How to Read the API ​

Reading API pages can be a bit overwhelming but I promise there is a method to the madness.

Those of you who are unfamiliar with API documentation will definitely need to read this.

Navigation ​

In the left-hand sidebar you will see API pathways.

Inside you will find a similar folder structure to the default intellisense when you use any of the standard imports while programming.

Digestion ​

When you are reading a page it's going to look like a bunch of random words if you've never seen an API page before.

In the example below we will be using the following pathway in the server API: Athena.controllers.blip

Right Sidebar ​

On the right-hand side you will see a sidebar of all the available functions. They are listed under the header called Functions, if there is no header called Functions then it is not a function.

Knowing that the API pathway is Athena.controllers.blip, we can append a function name to the end of our code.

import * as Athena from '@AthenaServer/api';

// append is the function name
Athena.controllers.blip.append();

Now how do we determine what we should pass inside of the parenthesis?

Parameters ​

These are the values that need to be passed inside of the function, they should be passed in the same order that they are listed in the table.

In the case of Athena.controllers.blip.append we have exactly 1 parameter.

Parameter Types ​

If the type has a clickable link you can read more about the Object that needs to be passed.

If you are unfamiliar with objects, they look like this:

{
    color: 5,
    pos: { x: 0, y: 0, z: 0},
    scale: 0.2,
    shortRange: true,
    text: 'My Blip!',
    sprite: 80
}

Notice how the object defined above, matches the Type definition of the Blip type.

The individual properties for a type have individual definitions as well. Which will help you understand what is supposed to be passed to a specific property inside of an object.

ie. If we look at the property scale it clearly says it needs a number type.

That's About It! ​

There isn't much else to say about this other than trying a few functions on your own in VSCode, and utilizing the intellisense window that pops up as you are typing.

Hope this helps someone out there understand API documentation a bit better.