Is it possible to integrate Google+ and WordPress?
September 17, 2011 8:42 AM Subscribe
Google+WordPress integration: ridiculous idea or this might just be crazy enough to work?
I've got a few self hosted websites (using Wordpress) that sit at the end of a less than robust internet connection. While I like the benefits of self hosting (local editing of CSS and PHP files, etc), I really don't want to serve up images over that connection and I'd love to be able to better control visibility of posts without necessarily forcing readers to join my site.
I also have a Google+ account which I use sporadically. What I'm wondering is, now that Google has released their Google+ API, would it be possible to somehow "embed" my G+ Profile into my WordPress site, effectively replacing my posts with those from the stream while wrapping it all with my theme's CSS?
Ideally I'd be able to use G+ Circles to restrict access to posts I don't want public, use Google+ accounts for commenting, let Google do the heavy lifting for me content-wise, and still be able to leverage WordPress plugins via the sidebars.
Does this seem like something that should be doable? Or am I just asking for disappointment pursuing this? Is the whole idea flawed and, if so, why?
I've got a few self hosted websites (using Wordpress) that sit at the end of a less than robust internet connection. While I like the benefits of self hosting (local editing of CSS and PHP files, etc), I really don't want to serve up images over that connection and I'd love to be able to better control visibility of posts without necessarily forcing readers to join my site.
I also have a Google+ account which I use sporadically. What I'm wondering is, now that Google has released their Google+ API, would it be possible to somehow "embed" my G+ Profile into my WordPress site, effectively replacing my posts with those from the stream while wrapping it all with my theme's CSS?
Ideally I'd be able to use G+ Circles to restrict access to posts I don't want public, use Google+ accounts for commenting, let Google do the heavy lifting for me content-wise, and still be able to leverage WordPress plugins via the sidebars.
Does this seem like something that should be doable? Or am I just asking for disappointment pursuing this? Is the whole idea flawed and, if so, why?
Response by poster: michaelh, wouldn't that just mean anything I shared with Public would be visible on the website to any visitor and anything restricted by Circles wouldn't unless the person was logged in to G+ and in a Circle I was sharing with? (Or you mean I couldn't use their logged in state within the iframe at all?)
posted by JaredSeth at 9:06 AM on September 17, 2011
posted by JaredSeth at 9:06 AM on September 17, 2011
What you're proposing might be possible, but it wouldn't be trivial to implement. I can imagine reposting G+ posts to WP would probably be the (relatively) easy part. Reproducing your G+ circles and related permissions inside WP, I'm not sure how you'd manage that. In any case, you'd need to throw a fair amount of money at the problem to get a coder to produce something.
posted by adamrice at 9:29 AM on September 17, 2011
posted by adamrice at 9:29 AM on September 17, 2011
Response by poster: adam, I don't actually want to recreate the G+ stream inside of WP...I want to embed the whole thing. So I wouldn't be reproducing Circles so much as actually using them as is on the site. (i.e. it would really still be Google+, just in an iframe on my own URL)
Mods: sorry if it seems like I'm threadsitting. I just want to be clear about what it is I'm thinking of trying.
posted by JaredSeth at 9:34 AM on September 17, 2011
Mods: sorry if it seems like I'm threadsitting. I just want to be clear about what it is I'm thinking of trying.
posted by JaredSeth at 9:34 AM on September 17, 2011
It's easy to add an iFrame to a Wordpress page, then make that page the home page (or whatever) in Settings > Reading.
As far as I can see this plugin should still work. You could also mess with Wordpress core via plugin to disable its killing iframe tags yourself. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/embed-iframe/
posted by michaelh at 10:05 AM on September 17, 2011 [1 favorite]
As far as I can see this plugin should still work. You could also mess with Wordpress core via plugin to disable its killing iframe tags yourself. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/embed-iframe/
posted by michaelh at 10:05 AM on September 17, 2011 [1 favorite]
OK, inserting an iframe would have nothing to do with the G+ API—that is, it should work regardless of the API. I don't know how the iframe would interact with cookies (which would be needed to determine your readers' signed-in state). And I don't think (could be wrong here) you'd be able to style the iframe'd content.
posted by adamrice at 11:12 AM on September 17, 2011
posted by adamrice at 11:12 AM on September 17, 2011
Response by poster: Played around a bit with the embedded iframes (I wound up using PageView instead of embed-iframe, michaelh) and it appears I can't embed my public facing G+ page, perhaps because Google is pushing all of those pages via https. I did confirm that I could embed other, non-https Google sites like the search page which is why I suspect that's the problem. Either way, thanks for the tips guys.
I did realize after I asked that this really wasn't a case for the API. Although now that I think about it, I wouldn't have wanted the entire page embedded anyway...just the stream of posts. I may need to rethink this idea.
posted by JaredSeth at 1:09 PM on September 17, 2011
I did realize after I asked that this really wasn't a case for the API. Although now that I think about it, I wouldn't have wanted the entire page embedded anyway...just the stream of posts. I may need to rethink this idea.
posted by JaredSeth at 1:09 PM on September 17, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by michaelh at 9:02 AM on September 17, 2011