Facebook Application

[adem_is]

Any ideas about making a facebook application so that users could see when im online???

Is it possible?

[Aziraphale]

I've been considering that, actually, but I haven't yet had time to read through the Facebook Platform API, nor do I know much about the Facebook Platform at all (I'm only using three or so applications, unlike the thousands that I sometimes see on others' profiles).  I'm very interested in the idea of getting a Facebook app done for W2M, but it's that time issue again.

[Aziraphale]

I've started work on this, now.  It's progressing slowly but surely, and I may be able to release an extremely basic version of the application publicly sometime within the next few days.

At the moment the profile boxes look like the attached images (both the narrow and wide versions of the boxes).  It's pretty buggy, because I don't actually have music in my PSM at the moment, so there's still a lot of work to do, but at least it's started

[Aziraphale]

Updated screenshot attached.  Got the PSM bug fixed, amongst various other things done.  No MsgPlus colour/formatting codes/tags being parsed yet, nor are emoticons converted to images, but the basic ability to see if I'm offline on Messenger or not from my Facebook profile exists.

On track to being able to open this up to others to add within the next couple of days...

[Andymc]

Sweet!

[doggie]

I dont use Facebook but that looks good.

[Aziraphale]

Right, I've unchecked the "developers only" box for the application, so anyone should now be able to add it by visiting the application "about page".

I think everything's explained reasonably well, but feel free to post here if you have any questions, or want to report bugs or make suggestions (apart from the obvious "parse MsgPlus colours/formatting" feature, which I plan to do as soon as I have time - do you have any idea how ridiculously complicated that is to do properly?! ).

[adem_is]

Excellent, this app is a real life saver.
Thanks alot dude

EDIT: I get this error code

Code:

Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Exception' with message 'Unknown PSM Format' in /home/w2m/subdomains/fb/.inc/appinclude.php:157 Stack trace: #0 /home/w2m/subdomains/fb/.inc/appinclude.php(249): PSM->__construct('<Data><PSM>Peop...') #1 /home/w2m/subdomains/fb/.acts/home.php(8): GetProfileBoxFBML('2398', 'adem_is', 'Elros: I was bo...', '<Data><PSM>Peop...', 'NLN', '1342558252', false) #2 /home/w2m/subdomains/fb/index.php(80): include('/home/w2m/subdo...') #3 {main} thrown in /home/w2m/subdomains/fb/.inc/appinclude.php on line 157

[NightStorm]

Looks great... just one question.
Am I missing something, or is there no actual spot where it says if I am offline/online/busy/away or whatever the actual status is?

Also, how often does it actually update?  I'm noticing that I am having to go in and manually force an update of the image by going to http://apps.facebook.com/web--messenger/?update before it actually updates in my profile.  Is this just my natural impatience, and it only updates every 15 minutes or something?

[Aziraphale]

EDIT: I get this error code

Code:

Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Exception' with message 'Unknown PSM Format' in /home/w2m/subdomains/fb/.inc/appinclude.php:157 Stack trace: #0 /home/w2m/subdomains/fb/.inc/appinclude.php(249): PSM->__construct('<Data><PSM>Peop...') #1 /home/w2m/subdomains/fb/.acts/home.php(8): GetProfileBoxFBML('2398', 'adem_is', 'Elros: I was bo...', '<Data><PSM>Peop...', 'NLN', '1342558252', false) #2 /home/w2m/subdomains/fb/index.php(80): include('/home/w2m/subdo...') #3 {main} thrown in /home/w2m/subdomains/fb/.inc/appinclude.php on line 157

I'll look into it, thanks.  I re-wrote our PSM parser, so I could have added a few bugs to it, or missed out one of the myriad of PSM formats that are possible.

Am I missing something, or is there no actual spot where it says if I am offline/online/busy/away or whatever the actual status is?

It will display your status in brackets after your name, but only if your status is not "Online".  I plan to add some customisation to it at some point, and having it display the status even if you are "Online" will be one of those options.

Also, how often does it actually update?  I'm noticing that I am having to go in and manually force an update of the image by going to http://apps.facebook.com/web--messenger/?update before it actually updates in my profile.  Is this just my natural impatience, and it only updates every 15 minutes or something?

It should update every five minutes.  Should.  I can't realistically have it updating much faster, as every time the updater script runs it has to look through our (fairly large) users DB table to see whose data has changed recently, and then the updated information has to be pushed to Facebook's servers.

I'll add some more comprehensive error checking to it at some point, so that it will email me if there are any problems when updating, and I can look at getting it fixed.


Edit: Yes, it seems to not be updating automatically for some reason.  I'll try to sort that out later today.

[Aziraphale]

Edit: Yes, it seems to not be updating automatically for some reason.  I'll try to sort that out later today.

Discovered the problem, here, but I'm not yet sure how I'll fix it (well, I can get a quick fix in easily, but it won't last more than a couple of days).

[Aziraphale]

Okay, judging by a thread on the board of the Developers application it's an issue with Facebook, rather than with my code.  Looks like we have to wait for them to fix it, and until then I can only keep updating the application's session key every time it expires.  I've set the updater script to email me when it stops working (though it will only actually send the email if it's trying to update someone's profile), so I should be able to get it sorted fairly quickly when it breaks, but a permanent fix won't be forthcoming until Facebook fix their API.

[Aziraphale]

EDIT: I get this error code

Code:

Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Exception' with message 'Unknown PSM Format' in /home/w2m/subdomains/fb/.inc/appinclude.php:157 Stack trace: #0 /home/w2m/subdomains/fb/.inc/appinclude.php(249): PSM->__construct('<Data><PSM>Peop...') #1 /home/w2m/subdomains/fb/.acts/home.php(8): GetProfileBoxFBML('2398', 'adem_is', 'Elros: I was bo...', '<Data><PSM>Peop...', 'NLN', '1342558252', false) #2 /home/w2m/subdomains/fb/index.php(80): include('/home/w2m/subdo...') #3 {main} thrown in /home/w2m/subdomains/fb/.inc/appinclude.php on line 157

Pretty sure I've fixed this now.  Are you running an old version of Messenger, by any chance?

[Daniel15]

Looks very good so far

If you need any help with development of the Facebook Application, please feel free to ask. I'm a PHP developer (I'm on the SMF Team as a mod developer), and wrote my own Facebook application a while ago (a very simple application to embed a Flash animation on a profile)

And wow, this is the first time I've logged in here in over 2 years

[Aziraphale]

Looks very good so far

Ah, you're the one running aMSN that filled my inbox with exceptions from the updater script overnight   It seems that aMSN uses a crazy format for "Current Media", but I've fixed it now, I think, and the W2M box on your Facebook profile should hopefully now be updating properly.  Let me know if something's still messed up about it

And thanks