WPBook – Posting to more page types, new site

(photo by hobvias sudoneighm, click for photo page)

Thanks to troubleshooting help from mommyknows and other users, I’ve been able to track down and fix an issue with posting to different kinds of pages.

Thanks to Brooke Dukes, we also now have a site for the plugin itself: wpbook.net – with instructions, blog posts about the plugin, and the like.

Grab 2.0.8.1 from the plugin repository and check it out!

(2.0.8 somehow incorporated a nasty syntax error – whitespace ahead of the opening PHP tag – so skip that and go straight to 2.0.8.1).

For a long time now WPBook has enabled users to cross-post excerpts from their blog posts to either the wall of their personal profile or the wall of a Facebook fan page.

However, in setting up WPBook many users were ending up with:

Read more…

Facebook Changes, WPBook

Interesting post today on the Facebook developer blog regarding the roadmap. The post noted that, among other things:

We are also moving toward IFrames instead of FBML for both canvas applications and Page tabs. As a part of this process, we will be standardizing on a small set of core FBML tags that will work with both applications on Facebook and external Web pages via our JavaScript SDK, effectively eliminating the technical difference between developing an application on and off Facebook.com.

We will begin supporting IFrames for Page tabs in the next few months. Developers building canvas applications should start using IFrames immediately. By the end of this year, we will no longer allow new FBML applications to be created, so all new canvas applications and Page tabs will have to be based on IFrames and our JavaScript SDK. We will, however, continue to support existing implementations of the older authentication mechanism as well as FBML on Page tabs and applications.

Finally, due to low usage rates, we will remove application tabs from user profiles in the next couple months. Application tabs will continue to be supported on Facebook Pages.

Good thing I finally got around to updating WPBook to support FBML-based tabs, just in time for them to be discontinued. ;)

Oh well, once they allow iFrames on tabs we’ll get the ability to do things like embedded videos. But then they’ll take tabs away from individual profiles? So individual profiles won’t have boxes or tabs?

I guess that will just encourage anyone really using WordPress as a platform for promoting their blog will end up creating a page, and then using the tab in the page?

You can see a timeline of some of the updates here: Developer Roadmap

They also changed the developer app again:

We’ve also spent some time cleaning up some of our developer tools and documentation. We’ve simplified the Developer application by removing obsolete settings and tabs

So the instructions for WPBook which I just updated last weekend will need updating again to match the new settings look & feel. Ah the joys of depending on a third party platform . . .

Once more with Feeling: WPBook 2.0.3

That’s what I get for trying to make too many changes in one release. Sheesh.

WPBook 2.0.2, released last night, is already superseded by 2.0.3, which I just tagged for release.

Bugs fixed:

• Extra whitespace in wpbook.php after the closing ?> tag
• Cleaned up includes to break on functions rather than midstream

I think that will solve the most immediate issue folks are having.

As always, let me know what you’re seeing here or in the support forums.

WPBook 2.0.2: Tabs, Stream Publishing, Comment Imports

Lots of changes in WPBook 2.0.2, which I’ve just finished tagging for release, but the most important are:

• Import of comments posted on Facebook Wall. (If you’re following non-stable, beta releases, you’ve had this since 2.0.0 – but it is improved and stable enough now for all to use)
• Ability to suppress posting excerpts to Facebook on a post-by-post basis
• Fix for bug with posting excerpts to Facebook Wall (of individual profile or fan page)
• Revised instructions to match current Facebook and WPBook settings pages, in four steps
• Reordered and simplified settings page, putting most used settings nearer the top (and matching new instructions step by step)
• Tabs: for individual profiles and application profiles, you can now add a view of your blog as a tab – and much html is supported. (Sorry, no objects or iframes, thus no embedded videos).
• Debug setting which writes a file with attempts to import comments
• Ability to edit the attribution WPBook uses when posting to Facebook Walls
• PHP 5 calls moved to conditional imports – should improve error reporting for folks trying to use WPBook on PHP4 hosts, when it requires PHP5

As always you can get the latest WPBook from the WordPress.org repository and let me know in the support forums how it’s working for you.

Here’s a quick screenshot of what this blog looks like in a tab (without this post, obviously):

Open Parenthesis blog as a Tab (Click for full size)

WPBook 2.0.1, beta testers still needed

Once again, I’ve tagged a new version of WPBook for release. See the “other versions” section of the download page.

I’ve revamped the way permissions are requested, so as to store the session key Facebook provides when the user grants “offline access” permission. This enables WPBook to import comments from either the user’s Facebook Wall or the Wall of a Facebook Fan Page.

I’ve also added the ability to change the attribution line (the little blurb WPBook attaches to each message when you post it).

Given the complexity of all the different ways one might configure the application, though, I feel a need to get some folks testing it before making it the ‘default’ new release.

If you’re testing it, please do let me know – either via comments here, in the wpbook support forum, or via the contact form.

NOTE: This version has debugging on by default, which means it will create a debug text file in your wpbook plugin directory – this can be disabled by editing wpbook_cron.php at line 37, changing:

define ('DEBUG', true);

to

define ('DEBUG', false);

But there is useful info in that debug file for trying things out.

You’ll also probably find, in testing, that you’ll need a plugin like Core Control which lets you see what cron jobs are running and run specific jobs ahead of schedule.

Thanks

John