Facebook

Now that I have jumped almost 2 weeks without a post, as I have been super busy, this should have been a real easy item to post, but I wanted to make sure that this is done correctly. This is probably one of the easiest methods to add some great Facebook functionality in your site. This revolves around comments to a page. In my example, I am posting topics to discuss. This is mainly just a small little blurb that I will enter via an admin form on the site, and then list the different topics for everyone to select one. Once they select it, they can view the details of the topic and then comment on it using the Facebook API/Social plugin. So as always, lets go through a basic plan for this idea.

1. The model is Topic, with a table in the DB labeled “topics”
2. Only the admin has access to add or edit the topics
3. All comments on this topic will be done through the Facebook API/Social Plugin Comments
4. Topics will have a title that will also double as the Unique ID (to be explained later)
5. Topic titles, or themes, will not be allowed to be edited, to be explained why later
6. Administration of the comments will be done by the Facebook Application admins, which differs from the site admins
7. Start Dates will determine if the topic is allowed to be visible yet
8. End dates are optional, and will be built upon later with more advanced FBML/FB JS libraries

And there it is, some basic ideas behind the whole idea. So now lets get into some of the items called out in Numbers 4 and 5
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OK, I finally got my data models set up and working. I have the initial CakePHP set up on the site, it is using v1.3, and now I am ready to set it up for the Facebook integration, and start to add the integration. When we first set up the application on the Facebook side, I chose to do an “iframe” version of the application, as I want Facebook on my site, and be able to have integration with some of the great Facebook tools on the site, and be able to “promote me”. And remember this is just a way to show a possible real world example of how to integrate these things with your site. Actual applications may vary, but this is the base to integrate. At least, as of this posting it is the base, it may change in the future.

So lets go ahead and dive into it. If you do not have the application ID for your Facebook application, you can get it at the following:
http://www.facebook.com/developers/apps.php

The next thing is to grab the API and code from Facebook. This can be found at the following page:
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/

This is the main page, and you will need to scroll to the bottom of the page. This will list different APIs that are available. I am going to be using the PHP and JavaScript SDKs. This will provide the back end that I will want, and will also provide a positive user experience on the front end. So be sure to download both SDKs.

After that, now we need to start getting some stuff set up. In this post, I am just going to explain how to get this set up, and working right now. It is important that we get the correct items working, and so we will be working with the “pages” area for the JS SDK, and creating a very simple controller for the PHP SDK so we can get set up and running. I am just using, for right now, the base CakePHP CSS styles and layouts. All we need is a page to display some of the basic items to ensure that we have installed the SDKs in the proper locations. So lets go.
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The next few posts will examine how I will integrate a Facebook application into one of my sites: stephenhird.com. If you have browsed to this site, you will see there is already a Facebook platform there. And while it does show some of the great things to do with the API, it is very basic and really does nothing. So In this post I will examine what I want to do with it, how to set up an initial application on Facebook, and then go from there. This will likely happen over the next few weeks/months and will be a little more drawn out depending on how much time I have to document this process. This is step one, and step one will always include planning.

First I need to figure out what I want to have on my site. Since it is my name that is on the URL, I will need to create a way that this site will be an online portfolio, biography and information repository. When doing this for any site, it is important to remember your brand. Even for individual sites like this, it is important for branding, because this is who I am, I do not want it to be a classic case of slop on the web. This site before was mainly just a testing ground and now will need to be more.

A side note here, my name is the same spelling as a famous photographer based in London. His site is well put together with good descriptive links and a great example of combining minimalist ideas with styled presentation. He keeps his brand on the pages and the site does not confuse or mislead with extra peripheral items, or overuse of Flash or other heavy web technologies loading down the page. His site is located at: http://www.stephenhird.co.uk/

OK, now on to the planning and setting up the Facebook Application.
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