I'm writing a sort of visualization desktop (non-web) application, just for fun.
However, ideally I'd want it to be able to pull information from the user's facebook account. (after getting its credentials, of course)
What's the best way to do this? Should I register a new 'facebook app' even though I'm not really making it web-based? I've never written a facebook app before.
I'm using Java as my prog language, btw.
Thanks!
Yes. Facebook supports desktop applications, but they must go through a special authentication mechanism. Essentially, the user will need to be directed to facebook through a web browser window as part of the authentication process.
Here is the documentation on the authentication process: http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Login_Desktop_App
There is a relatively polished Java library for facebook here: http://code.google.com/p/facebook-java-api/
If the Java library above does not meets your needs, you can build an implementation on your own. Essentially, you will need to interact with the Facebook REST server, as described at the top of the page here: http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/API
Edit: After doing some more research I have a few more resources to provide:
Here is a list of some applications written using Java for facebook:
http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Facebook_apps_written_in_Java
And there's even a neat desktop application that is open source here:
http://code.google.com/p/fb-photo-uploader/
Good luck!
Related
In my work we often need to build Facebook apps in the form of Facebook Canvas and Website. These apps are available on Facebook direclty (an iframe) and as mobile versions (outside Facebook, in the browser).
We are working with a code base which mixes Facebook JS SDK (authentication and authorization) with PHP SDK (API calls). I find it rather dirty, and not easy to understand for people freshly working on the projects.
It's inconvinient to make API calls with JS, and making them with PHP forces extending access tokens. Authenticating user with JS SDK involves client-side redirects which are ugly to be honest, as they usually occur moments after the current page starts rendering, and so on...
I googled a lot about separating these two SDKs but did not find a clear answer to my questions:
Is it possible to create Facebook app (Canvas, Website) which bases ONLY on PHP SDK? Check login status, login, permissions, making API calls, etc. Would signed request be enough?
Is JS SDK the only full-proof way to determine user's login status at any time?
This link seems to describe what I'm thinking of, however the docs are rather brief (which seems to be a problem of Facebook documentation in general). Can anyone suggest other sources that might help? Does anyone have experience with builing FB aplications based only on server-side?
Thanks.
EDIT:
The link I posted above covers the case of not using ANY SDK, so no, it's not what I'm looking for.
You can even create an App WITHOUT any SDK - with simple CURL calls, for example. So yeah, it is indeed possible to use the PHP SDK only, but the login process is much better with the JS SDK (no redirection needed) and you can´t auto-refresh a user session like it is possible with FB.getLoginStatus afaik.
In short, i would not recommend it, the JS SDK is the very best way to authorize users and refresh Access Tokens. I would only use the PHP SDK (or simple CURL calls) for stuff that MUST happen on the server, and for stuff that includes using the App Secret, for example.
I used to develop a few FB apps in the past (using the old rest-ased api), and now I'm considering to make them actually usable again by porting them to the new 3.1 API.
Sounds nice, but for some reason this is way harder than I should be...
So here are few questions:
Is there any example of a canvas app using the 3.1 API? Google did not give me anything useful
Is there still a difference between iframe and FMBL canvas applications? In my app settings, I checked the fmbl-option, but when I'm back at the app overview page, it still says it's an iframe app.
The SDK mentions the getUser() function to get the user-id, but how do I request the necessary permissions for my app? When I do some googling, I find even another solution which calls a specific url and then performs a callback. This solution however doesn't seem to php sdk at all!
Where is the documentation of the php-api? The only usable thing I find is this: https://github.com/facebook/php-sdk which consists only a few lines of code. And I suspect this is for having a fb login-button on your own website, not for a canvas app.
Firstly, good luck, and best wishes - you'll need it. Maintaining Facebook apps is way harder than it should be, because Facebook doesn't believe in legacy support, changes things all the time, and deprecates things quickly and completely. As a (former) Facebook app dev myself, I can tell you there is only one constant: apps will die if you leave them alone. As an app developer, Facebook owes you no favors, and it is vicious when it comes to breaking apps.
As for specifics: as of June 2012, Facebook has deprecated and removed FBML and the REST API, and there is no longer any difference between canvas apps and iFrame apps. This isn't a soft, "you shouldn't use it" deprecation - it's a hard, "your apps are now broken" deprecation. All apps are now iFrame apps, as there is no longer any other way to build them. The docs on how to build a canvas/iFrame app are here, and there's an auth migration guide that may be helpful in conversion. Oh, and you'll need to get your app running on HTTPS too, if you haven't already.
As for the rest of it, it sucks, but the only way you're really going to be able to maintain and get your application working is using the Open Graph API. Using the PHP SDK, you just run $facebook->api('/graph/url/here') - for instance, to get user information, run $facebook->api("/$userid"). You get the URLs off of the Open Graph docs - just grab everything after the graph.facebook.com bit and pass it to api(). It's another learning curve, and (depending on the complexity/modularity of your code) is anywhere from a lot to a nightmarish mountain of changes, and there are no drop-in replacements. Sometimes you can use the old REST api, but I doubt that will last very much longer either. It's painful, but that's how it goes. You're at the mercy of Facebook, because it's their data.
Upgrading apps involves a shift in thinking: apps are now literally just webpages surrounded by the Facebook chrome. There is now no difference between an external website that uses Facebook's api to pull in information and an app that runs inside of Facebook. It's for that reason, personally, that I've shifted to just that for my own app - an external website that just happens to use Facebook for most of its posting/sharing/user info needs.
For authorization, you request permissions via OAuth, using any number of methods. There are docs on how to do that over on Facebook as well. Specifically for the PHP api, you generate a URL using getLoginURL() and then redirect to it. Facebook eventually redirects back to a URL you specify with info about whether they authorized your app and such, after which you can do a getUser(). If you want fancy/slick/user-friendly popup dialogs without a bunch of redirecting, the Javascript SDK is your friend.
I have read many articles about facebook apps, but I can't find anything what I need. Is it possible to create an App for Facebook with HTML/ CSS / Jquery without to using FBML and load this app from my server? Is it possible to use in this app the facebook functions like share, add app to my account etc? Is there any doku or example apps, where I can take a look?
Thanks
Nik
What delayed my app getting to work was realizing that the canvas URL request is HTTP POST - not HTTP GET as otherwise usual. A simple way to start is looking at example apps that have their source code open. There're examples both for PHP and python at the developer pages. A good example of a simple facebook app that uses google app engine is runwithfriends
FBML is in the process of deprecation in favor of the Graph Api for quite a while now.
Excerpt from http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/fbml/:
We are in the process of deprecating FBML. If you are building a new application on Facebook.com, please implement your application using HTML, JavaScript and CSS. You can use our JavaScript SDK and Social Plugins to embedded many of the same social features available in FBML. While there is still functionality that we have not ported over yet, we are no longer adding new features to FBML.
The Graph Api is easily accessible through JavaScript.
For a quick start you can use this page as a start.
First of all, fbml is not supported anymore. so forget about that.
You can write your fb app in many languages, for example you can do it in Ruby on Rails, PHP, or C#/ASP.NET etc, whatever you prefer (although you might want to look if there are some frameworks available for your platform, for using facebook. will make your life easier).
Then, setup your app from facebook developer to match your ip, and you're set to go
Is it possible to have a client app which can authenticate using Facebook but without requiring browser(I mean no embedded browser in the code)?? User inputs the username/password and allow access to app using the client app only.
Any Suggestions will be of great help.
Thanks,
Tara Singh
Edit: I have created app in Python which requires browser interaction. Now I want to get rid of that and do it using my client app only. Any Links/Tutorials??
Thanks Again
I know this is an old question and it's answered but I thought 'horse mouth GET'. From Facebook: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/...
Our OAuth 2.0 implementation does not
include explicit desktop app support.
However, if your desktop app can embed
a web browser (most desktop frameworks
such as .NET, AIR and Cocoa support
embedding browsers), you can use the
client-side flow with one
modification: a specific redirect_uri.
Rather than requiring desktop apps to
host a web server and populate the
Site URL in the Developer App, we
provide a specific URL you can use
with desktop apps:
https://www.facebook.com/connect/login_success.html...[cont]
Actually the answer is absolutely not.
In order to authorize your app a user has to enter their facebook username and facebook password on facebook site and you need web browser for this. There is no way to skip this step (you can't ask what their username and password are and then exchange it automatically for access token). You can read more about this here.
absolutely yes, but, we'll need to know which programming language you want to use before we can give much advice.
For example, it's possible using httpclient for java and python to encapsulate all the functionality you need, others can chime in with libraries that they use for C, C++, perl, etc.
[edit]
search for httpclient and how it's used with python. if you run wireshark on your system, you will be able to watch the data interchange (if you don't understand the http protocol completely) and then implement that in your code.[/edit]
Some good links in this regard:
http://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/289/
https://developers.google.com/identity-toolkit/
https://developers.google.com/accounts/docs/OpenID
http://facebooktoolkit.codeplex.com/
http://csharpsdk.org/
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/appfabric/
Apparently now you can, if you're a beta tester for their newest feature: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/devices/ Reminds me of PIN's on Wifi
Yes and no,
I've had the same problem with my server. It was console only, so I had to make a solution. First I've logged in using the lobo java webbrowser. I've transfered the cookies of lobo to my server.
Im new to facebook applications. I recently created a webapp that consisted of html & php. But recently Ive decided that integrating my webapp within facebook would be useful. Any tips on where to start? Ive looked over developers.facebook.com and im confused. It appears they are in the process of updating. Ive come across a few guides but there from a few years ago. This app will run completely within facebook and im probably gonna have to rewrite all the code. Any guides or suggestions?
Thanks!
You didn't specify the programming language you're using but if you're developing asp, start by looking into Facebook c# sdk here: http://facebooksdk.codeplex.com/
If you're using any other language (i.e. php), try looking into respective software dev. kits (i.e. facebook php sdk). They will facilitate your job in comparison to starting raw development all by yourself.
Tim, if you want to get into the business of working with Facebook, you need to know right away that they are always in the process of updating. That being said, you should learn some Facebook terminology so you can do more research and figure out what you want to do.
Applications that run within the Facebook interface are called Canvas Apps. Your application is hosted on your own server, and Facebook simply adds an iframe in their UI that points to your app's URL.
Another way to go to create a webapp that uses your own design, but still utilizes a single sign-on system from Facebook. This used to be called a Connect App but now they don't really have a name for it. Basically, you can use Facebook's authorization system to pull Facebook user data into your own database, which basically eliminates the need for a registration page. The authorization system prompts the user to allow your app to get specific data about them - once they authorize it, your app has access to do whatever the user gave it permission to do.
The best document to wrap your brain around is about authentication: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/
Give that a whirl, and good luck!