Within a facebook app, is there a reliable way ensure, that a given action can only be performed once per facebook user, without asking the user to authorize the app?
From the looks of the documentation and the lack of positive responses to this question I would deduce it's impossible, but I have been told the adverse - without actual details.
So what I need to know:
Is there any way to achieve this?
or (if not):
Is there any resource that clearly states that this is impossible?
Can you give a more detailed example of what you are trying to do and which language you are trying to do it in?
If you have the ability to access the user_id through an indexable field like you have in a friend, like or event relationship, you could just store the user_ids in your own database as they take actions in your page. If they've already performed the action once, you'd just give a message to the user and drop whatever action just occurred. You can find all the indexable fields in the fql documentation.
If you want to get the id from a random user who happens across your app, they need to authorize your app before you can get access to their information.
I've seen a few scam apps on FB that manage to get user permissions as soon as a logged in user visits their page. These violate the TOS and most likely get deleted and their admin banned as soon as they are reported.
Related
I'm trying to get list of events my friend / user attends. This info is publicly visible through Facebook pages.
I'm making a request to /userid/events but it returns empty array of results, though user does have upcoming events and calling /me/events is working. (all is ran in graph explorer)
I couldn't find any documentation about any limitations or required permissions to explain why it's not working e.g. this link
Is it a bug? How to workaround it?
You can use /userid/events with a user who auzhorized your App, but using /me/events is recommended. Either way, just because stuff is public on facebook.com does not mean you can get it with the API. You always need to authorize users before you can get any data, for privacy reasons.
In other words: It´s not a bug, there is no workaround, it´s not possible without user authorization.
I'd like to know if it is possible to get userid or email for all people with same first name by using FQL and API. I mean all people with first name, like Mary, they don't have be my friends or fans. Thanks.
Not possible.
FB user must give you permission to query their account information. Until then, you can't get any information on them (so of course, you can't query every FB user named Mary).
No. You can't do that.
As Simon said FB user must give you permission to query their account information. An APP can access information for only those users, who have given that permission to the APP.
For example, the apps that you have mentioned in comment, social lead freak etc. will only show the results for those users which have given permission to that particular app. This means that there can be thousands of users on Facebook with the first name "Marry", but out of those thousands of users, only around 200 are using that APP (that is, have given permissions to access their data). Hope that explains the why they are doing that partially.
When I use the search box in Facebook and try to find a user, it shows me a list of all the matching users while I'm typing, along with additional information on them, such as the city they live in, and when I enter their wall/timeline, I can see more information. However, when I use Facebook Graph API to search for users, I get only basic information, and must have a permission for each user in the results to get more. Why is that? Is there a way to be able to see more information for all the users without having a permission for each of them?
[…] and when I enter their wall/timeline, I can see more information.
Only if they have the visibility of their profile to public, though. Otherwise, you won’t see much on a user’s profile if you are not friends with them.
However, when I use Facebook Graph API to search for users, I get only basic information, and must have a permission for each user in the results to get more.
Why is that?
Because, naturally, you as a normal user browsing through a couple of search results on Facebook is something completely different than offering an app the capability to access all that information for every Facebook user from ID 1 to 99999999999, and then build some huge data mining thing upon it … I think that should be quite obvious.
I have a yard sale website that I'm about to revamp, and rather than using my own user database, I'd like to use Facebook connect to authenticate people into my site, and the only reason I need them to do that in the first place is so after a yard sale is posted on my site, I'd like to be able to post on their wall that they're having a yard sale.
So, my two questions are:
Is it possible to use Facebook Connect without my own user database? I understand that I'll have to store the facebook ID, etc.. within a database table, and that's no problem, I just don't want to give the confusing option of "click here to create an account" + "click here to login with your user name and password" + "Or click here to login with facebook". I'd just like the last option.
Second question is, is there any way to force the user to allow me to post on their wall? I understand that they can uncheck that option when signing in with facebook, but can I verify that permission and ask them to re-login with that option checked? I'm not trying to be a prick, I'm offering a fantastic service that is completely free and in exchange I just want the ability to post their sale on their own wall so I can spread the word. I'd prefer for this to not be optional.
To answer your first question, yes. You don't need your own user database, however you will need to save your users auth key and id to be able to post as them - whenever you want. If you dont need to be able to post anytime (like when the user is not online) but only on user actions on your webpage (which is probably most common) there is alternatives like just saving the data in a session. So depending on what your needs are, you don't necessarily need a database at all.
Second question, you can always check if a user has granted a permission using the API. So what you can do is have a page that says that he has to approve to proceed to your page and a link to the auth dialog. Although, I don't recommend it, I doubt It's gonna do you any good and It's possible that Facebook even disapproves of this. The possibility to remove extended permissions is probably there for a reason.
More about checking granted permissions here using the REST API:
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/rest/users.hasAppPermission/
I want to get a list of all users (even if they are my friends or not) who are using my facebook application. Is this possible? If so, how?
And another quick question if we're still here :) Assue I have a facebook id of a person, can I retrieve his name by using it?
I don't believe that you can get a list of all the Facebook IDs of users of a particular application. There doesn't appear to be a possible query for this based on an examination of the FQL tables, probably due to performance and privacy reasons. Generally the presumption is that you maintain a local list of users in your own application, and correlate them to Facebook via their ID, so you would already have all these IDs.
To answer your second question though, yes, that is definitely possible. The Facebook API provides both the users.getStandardInfo and the users.getInfo methods, both of which take user Ids and return information about the user, including the name. users.getInfo can even be used without a session key to just get the name of the user.