This cropped screen shot was captured on my Facebook homepage. I don’t know what the girl in the picture has to do with winning an Apple iPad but it certainly got my attention. I hate ads like this because the image has nothing to do with the ad itself, its just an easy way to get clicks. Unfortunately I’m sure it has received a million clicks by now, further surrendering our internet civilization to sex in more and more ways. They say sex created the internet, but I believe the internet spread sex just the same.

Thanks for figuring it out Charles!

Facebook Live Message API Tutorial

Scrabulous has been dynamite since it landed on Facebook as the leading game application on the scene. Since then the application has garnered a different tone from Hasbro who own the rights the original Scrabble. Earlier this year it was said that Scrabulous would be forced to take down their application. Months have passed and Scrabulous is still standing so Hasbro has issued a lawsuit against the creators of Scrabulous and have also released their own officially licensed Scrabble game on Facebook in a joint venture with Electronic Arts. Hasbro has also issued a statement to Facebook for them to pull the plug on the app.

This is why you make original games. Yea these guys got a lot of attention and will probably go on to better things but having a lawsuit on your hands can’t be any fun. On that note, I’ll be publishing images of my original game character in the near future.

While developing an application for Facebook I came across the LiveMessage feature which is currently still in beta. The only problem is that I couldn’t find much information on how people actually used the API version of it. LiveMessage seems like it could be a really useful function to leverage for real time applications, not just chatting.

I know javascript okay but working under the FBJS framework forces you to reference the Facebook Documentation Wiki more than I’d prefer. They also prevent you from employing any JS frameworks, like prototype.js, forcing you to use their proprietary functions.

In this chat example I used javascript, PHP, FB API and FBJS.

First, just like the example in the wiki we create a listener. Here I also use the add_message_line function used in the example.

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
var livemessage = new LiveMessage('test_event', function(data) {
	add_message_line(data.name +": " + data.msg);

	}
);
function add_message_line(line_text) {
	var new_line = document.createElement('div');
	new_line.setTextValue(line_text);
	document.getElementById('chat').appendChild(new_line);
}
//-->
</script>

Then instead of using the send_message function in the wiki example I created my own function that does a POST to my own php file called chatTestSend.php which uses the facebook.livemessage.send() provided by the API. Doing it this way gave me a better understanding of what’s going on. I called this JS function sender(). Notice I used the FBJS Ajax object, you can read more about it here.

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
function sender(uid, message){
	var ajax = new Ajax();
	var queryParams = { "uid" : uid, "message" : message };
	ajax.responseType = Ajax.RAW;
	ajax.requireLogin = true;

	ajax.post("http://YOURDOMAIN/chatTestSend.php", queryParams);	

	ajax.ondone = function(data) {
		add_message_line("Me: " + message);
		document.getElementById('message').setValue('');
	}
	ajax.onerror = function(data) { add_message_line("Error"); };
}
//-->
</script>

If you haven’t figured it out already this function is going to be called by an html form on the onSubmit event. The code below is similar to the example on the wiki. Combine the above javascripts with this file and call it something like chatTest.html.

<form action="#" method="post" onsubmit="sender(document.getElementById('chat_with').getValue(), document.getElementById('message').getValue()); return false;" >
<div id="chat"></div>
Message:
<input id="message" name="message" size="40" type="text" />
To (user id):
<input id="chat_with" name="chat_with" type="text" />
<input type="submit" />
</form>

And lastly, the php code of chatTestSend.php would do something like the following. Create the FB object and get the logged in user. Then, if the posts variables aren’t empty get the user’s name. Then call the method. Since there is no method in the php client lib use call_method. The only thing special about facebook.livemessage.send is that the message is sent using JSON. Luckily php 5 provides us with the json_encode() function. Pass an associative array into the json_encode function and you’re good to go.

$this->facebook = new Facebook($this->FBAPIKEY, $this->FBSECRET);
$this->user = $this->facebook->require_add();

if(!empty($_POST) && !empty($_POST["uid"]) && !empty($_POST["message"]) ) {
	$data = $this->facebook->api_client->users_getInfo($this->user, array('first_name'));
	$result = $this->facebook->api_client->call_method("facebook.livemessage.send",
	      array("recipient"=>$_POST["uid"], "event_name"=>"test_event", "message"=>json_encode(array("from"=>$this->user, "msg"=>$_POST["message"], "name"=>$data[0]['first_name']) ) ) );
}

So that’s about it. Open up chatTest.html and post to chatTestSend.php and send some messages to yourself. I concede that all of this probably won’t work right out of the box but with a little knowledge and tweaking you should be able to get it right. Drop me a comment if you need some help.

I’m trying to think of a way to do it with AJAX so the server responds immediately and then the REST calls are called through a web service. I’m not sure how it’s all going to work yet but I foresee a problem with passing the session. If anyone has done this or can point me in the direction of a tutorial it’d be greatly appreciated.

Trying to integrate CakePHP and the Facebook API has given me a headache for the past couple days. First off I didn’t know where to start besides dropping the Facebook php files into my vendors directory.

Luckily I found a very useful post here. It goes on to explain how to set up your app_controller.php and a sample Controller and View using Facebook’s FBML. If you’re looking to start a Facebook application in CakePHP this is the place to start.

Later on I started having problems with posted data. Whenever I had a canvas page that handled posted data and then displayed something depending on what was posted I’d lose the post while redirecting. The following code for example:

function add(){
  $output = "";
  if(!empty($this->data) ){
    if($this->Team->save($this->data)){
      $output = "success";
    }
    else{
      $output = "error";
    }
  }
  $this->set("output", $output);
  $this->facebook->require_frame();
}

This code would save the data but $output would still be blank. The reason being is that after the redirect during require_frame(), $this->data is lost. So instead of making pages like the one above I would do the following:

function add(){
  if(!empty($this->data) ){
    if($this->Team->save($this->data)){
      $this->redirect('/teams/success');
    }
    else{
      $this->redirect('/teams/invalid');
    }
  }
}

This way I redirect completely without calling the require_frame() method until I am in either “/teams/success” or “/teams/invalid”.

I’ll post more as I get further into it.

Facebook Marketplace received immediate attention with 3 people sending me private messages and recording plenty of views. I like selling to fellow college kids and Facebook marketplace makes it easy. In the end the chair went for $30, more than I initially expected.

There are problems that both of these systems lack though. First of all, unlike ebay there is no rating system. How am I supposed to gain a reputation of being a good seller without a rating system. In the same way, how am I supposed to know if the people I am dealing with are good sellers/buyers that I can trust.

Secondly, there is no integrated bidding system. Most people on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace place sales using “Or Best Offer”. This doesn’t mean it requires a bidding system but in my case I had 3 people outbidding each other. Without a bidding system in place I had to handle it on my own. I had to repeatedly inform the other buyers what the current bid was.

Now I’ll point out what these systems do have. Craigslist ensures that you are dealing with people in your area. This cuts out shipping which in turn decreases the length it takes to make a transaction and of course the money involved in shipping costs. Facebook Marketplace is copy of Craigslist with the integration of the Facebook networks. This way you know you’re only dealing with people from your school, work, city, etc. In the end all these systems could learn a little from each other.