A couple of months ago I ran across the lob.com API on ProgrammableWeb and was intrigued. One of the features of the Lob API is that it allows you to programmatically send postcards by just providing address details and images. I’d been itching to find a use case for the API since who doesn’t love physical mail? Following a few beers on a snow day an idea struck – why not send Valentines day postcards with lob!
Overall, the idea was straightforward, allow users to compose a message on one of a few available templates, enter some address details, and then send their postcard. Given the short timeline and relatively few features, the main factors behind picking an implementation stack were something “lightweight” that I was already comfortable with. After drawing up some options I decided to use Silex since it’s based on Symfony components, it’s lightweight, and we’ve used it in the past.
The main UI for the cards ended up looking like:
One of the “fun” features I did implement was that instead of using a big header background image, I used a HTML5 Canvas to render frames from Beauty and the Beast as the page’s background.
Anyway, we might bring this back next year so be on the lookout around Valentines day.