Google Talk Sidebar Widget 1.0 for WordPress 2.5

WordPress is great but each upgrade or theme change is a bit painful because all customizations have to be moved manually and as long they are direct file edits, including fixes for not quite correct theme files.

So after all at least some of the updates have to be made as WordPress Plugins.

Here we start with Google Talk Sidebar Widget Plugin (for WordPress 2.5). Google offered chatback badge to offer web chat through Jabber/XMPP compatible Google Talk instant messaging network.

User quotes:

What’s cool about it is it’s anonymous both ways. I don’t have to expose my Google-ness to random visitors on the web, and if it gets annoying I can turn it off. Also, and most likely to be actually useful, people I actually know can go to my blog, check my status, and ping me if I’m around, all without downloading a client. On their end, Google is just running a web browser session for them. They don’t even need a Google account.

Download link: wp-googletalk.zip

Permanent link: https://alax.info/blog/tag/wp-googletalk (to bookmark or revisit)

Installation is standard for plugins and after activation a new widget is available on widgets page.

Google Talk Sidebar Widget Configuration

Copy paste <iframe> code from Google chatback badge page into Text field and the widget is ready for use. on your website.

See also:

6 Replies to “Google Talk Sidebar Widget 1.0 for WordPress 2.5”

  1. Since I uploaded the plugin onto wordpress.org there have been quite a lot of people came here to check if this really works. Here will be most interesting questions. Not that I know the answers, but there will be hopefully someone to correct.

    Q: Hi, I got your wp-googletalk plugin on my website – there ist one ‘but’ – when Im offline plugin is also offline – why can’t somebody leave me a messege?

    This is how Google decided it to work. The messages are anonymous – maybe because of this – or maybe because the message is handled not by pure Jabber/XMPP (IM) client, but the web extension which is started from the link sent to Jabber/XMPP client and the entire conversation is web based on both sides. Anyhow, offline messages are lost.

    Q: Will the entire thing work with Google Apps for Domain

    I don’t see a reason why not as long as you are logged in to Google’s instant messaging network, either via Jabber/XMPP protocol on talk.google.com port 5223, or through Google Mail web interface. If the assumption is correct for Google Apps for Domain, then I believe it would work.

  2. Q: Im testing… Need signup for gmail for use this plugin?

    You don’t need as a visitor, however if you need to put this onto your website then you have to have an account with Google Talk service.

  3. Q: Is this one with one chat or it can be many ppl inside one chat?

    This instant messaging chat is one visitor and the one who hosts website (talkback badge owner). If there are 2+ visitors, the chat owner sees independent windows for every visitor, so vistors cant see each other.

  4. Q: Is it allowed for even the subscribers to talk among each other?

    No, visitors only see chat window with the host and the host has a separate window for each visitor.

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