BuddyPress

This is only a quick feature suggestion
Would it be possible to invite friends by using Facebook Contacts or Windows Live contacts for example
A feature such as the one facebook has for inviting people. Where you enter email and password for Googlemail/WindowsLive/AOL and it loads all email addresses from your contacts
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Nathan

There is a plugin developed that covered this, have a look through the plugin list. iirc it semed far too problematical for my use and I think it had to be configured from the dashboard which would have been an issue for users.

I’ve wanted the same type of integration. I suggested that Boone possibly integrate this little widget: http://www.plaxo.com/api/widget Not ideal, but gets you most of the way there.

This is definitely on my list. I’m going to have a good hard look at plaxo to see how much of its code I can steal.

@boone lol, would really lke to have something like this and perhaps if it can also find anyone on the site who is on their email contacts…you could also look at the invite friends plugin for buddypress it covered this, and the plugin developer is no longer working on it..

That was the plugin I was referring to, for reference:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/invitefriends-plug-in/

Thanks, @hnla and @dre1080. I have a suspicion that Facebook in particular has totally changed how their friends API works since the plugin you mention was last updated. But it’ll be a good place to start, at least.

I have a suspicion that this is a rod for your back have that feeling that it’s going to be one a PITA to get working correctly.

@hnla I have the same suspicion. That’s why I keep putting it off In fact, I deleted my Facebook account not too long ago so it’s going to be hard for me to find a way to test a FB contact importer.

great plugin! I wanted to know if there was any movement on the Plaxo plugin integration. IMHO, this is the biggest, fastest way to grow your community, and spread things virally, by having members invite friends and so forth.

@ehegwer I haven’t seen any movement. It actually would take a pretty big change to the plugin since it would have to change from a list of text boxes that have one email per textbox to a text area that’s comma delimited. Then, you’d have to split the text area into the individual addresses. Still not rocket science, but a little more work.

Either way, I plan to do it in the next couple weeks. Maybe I can offer my code to @boonebgorges if he wants. Although, I also just fond this open source package: http://openinviter.com/ It seems like an interesting option since it integrates with more social networks/email sites than the Plaxo one above. Plus, it’s open source. I haven’t figured out yet if there’s any drawbacks to using it.

Hi everyone. Thanks for the bump about this. To be honest, I haven’t even begun to look at this. The BP end of things, as John says, is not rocket science; nearly all the necessary stuff is already in IA to make the BP part of this work. Finding the right APIs (Plaxo, OpenInviter, or individual social apis) and integrating them is the tiresome part.

@techguy, if you make some progress integrating one of these things, I would be delighted to have a look at it and commit it to IA (with credit of course!). Otherwise it’s something I hope to get around to one of these days, but it probably won’t be any time very soon.

I’ve been looking at Open Inviter and it’s pretty straightforward. My biggest challenge will probably be doing it with some nice Ajax so that it’s all on the same page and not a 2 step process. My Ajax skills are weak, but I’ll give it a whirl and see what happens.

The interesting question here is that with Open Inviter it provides a long list of the contacts that it pulled with check boxes you can check or uncheck. I’m debating whether it’s better to let them uncheck emails or if it’s better to do like Facebook and just send it to everyone in the address book.

Thanks for the follow-up. I’d mimic FB, and let them check as needed.

@Ehegwer
Ok, so maybe I don’t know Facebook’s process. Which I guess makes sense since I didn’t have them pull my address book. Do they present you a list of email addresses with them all checked when you choose to pull your address book?