Getting started with Facebook Connect & News Feed
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.
Firstly navigate to the Facebook developer homepage to register your application
Choose a name for your app and agree to the Terms
Your application key along with your secret is displayed on the next page
Click connect in the menu to add the URL to which your application will be hosted
You now need to put your API key in here.
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.
Facebook Connect and Newsfeeds Video
Final Code
<!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>
Getting started with Facebook Connect & News Feed…
Using Facebook connect to authenticate a user and post dynamic content to a users news feed using jQuery and the facebook platform.
…
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..
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.
Great article.
Can you explain the use of jquery in this example. What was your reason for using it?
Thanks,
Bryan
Hi!
good tutorial
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