Updated: WordPress Facebook plugin update – with Profile Boxes!

Updated for 0.9.3 (Jan 13 2009)

Updated for 0.9.2. (Jan 7 2009)
Updated for 0.9.1 (Jan 2 2009)

I’ve been working on an update to WPBook, the WordPress to Facebook plugin I co-developed.

I haven’t yet released this version on the WordPress plugin site, but I do think it’s stable enough for use – try it out and let me know what you think.

I’m using it here: http://apps.facebook.com/openparenthesis/.

This version allows an “add to profile” button inside the app, which presents the five most recent posts in a profile box – can be on the user’s main profile or inside the “boxes” tab.

It also enables – if the “application settings” inside Facebook are set – for the blog app to be added to FaceBook “pages.”

Download: WPBook 0.9.3

What remains to be done is testing – especially testing with multiple user accounts when you publish new blog posts – does the new blog post show up in other people’s “recent posts” profile box?

I’m also working on cleaning up some of the admin UI – right now there’s a complicated set of steps one has to go through in order to get an “infinite session key” which basically lets WordPress update the list of recent posts whenever they change, regardless of whether any specific user is logged in to Facebook – I think I ought to be able to make that a “get infinite session key” button, which handles the whole thing in a jQuery modal popup or some such.

Anyway, try it out and see what you think – hopefully I can finalize a release shortly.

(Note: There’s an excellent tutorial here on how-to forge which greatly helped in getting this working – worth a look, though it is for a different kind of application).

Update: Looks like Facebook has deprecated infinite session keys, but they key Fbml.refreshRefURl method I need no longer requires a session key. Trying this path now. Yeah – it works.

16 Comments

  1. Does this work with self-hosted WP blogs?

    How does this differ from WordPress’ own facebook app?

  2. Hi Fernando.

    This plugin only works with self-hosted WP blogs, so far as I know. (I don’t have any WP.com blogs to test it on).

    I’m not a user of WordPress’ Facebook application, as I understand it only works with blogs hosted at wordpress.com.

    According to many recent reviews on Facebook, their app also stopped working. ;)

    This plugin doesn’t (currently – perhaps next version) automatically add your new blog posts to your news feed, but it does add them to your profile box.

    This plugin does, however, allow users to read your blog posts inside Facebook – as opposed to linking them back to your blog externally – and allows them to comment on your blog posts with their facebook identity, then shows those same comments to all readers, regardless of whether they view your blog inside facebook or at its external url.

  3. Let me know what issues you run in to – I haven’t been able to test it across a broad set of different configurations, so any bug reports / unexpected behavior / difficulty will help me figure out how to make it better!

  4. I love this plugin but I am having a bit of a hard time with it. Everything seems to work, the canvas URL display and updates perfectly, I can invite friends to use the App. However, on my profile page (or if I move it to the Boxes page), all that keeps showing up is “No content to display” message instead of the five most recent posts. What am I doing wrong?
    BTW, after some more poking around, I have a feeling it has to do with the Profile Tab settings under User Profiles. What should I put in for the Tab URL?
    Thanks!

  5. Can you share what the url of your facebook application is, and validate what version of the plugin you have installed?

    It’s not a question of the Tab URL, as the app doesn’t expose a whole “profile tab” just a profile box – it will fit within either your main profile or the “boxes” tab of your profile if you have lots of apps – not provide its own tab.

    The “no content to display” message means that for whatever reason one of the functions in the application is failing – one which tries to set the FBML of the user’s profile.

    If you’ll send me the url of your app in facebook and your blog outside facebook, I can take a look and see if anything jumps out.

  6. Hey I just installed the 0.9.2 beta, and it fixed my add to profile issue, however my comments give me a blank white back when it come back to my blog, it did this also with 0.9.1 .. im on WP2.7.

    Sending a comment from your app in Facebook gives me a different error:

    Fatal error: Call to undefined method FacebookRestClient::set_user() in /home/.facto/jeckman/openparenthesis.org/wp-content/themes/wp-facebook/client/facebook.php on line 82

  7. Hmm. that’s a new one. I don’t believe I’m calling set_user() anywhere.

    Any other comment-related plugins in your wordpress install?

  8. Yes,

    The other thing I noticed is in Facebook,

    Developers > My Application > Clicked on my app > BAN Feed > View About Page > Add to Page

    You can add this application to some of your Facebook Pages.

    I did check the box in App Settings and when you click on add to page, you select the Pages you have (I also have a Business Page) however the app never gets added and its not selectable in the drop down any more.

    But In My Applications, It add a number to the Total Users

  9. Hi John, this looks neat. I set it up last night and sent you a subsequent Twitter message but for the benefit of everyone else, I’ll comment here.

    My blog is ariwriter.com and my Facebook app is apps.facebook.com/ariwriter, using the latest version off the WP plugin list, all seems to look fine except if I click into a page title, and I get a ‘page not found’ error, e.g. http://apps.facebook.com/http://apps.facebook.com/ariwriter/2009/01/guest-interview-with-heidi-cool-how-a-university-experiments-with-social-media/

    I see what it’s doing, but I am clueless how to fix it.

    Also, how can one add a FB comment if my WP comment feature is within the theme?

  10. Saw your tweets but I am traveling today – difficult to troubleshoot via iPhone from a moving van.

    You’ve entered too much in one of the config fields -note the duplicate http://apps.facebook.com entry on the link?

    I think it is the app URL setting in wordpress admin for the plugin.

  11. The only part of the installation instructions I didn’t understand was “Set the sidenav url to your canvas url,” as I couldn’t see any of the FB settings for sidenav url.

    Could that be the cause?

  12. No. The issue is what you have entered for the option in WordPress (Settings -> WPBook) where it says: “Enter Your Facebook Application’s Canvas Page URL: ( http://apps.facebook.com/%5Benter just this bit] )”

    You’ve entered:
    http://apps.facebook.com/ariwriter

    What you should enter is:
    ariwriter

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