Generate User API Key from CiviCRM Interface

It is inconvenient to not be able to use the REST interface until you hunt and find the documentation (http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/REST+interface) to tell you to manually insert an api_key in your database to use it. Further, this prevents semi- (or full) self-service use of CiviCRM's REST api.

I couldn't find anything that generates a key in civicrm already, but something like this should be unique enough:

<?php

$api_key = sha1(mt_rand().$contactId.$contactName);

?>

As well as a field or even a field+button pair in the "Edit Contact" view.