Ok so I got my invite into the Google Friend Connect program today and was quickly scrambling to integrate the new service into Joomla installation. Lo and behold I must be one of the first people to have been accepted into the Google Friend Connect Program since I couldn't even find another website that had the user modules installed let alone having the code integrated into Joomla. Obviously being the first to few drawbacks since I didn't really have any information on how to integrate the Google Friend Connect code into Joomla, so I decided to write this article to help you out.
Okay like most Google code snippets the entire system is integrated using JavaScript. Once you receive your Google friend connect invitation Google steps you through the entire setup process. The first part that they have to set up is the member module which lets people see who is already a member of your site and a member of Google friend connect. Once you have created the code for this module unique integrated into one of your Joomla Modules. If you do a search through the Joomla extensions library there is obviously no ready-made extensions.
So I began searching through the Joomla extensions directory to find an extension that would allow me to install Javascript directly into Joomla modules. Now some people may be wondering why I didnt just place the javascript code inside of my site template directory. Well first that would mean I would run the chance of messing up my Joomlashack template that I bought. And second that is not the reason why I use a CMS. I use a CMS to easily move module navigation around. So including javascript inside of a Joomla module would let me control the placing of the module as well as change the positioning dynamically whenever I want. Since Google Friend Connect is still in Beta I want to easily be able to configure where and how the modules will be to play with the effectiveness.
So I tried a number of Joomla extensions and the one that seems to work the best for integrating JavaScript was the Jumi extension located here:
http://extensions.joomla.org/component/option,com_mtree/task,viewlink/link_id,1023/Itemid,35/
It has great reviews and was easy to install. Once you have the Jumi extension installed you need to log into your admin panel again and click on the extensions tab and then choose modules. Now choose new and choose Jumi. Here's where you name the module. I choose to hide the title. Then you paste your Google friend connect code into the section called code written. If you're Joomla template allows you to place styles on modules you can also add this designation under the advanced parameters section. Not just publish it and you should see your Google friend connect module directly integrated into Joomla. Nice and easy right.
Now currently Google friend connect doesn't offer you to many different gadgets. The only ones that are available are the members gadget and then under the social gadgets section you can choose to include a review and rate gadget and also a wall gadget. Let's hope the wall gadget was a bit too goofy for my site so I didn't use it. But I did create another module inside of Joomla to integrate the review and rate gadget.
For the review and rate gadget I created the module to only show up on content pages, which is obviously the best place to put the code. You could always include multiple Google gadgets inside of a single Joomla module but I wanted the option to decide on what pages the google friend connect gadgets would show up.
