Facebook Tabs - Difference between apps vs tabs - facebook

I have recently inherited the Admin/developer role for our page and I am new to Facebook Development. I am attempting to add a new tab to our page and the only option I am getting is to build an App but all of the App options I come across make it sound like it's trying to do more than what I want it to do.
What I want to do is produce a tab on the page. That will link to an app/canvas displaying an image that the user can click to go to our offer.
So far I've built a basic app with Display Name, namespace, Page Tab Name, Page Tab URL and a Tab image. but when I refresh my page I do not get a new tab and when I preview the app page it is not the format I am looking for.
I've tried going through the tutorials but since this is all new to me I ahve yet to make any sense as to what I'm looking for or missing. Could anyone let me know what app format I am looking for? Or am I in the wrong place entirely?

You need to explicitly add an app to a page. Not sure if you've tried it or not but navigate to:
https://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id=YOUR_APP_ID
&display=popup&next=YOUR_PAGE_TAB_URL
Replacing YOUR_APP_ID with your app id and YOUR_PAGE_TAB_URL with the url you set for you page tab.

Related

Misconfigured App on Facebook but no errors?

I am trying to set up a tab with a link to a contact form from my site on Facebook.
I developed the 'app' through the developers site and have set up the page tab.
I've saved the app and it saves it fine (displaying a message saying changes were saved but it might take some time to propagate across all servers.)
Well I waited an hour and I still can't add the tab to my page. I tried locating the app page directly using the namespace, but I get an error message saying:
"[My App] cannot be displayed because the app is misconfigured."
I don't know how it is misconfigured? There are no errors when saving, so I don't know what the issue is or how to go about fixing it. There are no problems with the app that I can see... how am I supposed to know what's wrong with it?
All it is is a page tab. I've put the link to the page tab in, I don't have a secure page (https) so I have left this box blank but I don't know what to do now.
Any ideas how I can find out in what way it is 'misconfigured'?
This error usually occurs when you try to view the App Center page for the app when the app doesn't have the 'App Details' tab settings populated.
So instead of:
https://www.facebook.com/appcenter/APP_NAMESPACE
Make sure you are loading:
https://apps.facebook.com/APP_NAMESPACE
That page will display hints (if you are admin or developer of the app) on what you are missing.
And, adding to the answer already given by #Donn Lee, which pointed to the right way, you must also ADD A PLATFORM in settings, in https://developers.facebook.com/apps/APP-ID/settings/

Making page tab searchable?

I have a client that wants their tab application to be searchable in Facebook. You can search for the application itself just fine, but the result comes up separate from the page (with no way of leading back to the page itself).
Is it possible to make a page tab searchable? If not, is there a way of detecting whether or not an application is within a tab (so we could display a custom link back to the page)?
Thanks!
It´s not possible to make a page tab searchable at this moment. Apps are searchable, so the solution should be use a specific app. With that app, you can render content in your tab. But when users search, they will land in your app canvas (not in the tab) but you can redirect back to you tab url with javascript. Place this code in your canvas app view:
window.location = "your_tab_url"

No menu for 'Add to my Page' after creating canvas?

If I create a canvas and open the app profile page, It is showing a new look taking the left side area and there is no menu for 'Add to my Page'. What am I doing wrong? I am just unable to include a tab to a page.
I am trying to create an app to run my iframe, I used the following settings.
Apps On Facebook:
Canvas URL - Enter (http://YOURAPPLICATIONID.iframehost.com/)
Secure Canvas URL: (https://YOURAPPLICATIONID.iframehost.com/)
Page Tab:
Tab URL - Enter http://(YOURAPPLICATIONID.iframehost.com/tab)
Secure Tab URL- Enter (https://YOURAPPLICATIONID.iframehost.com/tab)
However there docent appear to be a way to "Add to my page" from the app profile page. I am following this tutorial.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoLpR2u7Ul8
Use the following to add to your facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/add.php?api_key=[APP-ID]&pages=1
Replace [APP-ID] with your app id
Hope it helps.
Facebook are continuously changing things so most of the non-FB documentation and tutorials get outdated very quickly (which is a pain because they are much easier to understand than FBs own documentation!)
This time they're changing how the App Profile pages work, and some changed have been made since last week. You can find out the new way of adding your page here:
http://www.hyperarts.com/blog/facebook-removing-app-profile-pages-on-feb-1-2012/
Basically, you need to
Use the "Create Facebook Page" button in the edit app page
and either:
2 Create a link for others to add your tab using code similar this:
<a href="#" onclick=window.open("http://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id=176217385757369&next=http://tabpressapp.phpfogapp.com/content/pages/","PageTab","width=800,height=500");>Add TabPress to Your Fan Page!</a>
or 3. For your own private use code similar to this:
https://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id=176217385757369&next=http://tabpressapp.phpfogapp.com/content/pages/
(replacing with your own app_id & nexturl obviously!)
Edit: forgot to mention, the url for "next" is either the “Canvas URL” or “Page Tab URL” you used in your edit app page.
I haven't had to do this myself yet, but please let me know how it goes because I will soon!
https://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id=YOUR_APP_ID&next=YOUR_URL
Where YOUR_URL = the website address where you upload the HTML files.
Ref: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/appsonfacebook/pagetabs/

Facebook Tab on pages

Whats the best way to develop a tab on facebook in a facebook page with content inside it? Would it just be html within that tab?
Easiest way is to install a 3rd party iframe App on your Facebook Page. You can find these Apps by searching for "iframe" in Facebook's search. Once you have one of these Apps installed, you can customize the HTML/CSS/JS of the iframe, which will then be reflected on you Page Tab. Alternatively, you could create your own Facebook App and install it as an iframe in your Facebook Page. This will achieve the same thing, and may give you more control, but you will have to host the html/css/js files yourself and it will be more work.
I recently have the same need.
To just place a facebook tab containing just a static html with text and image.
Here are the steps. It can be quite a nightmare to review the documentation of Facebook since it is always in change.
In the home page, click in the settings button. There is a link "Create application". You have to be sure to be in the Facebook development section
In the Create Application home page. In the upper menu there is the button "Applications". Here will be listed all your applications. If this is the first time, again the button "Create a new app"
3.Enter the information requested. Name of the application, an identifier (I prefer the same display name without spaces) and choose a category.
As a security step, a captcha is shown. Just fill with the characters in the screen.
Since your tab is an html. You have to host this file in your own server in order to have a path. The first tricky thing here is to convert this file into a php, asp, or similar extension. since Facebook uses GET or POST protocol to send information. You have to ensure that your file understands this requests. So, your server must accept the corresponding programming language. Even if your tab doesn't have any real code.
The configuration of your app is shown in screen. In the left menu, the option "configuration" displays the options to activate your tab.
click "Add plattform" button and select Facebook tab
fill the information required with the corresponding URLs. Note: Facebook always requires secured URLs so make sure that your server or hosting service has the SSL certificate validated.
Upload the image of your tab to be shown in the home of your profile in your tab section.
ok, so far we are good. Now. This was a long search. There is no longer the "Add to my webpage" link anywhere. So use this link to access to that hidden link. here Basically you enter the facebook app id and the URL of the hosted file.
Then you select the facebook page where you want to link this tab. And that's it!
note: the alternative to the link is this: (https://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id=YOUR_APP_ID&next=YOUR_URL )
Hope this helps. It was a waste of time when I have to search for the details so I want to share this.

Facebook "Add to My Page" not there

I've made some facebook pages before, but I'm running in to a problem that I haven't had before. Usually, when someone asks me to dev a facebook page for them, it's linked to an account and all I have to do is add the developer app, make a few apps for the links on the side bar, then navigate to the apps I created and click 'add to my page'.
For some reason, this person today gave me their log-in and their account isn't really 'real' so-to-speak. I'm navigated to the page they created upon log-in and there is nothing else loaded, not even a search bar. I was able to add the developer app by navigating to Edit Info (search bar popped up). However I am unable to add any apps to this account. The 'Add to My Page' does not show up on any app pages I navigate to. Is this because the account doesn't really exist? There is a "Create Your Profile" link up near the Settings/Logout buttons.
Am I thinking about this wrong? Is there another way for me to add apps/sidebar tabs with an account like this?
I was thinking of telling the person to register the account fully since "If you create a profile for your business, your account may be disabled for violating our Terms of Use."
Let me know if any of you have any insight.
Thanks!
facebook changes as usual
try my "fix" # http://admine.eu/addapp.html
here is part of the source and actually all you need:
window.open(
"http://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id=" +
document.getElementById("appid").value +
"&next=" +
document.getElementById("appurl").value,
"PageTab","width=1000,height=300"
)
+document.getElementById("appid") is the id of your app
+document.getElementById("appurl") is the canvas or tab URL of your app
I run into this too. Sometimes as when a client adds me as an admin I have to like the app I made on its profile page then switch to page mode and go to edit the page>apps and it shows up in my list of apps.
If you have already added it once it may already be in that list as well but doesn't show up in the left navigation until you add it as a tab in the app settings while in Page mode.
I find that if there are more than 8 tabs in the navigation already FB won't automatically add it to the left nav.
-Ann
I've put together a javascript snippet that is intended to be used as a bookmarklet. If you use the bookmarklet while on an application's page in the developers section, a new window will automatically open with the add to page-dialog. To use it, just copy the minified code from the repository below and create a new bookmark for "javascript:[the code]" (without the quotation marks).
https://github.com/Wehrzie/Add-Facebook-Application-to-Page-Bookmarklet
Hopefully this will help some until Facebook cleans up their current, quite messy, solution.
Simple to use:
http://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id=APP_ID&next=http://www.facebook.com
More info about what's going on:
https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2012/02/01/how-to--migrate-your-app-profile-page/