The Movie Database Support
Support → API Support
Saving data for non TMDB users
posted by syed26STAFFMOD on September 18, 2015 at 6:18 AM
Hi,
I am very new to this API, literally got here a few mistunes ago. And I already have a question, I am trying to make a mobile app (iOS) where users would sign up and be able to search TV shows and movies and create their lists of favourite shows and movies. Now TMDB API provides all this BUT my from my understanding the person using the app must have a TMDB account to be able to save data such as create lists etc.
I want to give people who don't have TMDB accounts the same functionality. They create an account on my app for free ( P.S the entire app will be free btw) at this point I will be saving their account details into my own database. Once they have logged in they can have access to my app.
My question is, if a user wants to create a list and save shows and movies where would that be saved as they don't have a TMDB account hence they can't save it like it is shown in the TMDB API documentation? Is it absolutely necessary for each person using my app to have a TMDB account or can they still use the full API functionality without it?
I apologise if I have made a mistake in the question above or if I have not properly worded the question. Please let me know know if you need any more information.
Thank you in advance.
Reply by Travis Bell
on September 18, 2015 at 4:46 PM
Hi syed26,
If you want to use any of TMDb's account features, they will need to have a TMDb account. You are of course, free to build this functionality on your own though, you just wouldn't use any of TMDb's account features.
The only thing we allow a non-registered account to do is rate movies. We call these "guest sessions" but the only thing they can do is rate items.You can read more about this here.
Reply by syed26
on September 19, 2015 at 4:45 AM
Hi Travis,
Thank you for the reply.
Is it possible for me to register the users and save them within my own database. Once a user has been registered they can search Movies & Tv shows, see up coming movies, in theatres movies etc by using my API Key.
Obviously I WON'T give them my actual key. Every user that is registered with me would have access to certain functions like search etc and in my code I will be using my API Key to make calls to the TMDB API.
Basically all the calls by all the users within my database will be made by my API Key from within my application code.
Does this sound right?
Reply by Travis Bell
on September 22, 2015 at 10:36 AM
Hi syed26,
You can do all of this without a user account. The only thing you need to use the API for the basic search and discovery type stuff is an API key.
Yes.