If Instagram is going to stop people like us embedding an Instagram feed of a few pictures on our RW web sites I’ll need to find an alternative that’s just as easy for clients to use. I realise that’s unlikely, but wonder if anyone has come across a neat, easy way to let clients snap a photo on their phone and then upload it to their website with the minimum of fuss.
I’m pretty sure I did it in the past using a combination of EasyCMS and Gallery 3 and a bit of extra code from BWD, but I’m not sure whether it meets the ‘dead easy’ criterion.
A discussion here, in which some Instagram alternatives (from the perspective of service) were discussed:
Building your own Instagram in RapidWeaver is likely to be more challenging and you would have to make some compromises as to how it functioned. I would personally consider Droplet + ProGallery in combination or use the WebYep Gallery to upload images directly into a lightbox gallery with captions.
Both solutions would require some image editing on the part of the user - to reduce image sizes and apply the Instagram filters they want. But it terms of uploading, it would work anywhere, without dependencies on needing apps.
No new APIs are available from Facebook that are suitable for developers to use for tasks like embedding Instagram accounts in websites. Gradually they are all breaking one-by-one.
All will be gone in 2020, as that page on Instagram says.
Not just RapidWeaver. Every platform including Wordpress is suffering the same trauma.
Best to act now and have contingency plans in place. Don’t wait for the inevitable problem of clients complaining to you that their galleries have ceased displaying. Try and get an alternative solution in place.
Our WordPress sites with Instagram Feeds use a Smash Balloon plug-in and they are up to date with the Basic Display API - what’s the problem with this?
Basic - to read a user’s own profile info and media in early 2020
Essentially, that is interpreted as meaning Basic Display API is closing down in early 2020.
“Early” is subjective. It could be 1st January 2020 or 20th May 2020. Who knows! Instagram did a great job of pulling the rug from under many developers this year (myself included), without any warning.
The only API Facebook appear to be keeping alive is the Instagram Graph API.
But a quick browse of the documentation shows that this API is mostly dealing with Instagram integrations in phone apps. For example if you developed an Android or iOS camera app, there is potentially some stuff here that lets you add buttons that allow a person to share a picture or video into the main Instagram app.
If you look at the documentation from the perspective of someone wanting to build Instagram into a website, there’s practically nothing there. I have failed to find anything conclusive. And I believe that what you do decide to build with Instagram Graph API, has to be reviewed and approved by Facebook - similar to the Apple App Store approval process. No doubt a direct consequence of the Cambridge Analytica fallout.
Instagram cite security as the reason for shutting down all these APIs. Maybe for the phone and tablet apps. But it has never been feasible for an Instagram stack to gain access to your account and post data or steal sensitive stuff.
I think the truth of the matter is more to do with the fact that Facebook make their money through targeted advertising and mass data harvesting. So they want all our third-party stacks and other plugins banished, so everyone is encouraged to use the official apps instead.
I spent some time last night with Gallery 3 and File Manager (Stacks4Stacks). It’s not bad, but I still need to work out a way to allow clients to add captions in the way they can with Instagram.
I’ll have a further go with that and if it’s not enough, might experiment with GoCMS galleries; and I believe there’s an option to remote edit Poster stack content?
Strikes me that the real problem is that my clients use Instagram, it’s intuitive and familiar plus all the Instagram “Follow” benefits. Having it also post on their website is the magic dust.
Could using an IFTTT.com “Post Instagram images to Twitter as native pics with backlink” Recipe and then using a Twitter embed stack work to get around this problem?
Even if that would work, which I have doubts, it would be short lived. @willwood is spot on FB wants all traffic on its platform and apps. They have been systematically shutting down access to “their” data for quite a while now.
I agree that ease of use is the key. If someone could come up with a way of letting someone snap a photo, add a short caption and then upload it from their phone into a grid that had an Instagram-style filter already applied (from a choice of a dozen) and turn it into a stack, they’d be onto a winner.
WeaverPix used to do some of this. It had a companion iPhone app you could use for uploading images and data onto your RW website. Maybe you should pitch the idea to Greg to see if he might think about bringing something back?
If enough people were to pledge their support, there stands a greater chance of something happening.
At the end I have all technical components available. Just have to stick them together
What about the comments part? Don’t forget: Having an on it’s own living version of Instagram on your own website without all the commenting, featuring, sharing features isn’t as cool to use as the real Instagram. It’s not just the simple design, it’s even more the social part of it.
