I have a bunch of bitcoin-powered website ideas I would love to work on. I have reasonable PHP/MySQL skills, but I'm not sure what is the best way to interface a website with bitcoin. I poked through the forums and found a couple different ways this might be done, but I'm not sure what is the simplest solution to just get something working.
Options:
1) bitcoind - I think this might be the same as configuring bitcoin to run as server. I believe it uses an RPC API to run transactions from the command line.
Pros: Everything stays on my server
Cons: I have to find a server that will let me compile and install this, rather than just some PHP/MySQL farm in the cloud, which is what I prefer
2) mybitcoin.com "shopping cart interface".
Pros: Seems to do everything I would need
Cons: I don't see anybody talking about using it. (Can anybody tell me how well this works?). Also have to install/compile/run something on my server, rather than just constructing/posting a URL and reading the results, which is what I prefer.
3) mtgox.com API:
Pros: Perfect API model (construct/post a URL, then read the results)
Cons: According to the documentation, I can send bitcoins via the API, but I don't see any way to generate a new address and then query if bitcoins have been received at that address. If I could do that, it would be perfect!
4) Manually parse webpage at mybitcoin.com or mtgox.com
Pros: I know how to do this
Cons: It would take a lot longer, it would be hacky, it would break when the webpage changed, and I'd have to find some way around the captcha at mybitcoin.com if I used that site
What do you guys (who have bitcoin-powered websites) do? If there is a really stupid-simple API to handle bitcoins from my webpage without installing anything, I've missed it.
Any help would be appreciated. I would like to point out that if such an API existed and was widely used/known, the difficulty in creating a new bitcoin-powered site would go down significantly.
Edit:Thanks for the comments everyone. It looks like what I want doesn't exist yet, so I'll offer a small bounty: 20BTC
Payable to the first online wallet service (new or existing) who provides the world with a URL API something like this:
https://www.coolservice.com?user=dacoinminster&pwd=mypassword&action=spend&address=bitcoin_address_to_send_to&amount=#
(an equivalent one for this already exists at mtgox)
https://www.coolservice.com?user=dacoinminster&pwd=mypassword&action=getnewaddress
(returns new bitcoin address which I can give to a customer)
https://www.coolservice.com?user=dacoinminster&pwd=mypassword&action=seecoins
(returns my BTC balance)
https://www.coolservice.com?user=dacoinminster&pwd=mypassword&action=seecoins&address=bitcoin_address_of_mine
(returns number of BTC sent to that address, and number of confirmations received so far)
https://www.coolservice.com?user=dacoinminster&pwd=mypassword&action=seetransactions
(returns all my transactions ever, with addresses and # of confirmations for each one)
Bounty is only payable if the service is free to everyone. Website must be either already trusted, or must establish a trustworthy reputation. Hopefully others interested in having a service like this will add to my little bounty.
Edit: Problem solved, and bounty
expired paid:
http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4324.msg77187#msg77187