I'd like to offer my users the capability of either uploading a photo, or choosing one of their photos on Facebook (not only their profile photo).
Pulling the photo source from the Graph API isn't hard... However, does Facebook authorize us to use their photo link source in our apps, or must we download the photo, store it on our servers, and source them from there?
The safest bet is certainly to download the photo and save it yourself; as with web links I wouldn't trust that a photo link will be valid later.
That said, you then have to deal with deleted/removed photos and cleaning them up in your application.
I'm not a lawyer but it seems pretty clear either method is fine according to their developer policy. Specifically 2.2 states:
You may cache data you receive through use of the Facebook API in
order to improve your application’s user experience, but you should
try to keep the data up to date. This permission does not give you any
rights to such data.
My only concern would be the privacy settings on the photos and whether people would be able to access it via Facebook's url. But if you test it and it works and if the user explicitly selects the photo themselves, that would seem to be fine and wouldn't be much difference then them re-uploading it to your site.
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I am currently attempting to retrieve the news feed from my Facebook home feed to include into an app. I know this used to be able to be done with the API however I have heard that it has since been removed. Is there any other way that you know of that would work or has it been added back into the API? It doesn't make sense why they would remove it.
No, there is no way to get a user’s feed via API. That used to be possible in the very early days (API v1), but has long since been removed.
It doesn't make sense why they would remove it.
Apart from user privacy (I don’t want my posts getting analyzed by some shady app with a developer located in $godKnowsWhere, just because they appeared on the feed of a friend of mine who might be using questionable apps), Facebook considers this a “core feature” – and 3rd-party apps are not supposed to replicate those in the first place. Facebook wants to make money from showing me ads when I view my feed, so allowing any other app to perform the same functionality would just mean loss of revenue.
I'm developing an app that authenticates users with Facebook. I'd like to display the user's profile picture in their account, which is readily accessible via a public Facebook URL.
Am I permitted to directly link to these images for use in our app, or do we need to download the image and re-host it on our own servers? I wasn't able to find any answer in the terms of service.
You should NOT use the CDN link, because that one may not be valid forever. It is perfectly fine to download the profile image - if you REALLY want to be safe, tell the user about it before he authorizes your App. You need to have a privacy policy anyway, stating what exactly you store about the user.
It is perfectly fine to use the Graph API link though. Depending on how many images you want to show, it may be better to still download them for performance reasons.
Hello I've read the docs and am having trouble getting a definitive answer for the following questions:
Can our app detect if another app is used by a given user. What about if we are admin of, or have the id of both apps.
If one of the apps is removed from FB is there a way to tell if a user had it installed before it was removed? A sort of history of past apps, I guess.
Here:
FB Connect: is there a way to see the logged in user's facebook apps?
Best answer is "I think the most you can do..." but I'd like to know for sure.
Thanks for any help.
If you request the permission user_actions:APP_NAMESPACE you can see the open graph actions that the user has performed in that app.
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/permissions/#open_graph_perms
In my apps I generally store the user ID of all authorized users in a database, and when I get a call via the "Deauthorize Callback URL" I don't delete the user from the database, but instead only flag the user as deauthorized.
This way I can easily get an overview of users that are using (or have used) any of my apps. This allows me to present special features for users who are using several of my apps.
For example, let's say I made a photo app (like Instagram) and a GPS running app (like Endomondo). If the user takes a photo with Instagram while running with Endomondo, I could present the option to GPS-tag the photo, or add the photo to Endomondo.
This is something that I think we developers should use more. Perhaps present an open API to other apps, to let the apps work together.
My organization is launching some local programs that they want to build up using social media. We already have some Facebook integration (likes, comments, etc.), but they would like people to be able to upload photos of themselves participating in these events. I was unable to figure out how to do this via Facebook, and we don’t have the time or resources to do this as a full-blown web app on our site.
Is anyone able to point me to a resource on doing this with
Facebook--something that makes more sense than the jumble of info on
their developer site?
Anyone aware of a photo sharing site that has an “anonymous
upload” or similar feature? Some form of moderation tools would
also be necessary (for obvious reasons).
Any other easy-to-implement photo sharing plugin that would not
require users to sign up for a custom service? (Facebook would be
OK since we’re already using that.)
I've tried searching for this many different ways on Google, but pretty much everything comes up for accessing one's own photos, not uploading to a separate group's. I've looked thru quite a few photo sharing sites too (flickr, photobucket, fotki, etc) but again, mostly they cover uploading only your own photos.
Thanks.
I am new to Facebook API and app development. I am trying to build a facebook timeline cover website where users can auto upload and publish the cover to a new album created in the website/app name. Then they would be redirected to another page on my website with instructions on how to setup the cover on their profile timeline. Most profile cover websites are using the same method such as myfbcovers.com, facebookprofilecovers.com, profilephotocovers.com, facebook.coversdaddy.com, fbcoverlover.com and newfbcovers.com to name a few. I have been searching the facebook developer pages and several tutorials over the net. Some tutorials I checked are:
http://thinkdiff.net/facebook/graph-api-iframe-base-facebook-application-development/
http://daipratt.co.uk/facebook-api-upload-photo/
http://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/498/
And also several youtube videos.
But there are several confusions I have about the app. Sorry for the questions if they are too basic as I am a complete newbie who is willing to learn. One of the main problems is that most of the tutorials are outdated as the facebook app creation page etc. Now is different and there is no callback url etc. or canvas etc. in options now which are used in the tutorials. In the tutorials, it is mentioned that for creating a website app or facebook app for page, I need a callback URL which I cannot see now. Secondly, if it is mentioned in those tutorials that I need SSL in my website for an app but none of the facebook cover websites listed above have SSL it seems. I also do not have SSL on my server. So, not sure if that is needed and if an app is needed at all on my local server. And all the apps are doing things different such as I can see these URLs on clicking on some of the clickable links for uploading the cover button. Here are a few examples:
http://facebookprofilecovers.com/wp-content/themes/fbcovers/fb/?i=http%3A%2F%2Ffacebookprofilecovers.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2FHappily-Married-Facebook-Timeline-Cover.png
http://freetimelinecovers.net/facebook/?cov_img=/images/sports-covers/manchester-united.jpg
Some have direct link to the facebook app page such as:
http://apps.facebook.com/profilephotocovers/index.php?id=35 broken link
And only one website seems to have the publish_stream etc. in the url itself
https://facebook.com/dialog/oauth?client_id=162046520556852&redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2Ffacebook.coversdaddy.com%2Fi-m-not-a-monster-1242.html&state=e4abcdc1d9288be8233a7ac4aa243997&scope=user_photos%2Cpublish_stream
On checking through Live HTTP header, it seems all websites are following a similar pattern which is directly used in the URL in the last website. For example, here are a few steps of the other websites I saw while checking with Live HTTP header.
https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/authorize?client_id=112308188876405&redirect_uri=http://www.myfbcovers.com/oauth/callback&scope=publish_stream,user_photos,email
https://facebook.com/dialog/oauth?client_id=237897089598589&redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2Ffacebookprofilecovers.com%2Fwp-content%2Fthemes%2Ffbcovers%2Ffb%2Findex.php&state=0ca1581f006bdd80bd5da78e95179f3a&scope=publish_stream
And so on.
I could also notice that almost all websites were taking auth for only publish_stream and nothing else. Only myfbcovers.com is an exception which also asks for user_photos and email. Rest are not asking for the same and so perhaps publish_stream is the only permission needed.
So, to create the app is there any tutorial. And do I need to host the app on my own server in a sub directory of the website or does it make direct call to facebook. The reason I am asking is because it seems Facebook apps if hosted on local server needs SSL mandatory whereas none of the above websites have SSL/https. And if I do not need to host the app on my own server then how can I make the photo upload link to facebook and then return back to the website for the rest of the instructions. I am using Wordpress on my website like most of the other sites are doing and so, that should not be a problem I suppose. Any help would be highly appreciated. I am willing to learn properly and some good tutorials for creating the photo album and then uploading the photo to the user's album etc. would be fine too if not with the full code. Any help would be highly appreciated.
NOTE: I have removed the HTTP and WWW part in many of the above URLs as I can only post a maximum of two links being a new user. Please add them if needed in those where they are not present.
Ok, I did not install all the applications above to see exactly what they did. I think your question is long... but pretty straight forward. This is what I understand your question to be :
You would like to create a cover photo generator that will allow users to customize their cover photo by uploading files, maybe doing some editing to them. Also maybe using templates of cool ideas and in the end being able to update their cool new cover photo directly into their profile.
This is not very complicated to do although to this date there is no real documentation (by facebook) about how to dynamically update the cover photo. However there are ways of creating photo albums and uploading photos to there.
If you are planning to make your application run with in facebook - that means use the apps.facebook.com/your_app_name, and have canvas or tab URLS, then you will have to purchase an SSL certificate.
Finnaly, in order to get as close to the functionality your want, you might have to make some sacrifices (becuase changing the cover photo is not possible yet with the Graph API).
To locate the cover photo album you'll have to manually scan through all the users albums names - and for that you'll need the user_photos permission.
Once you have created the photo you want, you could possibly let the user upload it (publish_stream permission needed for this) to a different album, and then give the user some detailed instructions using screen shots and direct them exactly how to change their cover photo.
I recommend you read through the Authentication documentation decide what permissions you need (such as user_photos for the users photos and publish_stream for uploading a new picture or creating an album.)
In addition, there are many many tutorials on the Official Facebook Documentation Pages and their Developers Blog- check them out before going onto other sites that have written their own tutorials. Facebook does update their API quite a bit - but they also (recently) have been pretty good on updating their documentation to mirror the changes to the API...
As serious developers using a 3rd party API (
Graph API ), it is solely our responsibility to keep up to date with changes and to write code and applications that comply with their platform policies.