What you’re talking about is a super tight SSO integration. I don’t know if we have any examples of anyone going to quite this length, but it should be doable just using the Discourse API. You most likely don’t wanna be embedding user preferences in other pages.
I think the idea of a 100% centralised profile is a pipe dream though. Literally no one does this, because centralisation eventually needs to make way for context. There’s some overlap between your Google Plus profile and your YouTube account for instance, but managing your YouTube notification preferences, followed channels etc. makes a whole lot more sense in the context of YouTube as opposed to inside Google Plus.
I wouldn’t want things like my Discourse e-mail notifications or “Consider new when” preferences in a non-Discourse page. That easily gets super confusing.
I can get behind a hybrid system though, which some Discourse sites are already doing to varying degrees. Like:
Lock up the following options in preferences:
- Username
- Name
- Password
- Profile picture
- Profile background
- User card background
- Interface language
- About me
- Location
- Website
And only make them editable through a parent profile which is set up as the SSO provider.