[dmdsoftware]

@dmdsoftware ... I'm curious. Since the only public APIs available seems to be for PicasaWeb and Google Drive, are you thinking of fixing the issues with the existing PicasaWeb add-on, adding the albums functionality to your gdrive add-on, or creating a Google Photos add-on from scratch?

I haven't been able to use the PicasaWeb add-on properly after installing it and associating my google account, likely due to the changes in API starting May 2016. It installs and associates the Google account easily enough, but the search and browse functions simply don't work.

Since for about 2 years ago, my plugins adopt a CloudService API. Although they all reside independently still, if they all work the same, eventually they'll all plug in together. That is my eventual goal is to have a single plugin and you select the cloud service(s) that you want to enlist. This way it is a unified experience across whichever supplies the cloud service (Amazon Cloud Drive, Google Drive, Box, MediaFire, OneDrive, BOX, etc). Whether this Google Photos plugin will take the form of a dedicated plugin or start out in Google Drive or CloudStream, I'll be implementing it using the same framework that I use for the other plugins. The goal here is when someone comes up with a good idea for a feature they want, when it gets implemented, if it applies to other services, it'll be made available with minimum effort.

Anyways.... to get albums working, it is possible to get limp by with the Google Drive plugin with some hacks to get albums linked. My focus will be on improving photo support and giving people a way to load albums on their KODI. There is a search already implemented in my plugin, but it is not what you would expect, and it wouldn't match against photos if you were searching for photo characteristics (like location). But now there is a API3 for Google Drive, and with the additional photo elements, it may be possible to workaround this as well, and implement a search that would only search across your photos, and may be able to accomplish the same as Google Photos app.

After all the research I've been doing into Google Photos and what direction Google is taking, I don't believe they will ever release a replacement for Picasa API. They updated the Google Drive API this year to v3, and the major differences is leveraging more of the photo elements that wasn't available in Google Drive prior. They even reference "albums" in the API spec but that is it... a single reference, no explanation or detail on how to load them.

The intention in May is clear from communication from Google that those who have already setup a OAUTH2 token will be able to continue to use it until it expires, but they don't want anyone developing new apps on the API, and they are not allowing users to log into apps if they haven't already.

To get an KODI app that does everything Google Photo does will take time since you have to emulate the web app rather then implement an open API. Until all that work can be accomplished, the intermediate would be to update the Google Drive plugin with hacks to get people the albums and search support.