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Facebook connect has been one of those things that I’ve been tinkering with for a while now. I started by downloading the example Facebook connect application from Facebook. and gradually found my way around using it. Im using the same authentication methods as Noah Hendrix’s did over at Nettuts, but extending this method to include updating a users newsfeed.
So to get started you need to head over to Facebook and create a new application
Below are the steps to setting up an application on Facebook.
The complete Facebook connect demo code is below. Lets take a look at it. In this example we’re simply authenticating a facebook user with javascript and posting their comment to the users news feed using the API. We also need to include a cross domain receiver file which allows us to transfer data between our domain and Facebook platform. If the user is authenticated we pull in their name, avatar, and profile url, and hide the name input field and facebook connect login button. Now when the user submits a comment (after the javascript alert which is there for demo purposes) they are given the option to post the comment to their newsfeed. Check out the video from the facebook connect developers below which explains how to setup the json code to dynamically update their newsfeed.
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
<title>Facebook demo</title>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
function auth_fb() {
var viewer = FB.Facebook.apiClient.fql_query(
'SELECT name, pic_square_with_logo ,profile_url FROM user WHERE uid='+FB.Facebook.apiClient.get_session().uid,
function(results) {
load_data( results[0].name,
results[0].pic_square_with_logo,
results[0].profile_url,
'FB.Connect.logoutAndRedirect("./index.html");return false;')
});
}
function load_data(name, image, url, logout) {
$('#userbox').html( "<a href='"+url+"'>"
+ "<img alt='"+name+"' src='"+image+"' /></a>"
+ "<div id='ubname'><a href='"+url+"'>" + name + " logged in with Facebook Connect</a></div> "
+ "<a href='./index.html' onclick='" + logout + "'>logout</a>" ).show();
$('div#submit').html( "<input type='submit' id='sub' onClick='fb_reg(); return false;' value='Post Comment' />");
$('#name').val(name);
$('#url').val(url);
$('#image').val(image);
$('#userinfo').hide();
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<form id="comment-form">
<div id="userbox" style="display:none;"></div>
<div id="userinfo">
<div class="login"><fb:login-button size="large" background="white" length="long" onlogin="auth_fb();"></fb:login-button></div>
Name: <br/><input id="name" name="name" type="text" />
<input id="url" name="url" type="hidden" />
<input id="image" name="image" type="hidden" />
</div>
<div class="clear"></div>
<div class="comment-cont">
Comment:<br />
<textarea name="comment" cols="40" id="comment-text"></textarea>
</div>
<br/>
<div id="submit"><input type="submit" id="sub" onclick="nor_reg(); return false;" value="Post Comment" /></div>
</form>
<script src="http://static.ak.connect.facebook.com/js/api_lib/v0.4/FeatureLoader.js.php" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
function nor_reg(){
if($('#comment-text').val() == ""){
alert("All fields are required");
}else{
alert("post the data to the database");
}}
function fb_reg(){
if($('#comment-text').val() == ""){
alert("All fields are required");
}else{
var text = $("#comment-text").val();
var data = {"comment": text};
FB.Connect.showFeedDialog(102888283195, data);
alert("post the data to the database");
}
}
FB.init("YOUR_API_KEY_GOES_HERE", "xd_receiver.html", {"ifUserConnected" : auth_fb});
</script>
</body>
</html>
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This webpage won’t render properly on my iphone4 – you may want to try and fix that
Pallavi says: very nice n useful tutorial..!!Thanks..!!
Bryan says: Great article.
Can you explain the use of jquery in this example. What was your reason for using it?
Thanks,
Bryan
This is great. Did you get a chance to test this in different browsers? Everything looks good in FireFox 3.5.3. Safari 4.0.3 shows an image not found placeholder above the Facebook connect button. IE 7 shows the same image not found placeholder, and doesn’t show the Facebook connect button at all.
FYI
@dan i’ve just installed the facebook connect wordpress plugin as im launching a new site design in the next few days, which may be interfering with the demo as its linked to the same account. All being well it should be sorted out soon with the site and demo functioning properly.
kewl.. thanx mate.. maybe i’ll need this for my next project..
But sometimes people didn’t want to do this, it’s not about a messsage but an apps in FB do you have any plugins that can run and play inside our blog using the FB Apps?
Please tell me if you have one, thanx..
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Designer and web developer, Co-founder and Technical Director at Harkable.com London. Previously I worked at InMobi, Spotify and MySpace. Interests include photography and making short videos. Also an avid F1 fan.
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13 discussions around Getting started with Facebook Connect & News Feed