How to use RSpotify in my Ruby on Rails application

How to use RSpotify in my Ruby on Rails application

RSpotify was created mainly for usability so you can forget the API and naturally interact with your users, playlists, favorite artists, and others. It is a ruby wrapper for the Spotify Web API. To install it, add this line to your application’s Gemfile. See image.

After that, execute:

Another way of installing it is to do it manually.

On the other hand, the Spotify Web API allows your applications to get data from the Spotify music catalog as well as manage user’s playlists and saved music. For more info, please visit Spotify Web API. With RSpotify, you can write things like my_playlist.tracks.sort_by(&:popularity).last.album avoiding the hassle of thinking which API calls should be made. RSpotify fills these holes for you. Here are some basic usage examples:

Find or search by id:

There are data that require authentication before it can be accessed like for example the playlists’ details. For this, you can acquire your credentials from Spotify Developer My Applications and then simply copy and paste them like this:

Also, you might want your application to access the Spotify account of a user. Like for example, you want your application to build playlists for the user according to his taste or maybe add a feature that allows synchronization between the user’s playlists and several external apps. If that’s the case, add the following to your app. Don’t forget to get your credentials from Spotify Developer My Applications.

# config/initializers/omniauth.rb

require 'rspotify/oauth'

Rails.application.config.middleware.use OmniAuth::Builder do
   provider :spotify, "", "", scope: 'user-read-email playlist-modify-public user-library-read user-library-modify'
end

You must replace the scope values with the ones your app will require from the user. The list of available scopes can be found in Spotify Developer Web API Using Scopes. After that, create a link to let the user sign in using his Spotify account.

Next, create a route to receive the callback.

Don’t forget to tell Spotify that this address is white-listed. To do this, add it to the Redirect URIs list in your application page. For example, http://localhost:3000/auth/spotify/callback. Lastly, create a new RSpotify User with the response received.