1. Intro to facebook Platform
Presented by
Mehedi Hasan Sumon
E-mail: mehedi895@yahoo.com
2. What is Facebook Platform?
• The quot;Facebook Platformquot; is a set of application
programming interfaces (APIs) and services
provided by Facebook which makes this
information available to Platform Applications
and allows Facebook and third-party
developers (quot;Developersquot;) to develop new
features and applications that we hope will
enhance your ability to interact with people in
your life in new and interesting ways.
4. Points of integration
• When we create an application for the
Facebook Platform, we can integrate it at
several points in the framework.
Display in the Application directory.
Provide an About page.
Display inside Facebook Canvas Pages.
Display at Left Navigation Panel
Display a Profile Page
Access and post to News Feed.
5. Display in the Application directory
MySimplifieds app
is in application
directory
13. Facebook web application model
• Facebook applications are not installed directly onto the
Facebook server. Instead, they are placed on the
developer’s server and then called by Facebook when the
application URL is requested.
• To interact with applications, Facebook uses a callback
metaphor. It will use a registered URL associated with the
application.
• in Facebook. When the Facebook application URL is
requested, Facebook redirects the request to the APP
server. Then the APP will processes the request,
communicates with Facebook.
14. Facebook platform elements
• The Facebook API
• FBML – Facebook Markup language
• FQL – Facebook Query Language
• Facebook JavaScript
15. Facebook API
• The Facebook API is a Web services programming
interface for accessing core services
(profile, friends, group, event, photo) and performing
other Facebook-centric functionality (log
in, redirect, update view). The API is based on a REST-
based architecture. Facebook officially supports client
libraries for PHP and Java.
• Several unofficial client libraries have been developed
for most every major Web programming
language, including
ASP.NET, ColdFusion, C++, Python, Ruby on
Rails, VB.NET.
16. Facebook Markup Language
• Facebook Markup Language (FBML) is an
HTML-like language used to display pages
inside of the Facebook canvas. Here are three
basic facts about FBML:
FBML contains a subset of HTML elements.
FBML provides qualified support for script and
style elements.
<p>Your name is: <fb:name uid=”665127078” useyou=”false”/></p>
17. Facebook Query Language
• Facebook Query Language (FQL) is a SQL-
based interface into Facebook data. You can
access many Facebook database tables,
including user, friend, group, group_member,
event, event_member, photo, album, and
photo_ tag.
$friends = $facebook->api_client->fql_query(“SELECT uid, name FROM
user WHERE
uid IN (SELECT uid2 FROM friend WHERE uid1=$user)”);
18. Facebook JavaScript
• FBML does not support the use of standard
JavaScript using the script element. However,
Facebook JavaScript (or FBJS, for short) allows
for limited scripting functionality inside a
Facebook application. But Facebook JavaScript
does provide AJAX and Facebook dialog
objects for developers to take advantage of.
19. Developer centers
on Facebook.com
• facebook.com/developers is the “home base”
for Facebook developers.
• developers.facebook.com is the official
documentation center for Facebook Platform
developers.
• wiki.developers.facebook.com is a user-based
Facebook developer’s Wiki, providing
documentation, FAQs, sample codes.
24. Registering an Application
• Add an e-mail address that you want to use for technical
support issues.
• In the Callback URL field, enter the base URL for your
application.
• In the Canvas Page URL field, enter the subfolder name that
you would like to request for your Facebook application.
• Select the Use FBML and Website option button
• In the Side Nav URL field, enter the canvas page URL of your
application. E.g.: (http://apps.facebook.com/yourapp)
• Click the submit button, you will get the API Key and
secrete, save them for next step.
26. Creating a Simple Facebook App
• Download the client library files of your programming language from the
My Applications page (facebook.com/developers/apps.php).
• Uncompress the downloaded file and copy the client library files via FTP to
your Web server.
• In your text editor, create a new file and save it as appinclude.php.
<?php
require once ‘lib/facebook.php’;
$appapikey = ‘*your_api_key+’;
$appsecret = ‘*your_secret_key+’;
$appcallbackurl = ‘*your_web_app_url+’;
?>
• On your Web server, create a new folder for your application.
27. Creating a Simple Facebook App
• In your text editor, create a new file and save it as index.php
<h1> Sample Application</h1>
<?php
require once ‘appinclude.php’;
echo “<p>Your User ID is: $user</p>”;
echo “<p>Your name is: <fb:name uid=”$user”
useyou=”false”/></p>”;
echo “<p>You have several friends: </p>”;
$friends = $facebook->api_client->friends_get();
echo “<ul>”;
foreach ($friends as $friend) {
echo “<li><fb:name uid=”$friend” useyou=”false” /></li>”;
}
echo “</ul>”;
?>
28. Creating a Simple Facebook App
• Save the file and copy it to the application folder via
FTP on your Web server.
• Enter the canvas page URL for your application in
your browser. (http://apps.facebook.com/dummies.)
• That’s all ….