My wife is starting her local business, and I would like to develop a booking application that users can use to book appointments with. Is this feasible using the facebook development tools? I tried to overview the documentation at https://developers.facebook.com but I came out with no clear answer.
What is a Facebook app?
In layman terms, it's just a window to your actual app with a bonus that you can use Facebook's social data with it. So, yes! Basically, you can pretty much do anything with it. Plus, if you are looking forward to create an app for a local business, I would recommend taking a look at page tabs from here.
Here is how a Facebook app works:
You create an app on your server.
You give it's url to Facebook (called the canvas url).
You specify the dimensions.
And that's it! Your app is up and running!
I currently need to collect pictures-comment (someone comment by pasting a picture) from facebook page group
I have done some research and find that
1.Support for this hasn't yet been added to the Graph API and as with many of the other messaging APIs, it's currently only avaialable for testing (i.e you must be a developer of the app to use it presently)
from
View attachments in threads
2.You have to use the old php SDK until graph supports attachments
from
Posting Attachment Facebook Graph API
could any one provide some codes to me?
I need to know
Are the two approaches really works?? If yes, then... If no, I guess i will need to write/find a crawler (but it again sounds difficult as facebook group page is dynamic web)
What should I do if I want to follow 1st approach?
Should I register as developer and set up an app and...? (I have no experience in setting up facebook app and would appreciate any useful step-by-step tutorial)
If I am going the 2nd approach (php SDK), are there are tutorial as I have no idea what should I do next.
I know java, c++ and little js but facebook apis are something really new to me.
Really appreciate any help.
I am developing a flash game and I want to integrate it with Facebook. It should be very simple integration. My app only need username and e-mail address. I searched the web not I still don't know how to do it. It seems to me very complicated.
All I want is to connect my app to Facebook through Actionscript SDK, with few simple functions.
Can someone help me with a code to do that...I'll be very thankful guys :-)
Well, it's a general question, but here are a few links that might help steer you in the right direction. The first link has the SWC library and some examples:
Facebook ActionScript API resources:
libraries and examples
API documentation (though fairly sparse)
Adobe page
On their page, Adobe links to a tutorial / walkthrough for building a mobile Facebook app that's pretty helpful, though it expands on a desktop-based article and references it regularly, so that can be a bit confusing, but it does get the job done.
Then you need to understand the Facebook Graph API - basically Facebook passes around objects that contain data pertaining to the user, their friends, etc (and of course, passing around this data is subject to the permissions your app has setup). Facebook provides an online tool (Facebook Graph API Explorer) that let's you explore these objects for your own account.
Pouring over this information, I got my first flash-based mobile app talking to Facebook in a few hours. There you go, ask a generic question, get a big swath of links to read that are only semi-related to your question. =D
I want to develop an online application and I am considering EITHER building a website with community features built in or building ONLY a facebook app. I was wondering if other people have had to make the same decision and what things I will need to consider.
The website I want to build will be an educational portal where people can make and take tests online
I disagree with some of the other answers here. There is a huge difference between a) trying to advertise a new place on the web and b) trying to advertise a new functionality of an existing place. Even if this new website would offer a very tight integration with Facebook and some other social platforms. Keep in mind: facebook users really don't like to leave facebook, no matter what the reason would be. That's why the click-through rate for the advertisements is so embarrassingly poor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Company
That said you can of course always do both: build a website and offer the same functionality through a facebook app. However my opinion here is that if you're application only offers its users a single functionality, you'll be better off just doing the latter.
What exactly is the advantage you expect by creating a Facebook-ONLY-App for that?
If it's only about taking tests you can still build a "normal" portal and include some of the Facebook-functionality through the JavaScript-SDK, like posting to the wall, Single-Sign-On, find your friends and so on. This way the user still has the choice if he wants to connect with Facebook or not. This way you also don't minimize your userbase to Facebook-users
(yeah I know, "everyone" has Facebook these days... ;) Still not everyone wants it to be connected to every single site he's using through Facebook)
Considering this comment:
Well I guess its easier for people to recommend my app if it is a facebook app, is the main reason I want to know if facebook is a good option – Zubair Mar 3 at 14:51
Build a website and then add the Facebook 'like' button. See: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/guides/web/#plugins
You should put a Twitter button as well:
http://twitter.com/about/resources/tweetbutton
In my opinion you have to develop both. First develop you website. Although facebook is having millions of users But in my opinion you cannot implement every thing as freely as you can in your web application than facebook application. You should have a website and a page on facebook. You can integrate other facebook social plugins on your website to interact with facebook.
From monitization point of it is easy for new users on website than application on facebook. Other reason website especially related to educational purposes have a huge click through rate which you cannot find on facebook application advertiser.
What is the goal of the website?
If its to make money dont do a facebook app, you have far more control of your site by designing it entirely yourself.
If you want social networking features there are plenty of APIs you can tie in to which will provide you with functionality and allow you to link into facebook / twitter etc.
A website would look more professional, it would allow you to gather statistics on unique hits, revisits etc, having your own database of users means you can gather information and market your site more specifically ( which users took which tests).
A website also allows you to monetize it by adding advertisement if that is your goal, and you can gain search engine rankings.
If you want to get publicity for your website you can use facebook by creating a group / page for the site and promoting it that way.
Also your own website wont leave you vulnerable to changes in Facebook, what if you put in all this work and in a year the terms change and a portion of your app is now in violation of the terms. What if you want to add X feature and facebook wont allow it?
Basically your site = 100% in your controll, thats a big advantage to you. With facebook you loose that advantage but maybe gain a little in being able to use more of their features. Personally id always go for my own site.
You should go for the website first, then add the social elements in the website.
Like you can enable users to login using there facebook credentials. Like/share Button.
And later on, you can also go for the facebook app, when you want to shoot for much much more traffic. Therefore, whenever you think that you have figured out what exactly you want out of your application then only go for it, otherwise try your options with website. Because once your facebook app is up, you will get hell lot of traffic.
Let me know if you need help in creating facebook application or social elements enabled website. I have built an Facebook Easy API on top of all facebook features, which will enable you to easily access anything on facebook and meanwhile reducing your work effort.
You first build it like web app and use Graph API and FBConnect to use Facebook functionalities. Then you need to create a facebook app version also because getting facebook traffic is also required. People from facebook most like come to facebook app then to another web.
You will not need to convert it to facebook app, it will be just less in width and it would be a facebook iframe app. as I some where read that facebook is depreciating fbml and iframe app is recommended.
So now you can make both things, as I think , test app can have flexible layout so that you don't need to change width for facebook iframe. So you can both things by doing one.
thanks
i'm pretty sure many people will not agre with me, but IMHO you should focus on build a good Web-App that work well also on Mobile-Phones. keep it simple, intuitive, responsive, lightweight, cross-browser and straight to the point.
if your only concern is about "recommend your app to other people" make it SEO and Multi-Language too. google will do the rest.
then if you want make your app bold, slowly and planty of useless stuffs start to add all the facebook widget you want.
PS: i'm also on facebook, twitter,
flickr, google etc etc, i'm also
sharing photos, links and usefull
stuffs, my google rss reader is full
of links with tons of nice things, well i
have never had a minute to look at it, when i need something i just start searching google
I agree with most of the answers here—a native website is the way to go. Personally, I don't trust/like FB apps. Dunno what they do, and given the number of scammers out there and FB's lack of responsibility (IMO), I rarely if ever use an FB app.
Creating the website gives users choice about whether they want to share results/integrate with their FB wall/profile. Users don't like to be forced into something.
And in the spirit of adventure that is typical of SO, it's always more fun to build your own website than to build a template-based (sort of), boring and nearly irrelevant (drowning in a sea of other poorly made apps) FB app. But that's just my 2¢
In your case, I would do a hybrid. First, build your website, but integrate it with Facebook via connect. This way you can concentrate on building your value added services and let Facebook worry about the community.
I would also not ignore the Facebook app. Now, with iframes being fully supported on Facebook, you can adapt your existing site to work within Facebook with minimal effort, as long as you keep this requirement in mind when building your original application.
I have a website where users can buy deals posted by the site owner/admin and I would like to integrate Facebook Connect with it. Can you please answer the following:
What tasks are involved with integrating Facebook Connect?
How difficult would it be for a programmer to integrate Facebook Connect?
How long would it take for an average programmer to integrate Facebook Connect?
I think it's a bit difficult, yes, but it's not impossible. It shoud be about 2-5 days to study, understand, make tests and make it works (it also depends on how much you know of the facebook platfrm):
Here is a tuorial I wrote:
http://www.barattalo.it/facebook-connect-tutorial/
it explains how to give the facebook login and how to post on users' wall.
There are multiple good tutorials available. I would say an average programmer (with some familiarity in JavaScript) would be able to do this fairly easily.
Facebook Connect Wiki
How to quickly add Facebook Connect
I have integrated Facebook Connect into 2 sites and the time it took varied from 3 days to 2 weeks. The time requirement depends on the size of the application you are integrating. It only took me 3 days to integrate Facebook Connect into a new site which did not have any existing users.
Putting in a Facebook connect or login button can be pretty easy now since there are some copy-and-paste solutions out there. If you're looking for a copy/paste solution that does some pretty simple members-only page protection, you can try this Facebook Login tool. It's free and gives some basic analytics, I think.
My point of view Facebook connect can be implemented by average programmer with in 2-3 hours If you aware about Facebook document and sound knowledge of API Key Secret.
Following documents that help for integrating Facebook into websites.
Document use PHP for server-side programming and HTML/JavaScript for client-side code. These examples are very straightforward and easily translatable to other languages.
Facebook Developer Tutorials.
This article shows few steps that describes how to integrate Facebook Connect into your
existing site.
efpa is brilliant for this, its easy to use and saves you hours, it would take you less than 20 min, there is a really good youtube tutorial on this, they use efpa to create a web application, let users connect using their facebook accounts and then present them their home feed, from creating a facebook app to writing the code in 20 min;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri8io0bmKOc
btw efpa stand for (Easy Facebook PHP API), the library was written to make facebook intergration easy and usable by anyone. Check out their documentations page http://labs.gurron.com/projects.php?proj=efpa&pg=docs