As I told a co-worker 20+ years ago, there is no better way to learn how to do something than having a problem to solve. I need to solve a problem. My WordPress Google Form plugin originally came from a project to help our Middle School Athletics Booster Club. It solved the problem at hand but over time I’ve added more features to it, not because the Booster Club needed them but because people asked or they were interesting problems I was compelled to solve.
Our Booster Club now wants to have an Online Shop and after playing with a couple of eCommerce plugins, I’ve decided to go with WooCommerce. The only thing really missing is the ability to sell a Booster Club Membership. Our membership process isn’t easily handled by any of the eCommerce plugins I’ve looked at. WooCommerce has a paid for add-on module that looks promising but I am reluctant to buy something without trying it first.
I’d really like to inject a PayPal “pay” button into WordPress Google Form and simply use it for our membership registration but doing so isn’t simple. PayPal makes the Payment API look very simple in their documentation but from what I’ve read, it isn’t quite so simple.
With as much mucking around with the DOM I’ve done to Google Forms usiing jQuery I don’t think it would be too hard to insert a PayPal button in place of the Submit. Handling all of the handshaking isn’t quite as simple though. There doesn’t appear to be an easy solution but that is what makes for a good problem. I’ll keep noodling on it, there has to be something I can.