Facebook | Ady's Blog

Facebook Glitches

Facebook is an application, so it’s normal that it has glitches and problems.

The first one I saw last week while writing a like button plugin is the incorrect number of likes a like button displays:

It’s obvious there were 4 likes for the post but it randomly displays 2 of my friends. When not logged on, it simply says “2 people like this”.

Next, when creating events the date and time for the events are wrongly displayed on the wall but are correct in the left column box and in the event itself:

Last but not least, there seems to be a privacy glitch. When seeing a friend being tagged in a photo I am able to open the photo but given this error:

Now I am more skeptical of uploading photos that I don’t really want to share with everyone.

I don’t have much time to get into the developers forum, but I can’t seem to find an email address or a function to report such problems to FB.

Do you know how?

WordPress Plugin: Basic Facebook Social Plugins

Today, I saw that Facebook introduced some new features, and one intriguing feature is called “Facebook Social Plugin“. It would be very interesting to have blog posts to be simply “liked”, and having information displayed about activities and recommendations related to your website.

So I decided to take 30 minutes of my break time and write this simple plugin. Since I don’t have much time I decided not to explore XFBML and the SDK as yet. That is why it’s called BASIC. With XFBML, shorter codes can be used, and deeper integration between Facebook and your website can be achieved. I am intrigued, really but I must be realistic.

This plugin is a very simple plugin to embed :

“like” button at the end of your articles/blog posts
activity feed as a widget
recommendations as a widget
Like box as a widget

You can add these cool features with minimal effort.

Most configuration parameters are self-explanatory, but Domain Override simply means you want to display information about another domain instead of where the widgets are hosted. ~~By the way, the widget settings are combined in the Settings > Basic Facebook Social Plugins page.~~

~~At this moment this plugin is still waiting to be hosted at the official WordPress Plugin Directory so it can only be downloaded here.~~

~~Basic Facebook Social Plugins Version 1.0~~
~~Basic Facebook Social Plugins Version 1.1~~ * This version will wipe out previous widget settings as it introduces multiple instances of widgets.
~~Basic Facebook Social Plugins Version 1.2~~

~~Once available there, a link will be provided. When it’s there,~~ It’s now in the official plugin directory (basic-facebook-social-plugins) so you should be able to install it using the automated, built-in plugin installer too.

You can see the sample for the like button at the end of this post, and the widgets live on this site.

The widgets does not conform to your theme (does not inherit your theme css) but simply bare boxes with Facebook feel. Take note that styling inside the boxes (and texts) are provided by facebook.

Those of you who are concerned about privacy, you’ll be glad to know that your name and profile picture will not just be displayed to anyone:

(This also applies to recommendation and activity box. Only friends will be able to see that you like something.) Facebook has thought of everything.

Try it out and let me know how it works for you.

Shots from Facebook:

Facebook has also written a nice post about social plugins in their blog: Answers to Your Questions on Personalized Web Tools.

Note:

This WordPress plugin is written entirely by me, and is provided as-is with no guarantee. It is neither approved nor endorsed by Facebook.
Yes, it is breakable by Facebook if they decide to change the iframe URL.

Importing Your Blog Posts into Facebook “Notes”

I have always find it difficult to find the import link, even when I wanted to change my settings. So here is a quick note for myself and to others who are interested in importing their blog posts into the Facebook notes. There may be a shorter way to access the notes page but I failed to find it. So this is my route to the notes page to import and update my settings.

1. On the top right of any page, hover on “Settings” and click on “Application Settings” in the drop down:

2. Click on “Notes”. If you don’t see it change your “Show” settings on the upper right corner. It defaults to frequently used applications.

3. When you’re on the “Notes” page you will see a box on the right that looks like the one below. And yes, you click on “Import a blog”.

4. The next page you see is where you enter the RSS feed URL to import. Indeed, this tool is using RSS feeds to import blog posts. It’s not a mystery and it makes sense.

When you have actually imported a blog, you will see that the “Import a blog” link has changed into “Edit import settings”:

And of course:

You can also set privacy settings for the notes. Facebook says that your blog post will be imported within 3 hours, and if not you can always report at http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=import_notes.

Facebook is a fun way to share your posts. You can also import from any blog that you are interested in, but the thing is there is a limitation. You can only import 1 blog/feed at a time. However I have a workaround for that, and by looking at my screenshots you might get a clue. The key is to consolidate multiple feeds into 1 to import in Facebook. But that’s for the next article, if I am able to find the time.

Have fun importing your blog!

Remember that this article was written on December 3rd, 2009 and since Facebook evolves very rapidly there will be a point that changes are made to the system and renders this article useless.