WPBook 2.3 is released. This uses the same Facebook SDK (3.1.1) as WPBook Lite which I just released last weekend – this will make it easier to manage both.

It will also let me start work on adding more features to the plugin- a more stable base to work from.

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Third test. Should publish just to WPBook page.
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Oops. That’s why we test. Typo in publish_to_facebook.php fixed.
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Sorry for the testing post. Just working on an update to WPBook 2.3, including an update to the Facebook SDK, and need to make sure in the process I haven’t busted anything.

This should post to personal profile and to page wall.
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Difficult Choices. (Photo by Beppie K, cc-by-nc-sa license)

Over in the WordPress Support forums for WPBook, WPBook user TheCitizen was asking about the absence of “share” links on Wall Excerpts posted via WPBook. I responded that in my experience posts made via the API (by an App, rather than by the user directly) don’t get “share” links inside Facebook.

He pointed to Facebook Page Publish, a WordPress plugin which also cross-posts to Facebook (though it does not import comments). Posts made via this plugin do get a share link.

Digging in a bit, I realized that Facebook Page Publish uses the Link object in the Facebook Graph API, whereas WPBook and WPBook Lite both use a Post object.

What’s the difference? That’s what I’m trying to determine now.

Links are posted with these fields (ref):

• link
• message

The rest of the values “are taken from the metadata of the page URL given in the ‘link’ prarameter.

Posts are created with these fields (ref):

• message
• link
• picture
• name
• caption
• description
• actions
• privacy
• object_attachment

So Posts are more complex than Links, whereas Links rely on getting the Facebook metadata from the page returned by the link.

How does each appear, on the timeline and in the news feed?

Here’s the same link, posted twice, using the Facebook Graph API explorer – the first time (the lower box) is as a Link, the second time is as a Post:

That is how they look on the timeline – logging in as another FB user and looking at News Feed, I could not even see the Post type, only the Link type:

Though I’m certain that in the past I have seen items in the newsfeed which were posted as Posts. (Maybe it was that I’d just posted the same link as a link, so Facebook was hiding the second item as spam? I’ll retry with something different).

(Update: here’s what a Post type object looks like in the Newsfeed – the item for this blog post):

A few things to note:

• The nicer excerpt – “We are an interactive agency . . . ” was pulled from the page being linked to by Facebook themselves, not entered by me. In the case of WPBook or WPBook Lite posts, we want to provide the full excerpt, not have it pulled from the link destination.
• The image – again, this was pulled from the link destination. In the case of WPBook or WPBook lite posts, the image would be provided by the app (the featured image from the post) not grabbed from the destination link – but it looks the same in both.
• In the case of the link type, the “via the Graph API Explorer” is next to the poster’s name, but in the Post type it is down at the bottom above the action links
• The Link type gets a “share” action link, while the Post type only gets “Like” and Comment.”

Given all this, plus the fact that I found it hard to find the Post type in the newsfeed of an account I know follows me, I wonder if we shouldn’t switch to posting blog posts as the “Link” type.

The challenge is that the “link” type depends on the target blog having the right open graph metadata in place already (unless wpbook / wpbook lite try to actually provide that metadata).

When Facebook visits the link, it looks for Open Graph Metadata – which your blog’s theme may or may not provide.

Using the “Post” object allows WPBook / WPBook Lite to control the message being sent to Facebook more explicitly, rather than relying on metadata.

The part that worries me though is how frequently “Post” type objects get into News Feeds. Since Facebook controls the algorithm which decides what, out of the hundreds or thousands of possible posts in any given user’s feed, to show that user, I have no way of knowing whether object type (Post vs Link) has any impact.

Anyone have data on that to share?

1. Eliminate the canvas page and tab altogether – make WPBook just focus on cross-posting and comment import, thus potentially eliminating the SSL requirement?
2. Make it optional – keep the canvas page and tab, but make them optional – only for users who want them and have the necessary SSL certificate
3. Fork the plugin – make a version of the plugin which works like the current model, but also a second (WPBook Lite?) that only does cross posting and comment import? That way we could have separate directions for each to simplify setup confusion
4. Stop developing WPBook – There are a number of other plugins which do Facebook posting, and at least one which does Facebook comment importing (probably more). Is it worth continuing to develop WPBook if better alternatives exist?

Ultimately, I settled on Option 3: Fork the plugin, and create a lighter-weight version which did not include the canvas page or tab. The result is WPBook Lite, available now in the WordPress Plugin Repository.

Should I use WPBook, or WPBook Lite?

I suspect this will be the main question folks will face, so here’s a quick comparison table:

Basically, if you are able to access your blog via HTTPS, and you WANT the view of the blog inside Facebook as a canvas application, or you want the page tab feature, you should use WPBook.

If your blog is not accessible via HTTPS, or you don’t want the view of the blog inside Facebook / page tab, then you should be happier with WPBook lite.

I’ll be updating the instructions over at WPBook.net shortly to reflect Facebook’s new look for developer settings shortly, and will also differentiate between WPBook and WPBook Lite. In theory, configuring WPBook Lite should be significantly simpler for most users.

If you’re already using WPBook and shift to WPBook Lite, you will need to regrant permissions.

Migrating from WPBook to WPBook Lite:

1. View your WPBook settings page, and write down your profile ID as well as the IDs of any pages/groups to which you want to cross publish.
2. Deactivate WPBook (but don’t delete it yet)
3. Install and Activate WPBook Lite
4. Set up a new Application for WPBook Lite – this time you should only need the “Website” settings under Integration, not any of the “App on Facebook” section settings
5. Visit the WPBook Lite settings page in WordPress, fill out the required fields (APP ID, Secret, your profile ID), and save the form
6. Re-visit the WPBook Lite settings page, where you should now see an opportunity to grant appropriate permissions

If done correctly, WPBook Lite should pick up right where WPBook left off.

If you run into problems, please comment in the appropriate WordPress Support Forums: WPBook or WPBook Lite.

Pittsfield in the Near Future (from Cameo Wood on flickr, cc-by-nc license)

The first is a change Facebook has made, requiring SSL certificates for “all Canvas and Page tab applications.” (They announced this change earlier this summer, as part of the bizarrely Orwellian “Operation Developer Love” but it went into effect as of October 1st).

This is a problem because many WPBook users’ blogs are not available via https connections (including my own), and with this new Facebook change their WPBook implementation will fail, though how exactly that will be manifest isn’t clear to me yet (see below). Getting an SSL certificate for your blog isn’t an insurmountable task, but if you run your blog on cheap shared hosting, the costs of an SSL certificate (and the dedicated IP it requires) can be nearly as much as you’re paying for hosting! It’s also a task that the non-technical user will find horribly confusing.

The second is a recent report showing that:

Using a 3rd party API to update your Facebook Page decreases your likelihood of engagement per fan (on average) by about 80%

The study results suggest that one of WPBook’s core functions – posting automatically to your wall (or the wall of a fan page, group, or application) whenever new blog posts are published – might not even be a good idea to begin with.

Facebook posts direct versus via 3rd party APIs (Edgeranker study)

If third-party automated postings get de-prioritized by Facebook, you might be better off using a Facebook share button and manually cross posting to Facebook each time you publish. On the other hand, maybe the reason third-party automated postings get less attention is because people post more crap weak content that way. (If what the 10 most popular third-party apps post is lots of nonsense about games, thinly veiled ads, and self-promotion, maybe that is what the study results show people are ignoring – not that good relevant content posted by automated applications gets ignored).

So, what’s the way forward?

The scenario I’m imaging is to split apart the functions of the current WPBook and make some portions optional.

WPBook currently does four main things:

1. Expose a view of your blog as a Facebook application (a canvas page or set of pages). Basically this is an iframe inside Facebook containing your blog content, drawn by WordPress in a theme supplied by WPBook, to make it look more like other Facebook pages.
2. Expose a view of your blog as a “tab” for use on Facebook pages. This is also iframe based, but a bit different in terms of what is allowed in that tab.
3. Cross-post to Facebook whenever a new blog post is published. (To your personal profile wall, or to the wall of a Fan Page, Group, or Application, or some combination thereof).
4. Import comments made against those wall posts, and make them WordPress comments

I believe that the Facebook requirement of SSL only affects numbers 1 and 2 of this list. Even in the current WPBook, if you set “use external permalinks” then users never need know your application canvas page exists – they will just click on the links in wall posts and be taken to your (external) blog. Users without SSL certificate capability (or interest) could still get the benefits of 3 and 4 without having to worry about 1 and 2.

(It’s not clear to me right now how this would impact setup of WPBook-based applications. Facebook’s developer blog clearly indicates that canvas and page-tab applications will require SSL, but that would seem to imply other kinds of applications will not. Is it just a question of choosing a different application type during setup in Facebook? The whole app creation flow has changed so many times it is hard to keep track – maybe it is a question of unchecking some of the boxes in the dialog below?)

New Facebook App Creation Options

So the question becomes, is it worth it to keep WPBook trying to do 1 & 2 above?

Originally this was all WPBook did, and it seemed to me quite useful and distinct from any other Facebook related plugin. In essence you could use WPBook this way to drive a whole in-Facebook experience and never require (or even let!) users go to the blog outside of Facebook (though preventing them from accessing the blog outside Facebook would require some extra work on your part).

Open Parenthesis, as seen outside Facebook (left) and inside Facebook (right) - click for full size

But most users, it seems to me, were confused by this “Facebook view of my blog” approach. They wanted cross posting, and comments import, but didn’t like the application view of the blog (which required all users viewing blog content to consent to application permissions) or worried about it taking traffic away from their external blog.

Should I:

1. Eliminate the canvas page and tab altogether – make WPBook just focus on cross-posting and comment import, thus potentially eliminating the SSL requirement?
2. Make it optional – keep the canvas page and tab, but make them optional – only for users who want them and have the necessary SSL certificate
3. Fork the plugin – make a version of the plugin which works like the current model, but also a second (WPBook Lite?) that only does cross posting and comment import? That way we could have separate directions for each to simplify setup confusion
4. Stop developing WPBook – There are a number of other plugins which do Facebook posting, and at least one which does Facebook comment importing (probably more). Is it worth continuing to develop WPBook if better alternatives exist?

My concern with option 2 (“make it optional”) is just that configuring WPBook is already too complex for many users, given the variety of ways Facebook can be used and the variety of ways WPBook can be configured. Adding yet another set of variants (which would change not just what you have to set inside WordPress but also what choices you make when setting up the corresponding Facebook application) will only increase complexity and therefore support requests, which I honestly just don’t have the time to answer as quickly or extensively as I’d like.

My concern with option 3 (“fork the plugin”) is similar – more work for me, when I’ve had difficulty keeping up with plugin maintenance and maintenance of the instructions as Facebook constantly changes their application settings pages. If maintaining one plugin is difficult, maintaining two will be more so, even if they share some segment of the code base.

So option 1 (“eliminate”) is perhaps the simplest. (I say “perhaps” because I haven’t looked into it in depth yet – how hard will it be to untangle all the permission setting and checking logic, which is currently using a canvas page to display the current permissions? How will that change existing applications built using WPBook?).

But once that’s gone, what distinguishes WPBook from all the other Facebook posting plugins?

The fourth option would be to just declare WPBook obsolete. Existing WPBook installations work, if the user’s blog supports SSL. Currently if users browse Facebook in https mode, my own WPBook-powered applications just don’t work, because I don’t have SSL certificates for any of my blogs – just not worth the effort. But I’m ok with that.

It may be seems that new WPBook users will find they can’t set up a Facebook application (necessary to use WPBook) without an SSL certificate, and if they want to have cross-posting and comment import they’ll need to use an alternative approach, but a quick search of the plugin repository suggests other options are plentiful.

I’d love to hear from you all – especially if you are WPBook users (it’s had over 100,000 downloads, but I’ve no idea how many are in active use).

• Are you using the “Canvas Page” or “Tab Page” views inside Facebook? If so, do you have an SSL certificate for your blog? Would you miss these views if WPBook were revised to eliminate them?
• Have you evaluated other WordPress plugins for accomplishing the same thing? Did they work, or what issues did you run into?

As always, comments (and patches!) welcome.

Road to nowhere (Photo by Matthew Connor, cc-by-nc license)

Back in January, I got an unexpected flurry of WPBook support requests, and ultimately discovered they were the result of Facebook’s decision to allow people to browse Facebook in HTTPS mode.

As part of that change, Facebook introduced some new settings: “Secure Canvas URL” and “Secure Tab URL,” which would enable https connections throughout your Facebook application.

WPBook mostly worked with these two variables properly set (thanks to cshiflet for this patch).

Now, however, Facebook has announced they will require ALL apps to support https:

Today, we are announcing an update to our Developer Roadmap that outlines a plan requiring all sites and apps to migrate to OAuth 2.0, process the signed_request parameter, and obtain an SSL certificate by October 1.

What will this mean for WPBook users?

Unfortunately, my guess is that many WPBook users are not prepared to install an SSL certificate and accept https traffic on their blogs. (SSL certificates typically require that your blog have a unique IP address and cost extra at shared hosting facilities).

If you are unable to install an SSL certificate for your blog, and enable https based browsing of it, you may be unable to use WPBook after October 1, 2011 (or whenever Facebook decides to actually enforce this migration step).

More to come as we get closer to that date.

Try Again (Photo by Samantha Marx, cc-by license, http://www.flickr.com/photos/spam/3355834452/)

Spent some quality time this weekend with WPBook. As a result, I just released version 2.2.1. (There was briefly a 2.2 release, but something was corrupted in that version of the SVN repo, so use 2.2.1 instead).

Included in 2.2.1:

• Read More is back. Re-enabled the “Read More” action link. Unfortunately, because of a Facebook API bug wpbook can’t add more than one action link to a post, so no “share” button on wall posts until that is fixed. (Facebook doesn’t add the Share link automatically to posts from the Graph API and there’s currently no way to make that happen other than manually adding it as a link, but I think the “Read More” link is more important.)
• Post to Group Walls. Added posting options for Group walls, and comment import form Group walls. Because of the way the Facebook API has changed, posting to a Group feed is distinct from posting to a Page’s feed, and requires different syntax.
• Controlled debugging. Limit the size of debug files created to 500k, so that users who enable debugging and then forget won’t have an unlimited file growing every hour. Also made the debug constant more specific to WPBook so as not to interfere with other plugins potentially using DEBUG as a constant
• Fopen errors. Clean up DEBUG for cases where permissions fail or file is not writeable
• Facebook::$CURL_OPTS . Made “disable ssl verification” an option so that only users who need it will have it and others won’t get conflict
• Required fields are required. Cleanup to the admin screens in general, more clarity around what is required and better language on the admin screens about what is being checked. (Thanks BandonRandon for patches)
• Better check permissions. Improved “Check permissions” page, to show what options mean and enable links to view profiles, pages, links to validate IDs are correct.
• Added wpbook logo which had been missing
• Fix for get_themes() issues with WordPress 3.0.1 through 3.0.5

I realize from the activity in the forums that many users are having trouble with the 2.1 and later WPBook – but I believe all the known errors have been fixed, and most are due to misconfiguration.

A few configuration notes that might help:

1. Your application ID, secret, canvas URL, and Profile ID must be correct or nothing else is going to work. If you load your application canvas page and you don’t see the WPBook theme, but see just your blog in an iframe (unchanged), then something is wrong in your Facebook Application setup, your WPBook setup, or in a plugin conflict.
2. Your personal FB profile is absolutely required, even if you don’t plan to publish to your profile’s wall. It is through the FB profile that the access_token for publishing to pages is retrieved. If your FB profile ID is wrong, nothing else is going to work.
3. Any time you change the Profile ID, the Page ID, or the Group ID to which you are trying to publish, you must visit the Check Permissions page and will most likely need to regrant permissions. Again, if permissions aren’t working, nothing else is going to work.

If you’re stuck, please open a new thread in the wordpress forums and provide the following debugging info:

• The URLs of your Facebook Application and your blog outside FB
• The contents of your check permissions page – verbatim
• What you are trying to publish to – profile, page, group – by ID and by URL
• What error messages you are seeing, in the WordPress interface and/or in the PHP error log

With the right information, we will be able to get it working.

Thanks

Code Bug (Photo by Guilherme Tavares, cc-by license, http://www.flickr.com/photos/guitavares/1703252007/)

Just released WPBook 2.1.4.

Two key bugfixes in this release:

1. Comment Imports. In changing to the Graph API I needed to add an access_token to the FQL calls I’m using to retrieve comments from non-public streams.
2. Facebook Avatars for Pages. Given that you can now comment on wall posts as a page (by using the “use Facebook as page” option if you are the admin of a page) some of your comment authors in FB might be pages themselves. This fix will get the right FB avatar for them, eliminating what was otherwise a broken link image.

There should not be any need to regrant permissions or change any Facebook settings in this release.

Thanks to all the users who’ve provided feedback (and debug files!) in the forums.

Note that if you’ve already made the changes described in upgrading from 2.0.x to 2.1 you do not have to redo them, though you will have to regrant permissions (in order to fix #s 1 and 2 below).

Three significant bug fixes:

1. Access Token storage. In 2.1 and 2.1.1 I had been storing the access_token Facebook returns after granting permissions in the user_meta table, which worked, but only if you were always publishing in WordPress as the same user who granted permissions. (The same WordPress user_id). Now this gets stored in the options table and works regardless of who is logged in, which makes more sense for the publish action in the first place.
2. Publish as a page. This required getting the “manage_pages” permission, so you will need to regrant permissions (visit the WPBook options page, click on the “Check Permissions” link inside the Stream/Wall options section, and then click on “regrant permissions” on the resulting page inside Facebook). Basically once you’ve granted “manage_pages” permissions, WPBook looks for the page you’ve identified as a target, and fetches and stores a new access_token that is specific to acting as that page. This access token is then used to publish to the page’s wall, so that they appear to come from the page, not from your FB user id.
3. Post Thumbnails. This was more badly broken than I thought – not sure how it worked in my testing. (My guess is that FB grabs an image even when you don’t provide one, and may have accidentally grabbed the right one when I test-posted). But it works now, provided you have actually indicated a post-thumbnail (or “featured image” as it is now called in the WordPress admin).

What may still be outstanding is support for WordPress 3.0.1 and potentially other versions between 2.9 and 3.1. Please do open a thread in the forums if you are using an older version of WordPress or having other issues.

Note to self, by S@Z, creative commons license

Just tagged a 2.1 beta 2 release of WPBook, which adds to the earlier release 2.1 beta 1 some new tricks:

1. Post as Note in Facebook. Based on a patch supplied by sebaxtian in the forums, this option changes the posting type in Facebook from a regular story (an entry in your news feed) to a Note, using the Facebook Notes application.
2. Custom Themes. Based on a patch from BandonRandon, this functionality looks first for an installed theme named ‘WPBook’ and if it finds that uses that theme over the default supplied theme. This way, advanced users can change the appearance of their WPBook powered blogs inside Facebook and not have those changes overwritten with each new release. I will be sure to note in future releases when any new functions are introduced or significant changes made to the theme files.

I haven’t, unfortunately, gotten much feedback on the beta. I say unfortunately because I think that’s a result of few people testing it – I suppose it’s possible it is just working for everyone but I think it has seen few downloads. (There’s one reported error in the forums, but I can’t isolate what’s causing it).

So please do test this one – remember that if you are upgrading from 2.0.x you will need to make the same changes to your settings as described in the release blog post for 2.1 beta 1 .

Report on your success or failure in the forums – thanks.

I’ve just tagged earlier today a 2.1b1 (beta 1) release of WPBook. Please download it and test it, and report back what you find here or (preferably) in the forums.

Make changes to your Facebook Application settings described below after installing WPBook 2.1 but before trying to visit application pages!. We’ll update the official WPBook documentation once we’ve got a few folks testing the new version and can move to a 2.1 release.

This release is the first to use Facebook’s OAuth-based authentication protocol, Graph API, and new PHP SDK. I know that’s a whole lot of acronyms, but let’s just say it means we’ll stay current as Facebook makes obsolete some of the older ways of integrating to Facebook.

New features:

• Facebook Like button on posts, rather than Share button. The like button now works in a very similar fashion to the older share button (it posts into the users news feed when he/she likes something). It also resolves to the external url, so if you’re using a Facebook Like button on your blog outside Facebook, likes inside Facebook will get counted as well.
• iFrame based tabs. Unlike the old FBML based tags, iFrame based tabs (which you can use on “new” page profiles) can include videos and other full html objects.
• WPBook now uses post_thumbnails (“featured image” set in the post edit screen) for wall posts, which should yield more consistent results
• WPBook now requires WordPress 2.9 or later

In other words, this is really mostly a back-end cleanup release.

When you install, you’ll need to make a number of changes:

1. In WPBook Settings, there’s now a box for “App ID” rather than “API-key.” You’ll need to change this as if you had WPBook before 2.1, it will be set to your API Key – you’ll need to change it to your App ID
2. In WPBook Settings, go into the Stream/Wall section, make sure your Profile ID and Page ID are set correctly, and click on the Check Permissions link. Even if you previously had permissions set correctly, you’ll need to re-grant them in order to store successfully an access token that will give WPBook the ability to connect to Facebook even when you are offline. The Check Permissions page itself (shown inside Facebook, see below) now tries to give an indication of the current status of all permissions and necessary steps.
3. Update your Facebook Application settings – go to your Facebook application and change the Advanced Tab settings to match the below – enabling OAuth 2.0 and Post for iFrames Canvas urls
4. Update your Facebook Application settings for Page Tabs. If the page you want to add the tab to is using the old page style, leave tabs set to FBML and ?app_tab=true&fb_force_mode=fbml (as before). But if the page to which you want to add the tab is using the new profile layout, change tabs to iframe, and change the tab url to ?app_tab=true, leaving out the &fb_force_mode=fbml bit.

Here’s what the new “Check Permissions” page looks like:

And here’s what the “Advanced” tab of your Facebook Application settings should look like for 2.1 or later:

I’ve validated that it is working for me on two different WordPress blogs (with different Facebook Applications):

• Posting to individual profile Wall on post publish, including featured image
• Posting to Application Profile Wall, Page Wall, and Group Wall, including featured image. (One type of wall at a time – is there interest in posting to multiples at once?)
• Importing comments from individual profiles and from page walls – based on wp-cron, running hourly
• Showing canvas pages with new OAuth based permissions
• Showing iFrame based tabs or FBML based tabs, depending on the string entered in the url box of the Facebook settings for Tabs – iFrame based tabs only work on new style profiles

A few quick updates in this release, but fairly minor:

• Moved and Unhid the infinite_session_key in admin WPBook setting screen. Lots of folks were confused by where that option was located.
• Fixed attribution line function which prevented %author% from working
• Added global gravatar setting – otherwise we only filter gravatars inside facebook. (This prevents wpbook from interfering with othee gravatars in themes outside fb).
• Added DONOTCACHEPAGE constant when pages are viewed inside facebook –
  this should enable WPBook to better coordinate with wp-super-cache, though you will still need to use the “Use PHP to serve cached files” rather than “Use mod_rewrite to serve cache files” for this to work.

In addition, I started to experiment a bit with Facebook’s new iFrame based “tabs” for adding to profile pages. (They still call them tabs even though the new Profile Page layout doesn’t have tabs proper anymore). Unfortunately the auto-resize function which sizes the iframe to the right height for its content seems to be broken, or deprecated, or otherwise non-functional.

What does this mean for WPBook users? For now, it means keep using the FBML tabs model to add your page tabs. I will keep working on getting the iFrame-based tabs working, which will enable better support for videos and such on the profile page.

Your settings for your Facebook application, in the “Facebook Integration” section, should look more or less like this:

This means having the “Canvas Page Type” set to iFrame, with auto-resize, but leaving the “Page Tab Type” set to FBML, and using the ?app_tab=true&fb_force_mode=fbml as the tab url.

If you’d like to experiment with iFrame-based tabs, you can try the setting, using just index.php as the url but I think for now you will be unhappy with the results.

The real, long-term solution to page tabs will have to come in 2.1 along with the transition to OAuth-based authentication, the Graph-based API, and the latest Facebook SDK – not sure yet when that will be.

Ours Goes to 11

Just tagged and checked in another maintenance release of WPBook, 2.0.11. This will be the last (hopefully) release in the 2.0 series – next up is 2.1, with OAuth 2.0 for authentication. (Facebook is migrating in this direction, which means eliminating by March 2011 some of the calls I’m relying on now).

This release also incorporates all the 2.0.10 changes, but it marked stable – so many of you will jump right from 2.0.9.2 to 2.0.11.

Changes in 2.0.11:

1. Removed “add to profile” tab options. (Facebook no longer allows these for individual profiles, only for Facebook Pages, and the button itself is not necessary).
2. README updates – link to instructions
3. Conditional checking for fb_page_target to avoid ‘premature end of FQL query”
4. README updates on profile tabs
5. Add pending_to_publish state. (This should pick up posts written by other authors but now approved by an editor).
6. Filter JS out of FB share link
7. Added more debugging info

Changes which were in 2.0.10 (and thus incorporated into 2.0.11):

1. (Changes by bandonrandon, see http://bandonrandon.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/wpbook-2-0-10-beta-release/)
2. Move includes into their own directory
3. Incorporate FB avatar in comments imported
4. New Admin Layout, images
5. Bug fix: default for ‘post to facebook’ is set to true
6. Links in permissions page point to wpbook.net
7. FB tabs view moved to its own file in theme directory

I’ve also updated a few of the directions pages on WPBook.net to reflect more accurately what WPBook can do and what settings are necessary – that work will be ongoing this week to bring the directions up to speed with both Facebook changes and WPBook changes.

In the meanwhile, post in the forums in you’re having difficulty.

(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:

• Your WordPress blog outside Facebook. (Example: www.openparenthesis.org
• The Facebook application view of your blog. (Example: apps.facebook.com/openparenthesis)
• The Application Profile page for your new Facebook application.(Example: https://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=12797741823)
• A Facebook Fan Page for the Blog, or other Fan Page on which the blog gets published. (Example: https://www.facebook.com/pages/WPBook/44062579871, which in this case isn’t a fan page specific to the blog but to the WPBook plugin itself).
• Facebook Tabs, which can be added to users’ personal profiles (including your own), or Facebook pages (either a Fan page or an Application Profile page). (Example: https://www.facebook.com/pages/WPBook/44062579871?v=app_12797741823).

Starting with 2.0.8.1, WPBook can instead post directly to the wall of the Application Profile page – which is a nice way of showing potential application users what kind of blog posts come through the application.

Of course, you can post to your own profile’s wall in addition to a second target, which can be any of these:

• A Fan Page wall
• Your Application’s Profile page
• The Wall of a Facebook group

If you post to a Fan Page wall or an Application Profile wall, the post will come from the Application; if you post to the wall of a Facebook group, the post will come from your personal profile.

Settings for Profile ID and Page ID

You should provide your personal Facebook Profile ID in the WPBook settings, and then in the field provided for “PageID,” you can provide:

• An actual Page ID, for a Fan Page. (To find this, click on “edit page” – the url will look something like this: https://www.facebook.com/pages/edit/?id=44062579871 – the Page ID is the part after id=)
• An application ID, for an Application Profile page. (To find your application ID, go to the Application profile page, the url of which will look something like this: https://www.facebook.com/developers/apps.php?app_id=12797741823 – the Application ID is the part following app_id=)
• A group ID, for the wall of a Facebook group. (To find your group ID, just visit your group page, the url of which will look something like this: https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=149948248362737 – the Group ID is the part following gid=)

As always, please post in the support forums with your experiences.

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 . . .

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.