Share image including some attributes (e.g. description) on Facebook over web without app validation hassle - facebook

I want to share an image from a website on Facebook and pass some attributes (e.g. a description) to the status update, all done by clicking on a link.
A few months ago this worked fine using the sharer.php but by now this script just accepts a URL as parameter and scrapes the target site for Open Graph meta tags. This new approach isn't very helpfull if you just want to share elements on a page instead of the whole page.
Yeah, I could create an app and use the feed dialog to achieve my goal. But I honestly don't want to walk through the tedious app validation process just to share an image with some additional info!
So, does anyone know of a way to avoid this app hassle? Perhaps some undocumented parameters for the new implementation of the sharer.php?

There's no need for app validation - as #CBroe correctly stated! So the feed dialog IS an adequate solution!
Background: I assumed an app needs validation to go live. But I just didn't set up my app properly to make it available to every Facebook user.
See the comments to gloat over my stupidity. ;)

Related

Facebook Open Graph: URL to use for sharing?

I am creating a customised Facebook share button. The idea is upon clicking on the Facebook share button, it will pick up the meta tags on the page and prefill the share information with a title, description and image that have been curated.
What URL should I be using for the button?
There is https://www.facebook.com/dialog/share
and https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php
I heard the latter has been deprecated? And you can append a whole bunch of information to the URL as well?
I can't quite figure that out.
sharer.php is not deprecated. It was, for some months, but you can definitely use it. The benefit of using sharer.php is that you don´t need to create an App. It´s the easiest way to implement sharing.
Keep in mind that sharer.php ONLY takes the URL as parameter, everything else will get loaded from the Open Graph tags.
For example:
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ffacebook.com%2F

Facebook do I need app_id to integrate open graph on my website

I have been reading about using Open Graph (OG) meta tags to improve the way facebook works with your website. I have read two tutorials that say to create an application and use the application ID. But I am not developing an application, all I have is a business page... Can I just the page ID?
Can anybody also point out any good, simple resources around the using OG in my website?
Thanks
The sharer.php method (which is deprecated) allows you to post without an application. The feed/post method appears to require an app_id, though it's possible that there's some way around that. On the bright side, there's nothing complex about creating an application, so, if that's what you must do, I'd say just do it :)
Here is an example of how it works *with an app using the feed/post method (you'll need to click the "Post to feed" link at the top (yes I know it doesn't look like a link!).
and Here is the same exact example only using Sharer (notice that this time it's pointing at a slightly different url (drawImageForFB2.php instead of drawImageForFB4.php).
I use a php to render the tags based on the vidId that I collect but that's neither here nor there... you could just as easily have this as a static HTML page.
The innards of the OG tag are just about identical and the app_id tag in the OG is entirely optional as it pertains to the second example).
Oh, and addthis does it using the dialog api which looks like this
https://www.facebook.com/dialog/feed?redirect_uri=http://s7.addthis.com/static/postshare/c00.html&app_id=140586622674265&link=http://support.addthis.com/customer/portal/articles/381222-optimize-facebook-sharing#.UQ8bBJM9KQk.facebook&name=Optimize%20Facebook%20Sharing&description=

Multiple Facebook share button/link on the same page refering different TITLE & LINK

I need to create a "contest" page where user will be asked to submit picture.
After that, they should be able to share their picture on FB, Twitter, G+, Pinterest, etc for other people to come and vote.
I want the page to be displayed as a jQuery gallery and whenever people select a thumbnail, the bigger picture open with the associated vote and "share" button.
When a user share an image, I want a specific TITLE & URL associated with that particular image... something like "http://www.mysite.com/contest.html#picture1"... or "http://www.mysite.com/contest.html#picture2"
How is this possible if I only have one page?
I wouldn't have problem if I could use the old "facebook.com/sharer.php" with parameters... but it seems that the Open Graph Protocol is "overiding" the sharer.php parameters....
Works fine with Twitter and Pinterest... I might have the same problem with Google+.
Excuse my bad english, thanks!
Well, set up a (“dummy”) page for each picture, and fill it with the appropriate OG tags … and have your users like that. And then put a JS redirect into that page, so that users following the link when it’s shared on Facebook will get to the “real” address you want them to end up at.
(Btw., IMHO this is what happens too often these days when people think doing everything client-side and client-side only is so “fancy” and that a “good” and “modern” site requires all that AJAX/one-page-only nonsense instead of a real good and working URL structure, and then are not able to handle all that this implies properly …)

Creating a Facebook App

I am building a website for a client. He has a Facebook page for his business. On the homepage of his site, he wants a feed that will pull in all the updates from his business' Facebook page.
Now, I felt this would be very easy to implement (maybe it is) but I have scoured the Facebook API for any simple way to do this. I am having a lot of trouble understanding which way I should do this. I've settled on using JS to access it, but have no idea where to go from there.
Do I need to create an app? If so, which options do I select so I can access the clients facebook page?
How do I get my app that I've created to show up so a user can authorize it? I have so many questions, and Facebook isn't very good at giving me answers.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
I would suggest you just use the facebook page's RSS feed.
Example
Take his page URL e.g.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lazery-Attack/6001014870
Take the number at the end of the url off, and plug it into the facebook feeds URL e.g.
https://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?format=rss20&id=6001014870
Voila, you now have an RSS feed you can integrate into the website you are building.
URL Breakdown
The URL is broken down the following way:
https://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?format={feedFormat}&id={PageID}
Vaid feed formats are:
RSS - rss20
Atom - atom10
JSON - json
Other Examples
Atom
https://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?format=atom10&id=6001014870
JSON
https://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?format=json&id=6001014870
Take a look at the facebook API, right here: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/page/
You can give it a try here:
http://developers.facebook.com/tools/explorer/?method=GET&path=19292868552%2Fposts
The like box: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like-box/ also has the latest posts available
The simplest way is to add a Like Button to the page and make sure "show Stream" is checked on as this will show all recent posts. You can customise the appearance also (e.g. width, height etc).
No App or messy API calls needed!
Try it out here and simply paste the resulting code into your webpage:
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like-box/
Not an app, but the Facebook Social Plugins over here at Facebook For Pages

Getting facebook profile picture

i need to get the facebook profile picture of anyone by passing their id. But i no need to use facebook API or Graph anything else.. Just i need to give the url with that id.. Is it possible to get the profile picture in this way? I tried in google but i didnt get it. If anyone knows this please respond me...
Well, I think the only options available are:
https://graph.facebook.com/[PROFILE_ID]/picture (You can include this URL inside a tag and it will work).
Scrap yourself the page corresponding to the profile, i.e. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=[PROFILE_ID] and get the URL of the picture there.
I would suggest you to use the first one, because it gives you more flexibility about the picture size (?type=small, ?type=thumbnail, etc).
Edit
Keep in mind that this answer is from 2011, and Facebook makes changes in its APIs frequently.
Apart from using Graph API as already mentioned above (https://graph.facebook.com/[PROFILE_ID]/picture), there are a couple more ways:
FlipTop has a service that pulls up all sorts of information on Facebook users, including direct CDN URLs (e.g. https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/275588_504804917_147319_n.jpg) of profile pictures. (Link to API documentation)
Cloudinary has a similar service, but with hosting thrown in the mix. They do require you to open an account, but it's free. Then you can use their CDN URL format to link to any picture like this: http://res.cloudinary.com/[YOUR_ACCOUNT]/image/facebook/[PROFILE_ID].jpg (Read more here)