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Social Media in profiles here on SMF...

Started by Douglas, March 12, 2013, 02:20:32 PM

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Douglas

Just noticed this the other day and have a couple questions on this...

Are these handled via the Additional Profile fields or are these now part of the core Profile components (no modifications need to be installed).

If these are, indeed, core Profile components (as I hope they are), are there any plans to build SMF up to allow people to register/sign in using their Social Media accounts?

Thanks. :)
Doug Hazard
* Full Stack (Web) Developer for The Catholic Diocese of Richmond
(20+ Diocesan sites, 130+ Church sites & 24 School sites)
* Sports Photographer and Media Personality
* CFB Historian
* Tech Admin for one 1M+ post, one 2M+ post and one 10M+ post sites (last two are powered by multiple servers)
* WordPress Developer (Junkie / Guru / Maven / whatever)

Arantor

QuoteAre these handled via the Additional Profile fields

Yes.

Quoteare there any plans to build SMF up to allow people to register/sign in using their Social Media accounts?

No. The policy has always been against third party systems like this, especially given how frequently FB/Twitter/etc. seem to change their APIs (based on how often the various mods for this seem to have to update)

Certainly 2.1 does not have anything of this built in. I'd be surprised if it *ever* becomes a core feature.

Douglas

Quote from: Arantor
QuoteAre these handled via the Additional Profile fields
Yes.
Okay, so this changes my next question then: What Mod package is being used to allow the Twitter icon to show up with the rest of the icons to the left?

(Yes, I want this on Hogville, hahaha)

BTW, the URL needs to be changed. Twitter stopped using "/#!" as part of their URLs due to some browsers not being able to handle that.

Fubar'd: http://www.twitter.com/#!/BearlyDoug
Good: http://www.twitter.com/BearlyDoug

(if you click on the fubar'd link, you'll notice that Twitter automatically bounces it over to the good link)
Doug Hazard
* Full Stack (Web) Developer for The Catholic Diocese of Richmond
(20+ Diocesan sites, 130+ Church sites & 24 School sites)
* Sports Photographer and Media Personality
* CFB Historian
* Tech Admin for one 1M+ post, one 2M+ post and one 10M+ post sites (last two are powered by multiple servers)
* WordPress Developer (Junkie / Guru / Maven / whatever)

Arantor

QuoteOkay, so this changes my next question then: What Mod package is being used to allow the Twitter icon to show up with the rest of the icons to the left?

Um... the advanced profile fields in SMF out of the box can do this. Set the placement to 'with icons' and the 'show within enclosed text' option with something like:

<a class="twitter" href="http://twitter.com/#!/{INPUT}" target="_blank" title="Twitter - {INPUT}"><img src="{IMAGES_URL}/fields/twitter.png" alt="Twitter - {INPUT}"></a>

to display it. It's pretty much what's here. I personally also add a regex validation:
~[a-z0-9_]{1,16}~i

just to make sure it's at least legal if not right.

Douglas

Completely brainfarted on this one, didn't I, Arantor? ::chuckles:: So beautifully easy to do (already added in).

The input text should be updated to reflect that "/#!" is no longer used by Twitter.

Thanks, man. :D
Doug Hazard
* Full Stack (Web) Developer for The Catholic Diocese of Richmond
(20+ Diocesan sites, 130+ Church sites & 24 School sites)
* Sports Photographer and Media Personality
* CFB Historian
* Tech Admin for one 1M+ post, one 2M+ post and one 10M+ post sites (last two are powered by multiple servers)
* WordPress Developer (Junkie / Guru / Maven / whatever)

Arantor

Bah, it wasn't that long ago I updated *to* include the /#!, I wish they'd just make their mind up and stick to it >_<

LiroyvH

Quote from: Arantor on March 12, 2013, 03:53:08 PM
Bah, it wasn't that long ago I updated *to* include the /#!, I wish they'd just make their mind up and stick to it >_<

It's their job to annoy people ya know :P
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Please do not PM for support - anything else is usually OK.

Oldiesmann

Quote from: Douglas on March 12, 2013, 03:01:59 PM
Completely brainfarted on this one, didn't I, Arantor? ::chuckles:: So beautifully easy to do (already added in).

The input text should be updated to reflect that "/#!" is no longer used by Twitter.

Thanks, man. :D

Thanks for the tip Doug. I've updated the profile field here :)
Michael Eshom
Christian Metal Fans

JBlaze

Psst... Twitter also stopped using the www. subdomain. Just something to look at for consistency.

* Jason Clemons OCD is kicking in...
Jason Clemons
Former Team Member 2009 - 2012

emanuele

I once wrote few simple "mods" with pre-configured custom fields for few of those social things, don't remember exactly where I put them...


Take a peek at what I'm doing! ;D




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Arantor

Oh and they use https by default.

* Arantor had to update That Other Software for this reason, but only a mild change was required, heh.

Douglas

Even though it was pretty much shot down that this could be a core component for handling logins, I would still like to see an official SMF Mod package that supports this.

Given how popular Twitter and Facebook are, it would make sense to re-think SMF's official position.

vBullcrap has a package upgrade ($100) available for integrating Facebook logins.
IPB has native Twitter Connect support.

I know that a growing concern for SMF is how to keep up with current trends and to help set SMF apart from the rest of the forum software packages. Given the fact that Social Media is continuing to grow and be such a key component to online communication, I'm actually surprised at the resistance shown to integrate and support Social media logins.

No disrespect to any of the current social media connect mod package authors, but I'd rather see this developed and implemented by the team itself.

I'm sure that I'm not the only person that feels this way. :)
Doug Hazard
* Full Stack (Web) Developer for The Catholic Diocese of Richmond
(20+ Diocesan sites, 130+ Church sites & 24 School sites)
* Sports Photographer and Media Personality
* CFB Historian
* Tech Admin for one 1M+ post, one 2M+ post and one 10M+ post sites (last two are powered by multiple servers)
* WordPress Developer (Junkie / Guru / Maven / whatever)

Arantor

1. The APIs change very regularly, meaning that development would *have* to be done on a faster basis solely to keep up with those changes. Not to mention the surprisingly increased support load.

2. The team has shown great reluctance to support third party dependencies in the core, partly from a maintenance concern and partly from a security concern. For example, SMF's paid subs are now broken unless you're on 2.0.3 or higher due to PayPal changing their API.

3. I do not believe the need is as great as you believe it to be. Experience has also shown that it doesn't necessarily yield more comments - depends mostly on the site in question and the niche it's in, not so much being generically available is an advantage.

4. There are issues with the implementation SMF's user authentication model that neither vBulletin nor IPB have that would make this... cumbersome at best to implement. Namely that in both vBulletin and IPB, the admin panel is a separate area of code, it does not run through index.php or their equivalent - the consequence of which is that forum logins and admin logins are physically separate. This doesn't sound like a big deal until you realise that in IPB at least, you can *totally disable* internal authentication for users on the forum, forcing all logins through Facebook should you so desire, or LDAP, or Twitter or even IP.Connect.

This may not sound like a huge deal but it is - it has serious issues around keeping admin accounts secure, that aren't present in the other platforms you mention.

* Arantor should note, he is a current licence holder for IP Suite, vB and XenForo.

I'd also note that I feel exactly the same way about not implementing those things in the core for Wedge, for mostly the same reasons. I have no qualms about providing that functionality - but not in the core.

Kindred

there are integration mods for Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ already built by SA...   

As Arantor points out, the main reason behind not making this part of core is that the third parties can (and do) change their interfaces frequently...   So, implementing a facebook login, and then them changing their API would require a version upgrade patch...  whereas, with a mod, it's a pretty simple fix (and doesn't require those who don't care about it to worry about. it :) )

This is a plus feature for many sites, sure... but since there is a pretty effective and well built mod already out there....... :)
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