see the core block implementation come into fruition at some point. That idea seems very promising. Hopefully it sees adoption elsewhere in the meantime & helps those that might want to expand it to offer other services like this & other plugins do.

Hi, the register endpoint doesn’t seem to work. getting {“detail”: “Method \”GET\” not allowed.”} for trying to register with the example in the docs.

What is even going on in this thread? ??

@pavel1860 please open a new support ticket if youd like help with your issue. Thanks.

Openverse has been added in 5.1.0

This is great to hear! Thanks so much for getting this added! The attention Openverse has been getting from WordPress & everyone appears to have only grown so this is a great addition.

Just a heads up that the Openverse link in the plugin description (where it lists them off with their corresponding links) is currently going to https://pexels.com/, but that should be a quick fix. I’ve submitted this as a PR here: https://github.com/dcooney/instant-images/pull/47 (GitHub’s own readme.md also then being updated per https://github.com/dcooney/instant-images/pull/48)

Also, it might be helpful to get Openverse added to the plugin name & other details where it’s otherwise mentioning the other services to help surface this in the plugin search for those looking for Openverse plugins & make it clear this plugin supports Openverse for those just browsing. I’ve proposed this as a PR at https://github.com/dcooney/instant-images/pull/49. I think those updates account for any places where the services are listed that Openverse wasn’t added to yet, but I’m not the most familiar with the deeper parts of the plugin which might fall under this as well.