Seamless membership integration between Elgg 1.8 and Drupal 7

Question

How would I go about integrating the membership features of drupal with elgg social networking features?

I would presumably have them on subdomains and them people would use their already created account on my drupal site on my social section. Are there any plugins for this purpose? If not then where would be the best place to start.

I only have basic PHP knowledge so I am a bit new to this whole thing.

Amar

Answer 1

There are no public plugins, as far as I can find, to integrate Elgg and Drupal.

Integrating two pieces of software isn't really a hand-holding task, because you know how you want the two sites integrated better than any of us. Plus, it's usually a pretty big project in itself, and it's not easy to answer with a simple "do this and this."

If you feel like you have enough PHP knowledge to read a script and have a fair understanding of what's happening, you should look into the scripts of both Elgg and Drupal. Thoroughly study how both softwares operate, and how they develop their features. Look up everything you don't know about. Really think about how you can intertwine the features you want. This integration definitely won't be done in a day; prepare for weeks or months of your investment.

From personal experience, I recommend you select one software to be the "base," which the other software will conform to. For example, if you like how members are authenticated throughout Elgg and how each page is structured, consider conforming Drupal's features to Elgg's architecture.

If you feel like you're a pretty novice programmer, on the other hand, perhaps you should start with a smaller project to get the ropes of developing software. Create your own personal social networking site, or content management system. After all, integrating two pieces of software can be very similar to making one piece of software from scratch, since there's usually so much to alter.

Good luck!