Ning Integration

Abstract

Ning is a social networking platform that allows anyone to create its own social network. At the end of 2010, Ning has published APIs permitting network owners to use, from a third party application, the functionalities of its network. Ning Integration project is a solution to exploit these features from a Drupal site.

The Project

This project currently includes the following modules:

• ningauth: the ningauth module allows a Drupal-site administrator to permits the delegation of authentication to one or several Ning network(s). Once properly configured, this module allows a user to authenticate on the Drupal-site with the username and password that she/he usually use on a Ning network.
  The authentication phase is carried out under two scenarios left to free choice of the Drupal administrator:
  • Exclusive mode: users are authenticated only on configured Ning networks.
  • Mixed mode: the module first tries to authenticate the user on the user base of the Drupal-site. If it fails, it then tries to authenticate on configured Ning networks. A (configurable) procedure for resolving "users conflicts" is executed if a user with the same name is present in the user base of the Drupal-site and in the Ning network.

  This module lets you manage the precedence of Ning networks and allows password synchronization (optional). It also allows role-mapping between Drupal and Ning: for example, a Ning user with moderator role can be mapped to a specific role in Drupal.

Comparison

The authentication mechanism of the ningauth module is based on the OAuth protocol (such as Twitter module, for example). It uses Drupal-standard procedures, forms and blocks (like LDAP integration module, for example).

Deliverables

This project is structured as a conventional Drupal project. It contains the php files of the first module (ningauth) for D6 and a brief installation (and configuration) guide.

Roadmap

I want to release a version for D7 (short-term), and release two additional modules for interacting with the timeline of a Ning network and importing / exporting medias (medium-term).

Initial CVS submission is here : http://drupal.org/node/967758