I’ve been working with Google Drive integration for three years, and honestly the biggest pain isn’t CodeIgniter - it’s Google’s restrictions on document rendering. You can pull content through the Drive API, but you only get HTML export or plain text back. All the formatting gets stripped out. For proper document display, you’re stuck with Google’s embedded viewer iframe. Editing is where it gets messy - Google won’t let you manipulate content directly through third-party interfaces anymore (security reasons). Most production apps I’ve seen use a hybrid setup: show document previews in your interface, then pop open Google’s native editor when users need to edit. CodeIgniter handles the OAuth flow and API calls just fine, but you need to plan carefully around these UX limitations. And forget about collaboration features like real-time cursors or comments - the API doesn’t expose any of that.
yeah, codeigniter handles this fine, but google docs api is pretty limited for what u want. u can grab documents and display basic content, but forget about real-time editing like actual google docs - it’s basically impossible without redirecting users. I’d go with google picker api instead - let users select their docs, then embed with iframes. much easier than wrestling with api restrictions.
I encountered a similar problem a couple of years back, so here’s what I’ve learned. You can successfully authenticate with the Google Drive API in CodeIgniter and fetch document metadata, but displaying documents with accurate formatting is a complex issue. Google discontinued the viewer API that made this process simpler. When it comes to editing, you have two options that are less than ideal: either redirect users to the Google Docs editor (ensuring the proper authentication flow) or work with raw content directly through the API, which can lead to significant formatting setbacks. The raw method means constant format conversions, which can be a hassle. It’s also important to note that Zend GData is no longer supported, so using Google’s newer client libraries is a better choice as they offer better compatibility with CodeIgniter and support all Workspace apps, including Google Docs. While CodeIgniter can manage the integration smoothly, the actual constraints are primarily from Google, not your chosen framework. In fact, I would recommend embedding the Google Docs iframe editor rather than attempting to create a custom solution.