Embedding flash in Facebook link posts

If you want to have custom flash movies embeded in Facebook posts that link to your website, like these one from YouTube or SoundCloud:

 

It's fairly simple. 

BUT, it requires a SSL certificate, so that your website works over HTTPS, without browsers whining about security.

Here's what you do.

You've heard of OpenGraph protocol, right? Right. So, that's all there is to it. Proper metadata in the HTML of your website will instruct Facebook to include your flash movie, like this:

<meta property="og:title" content="Aljažev stolp | Triglav (2864m) | VR panorama"/>
<meta property="og:video" content="http://kafol.net/pano/aljazev-stolp/aljazev.stolp.swf"/> 
<meta property="og:type" content="movie"/>
<meta property="og:url" content="http://kafol.net/pano/aljazev-stolp/"/>
<meta property="og:image" content="http://kafol.net/pano/aljazev-stolp/preview.jpg"/>
<meta property="og:description" content="VR (virtual reality) panorama pri Aljaževem stolpu na vrhu Triglava. Panorama je posneta brez stativa."/>
<meta property="og:video:type" content="application/x-shockwave-flash" />
<meta property="og:video:width" content="400" />
<meta property="og:video:height" content="300" />

The next part depends on what the flash movie actually does. If it's a movie/music player that fetches media from other sources, or even an other part of your website, you'll need to configure crossdomain.xml. You put that file on the root of your website.

Here's a very liberal example, but fine for testing:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<cross-domain-policy>
<allow-access-from domain="*" />
</cross-domain-policy>

Android Facebook SDK login error #1118578

The error is caused because the activity has set the launch mode to singleInstance.

From StackOverflow where I posted the question:

Everything was working fine, until I wanted to check what happens if the user clicks the Login with Facebook button with no internet connection available.

A toast showed up saying:

Login failed. Please contact the maker of this app and ask them to report issue #1118578 to Facebook.

In the logcat I have:

D/Facebook-authorize(2824): Login canceled by user.

I tried to get rid of this toast and display my own error message in the onCancel() method - but I can't find a way to disable that toast. When I enabled WiFi again, single sign on didn't work anymore!

What could be the cause of this?

    private void fbLogin() {
    facebook.authorize(this, new String[] { "email" }, new DialogListener() {
        @Override
        public void onComplete(Bundle values) {
            app.save("fb_token", facebook.getAccessToken());
            app.save("fb_expire", facebook.getAccessExpires());
            mAsyncRunner.request("me", new meRequestListener());
        }
        @Override
        public void onFacebookError(FacebookError error) {}
        @Override
        public void onError(DialogError e) {}
        @Override
        public void onCancel() {}
    });
}
@Override
public void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
    super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data);

    facebook.authorizeCallback(requestCode, resultCode, data);
}

EDIT:

To answer my own question, removing android:launchMode="singleInstance" From the manifest in the  resolved the #1118578 issue.

However, I do need the android:launchMode="singleInstance" for the twitter OAuth login, as the browser passes the data back to the activity via new Intent. If I do not provideandroid:launchMode="singleInstance" in the manifest, a new activity is launched and it does not recieve the OAuth verifier.

Is there any way around this, to use Facebook and Twitter login in the same activity? The only solution I think of is to use a dummy activity for Twitter4j with singleInstance.

See original thread here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12759261/android-facebook-sdk-login-error-1118578

Facebook php-sdk 3.0 changes getLoginURL()

Somehow these frequent changes are still poorly documented. Documentation is scattered across forums, changelogs, code comments and docs pages. Never on the single place. This is horrible. I'm sorry Facebook people, but this makes you look incompetent.

The most obvious change is the abandonment of the getSession method. I have also found out that getLoginURL has been changed.
'req_perms' has been changed to 'scope'
'next' has been changed to 'redirect_uri'
'cancel_url' option has been removed. You'll have to find another way. If the user denies access it will be redirected to 'redirect_uri'. The user will also be redirected to 'redirect_uri' if he clicks allow.
You can know if the user denied access by looking at these GET parameters:

[error_reason] => user_denied 
[error] => access_denied 
[error_description] => The user denied your request.

Also worth knowing is that redirect_uri will not work every time on a single page load (without refreshing the page).
Explanation:
The first time the users sees the oauth dialog there will be two options: Allow and Deny. Both buttons will redirect to 'redirect_uri'.
The second time the user sees the oauth dialog, Deny option will be renamed to 'Leave app'. 'redirect_uri' will still work.
The third time and so on, the button 'Leave app' will redirect to facebook.com/home.php

While this may not be entirely precise, it is true that eventually the Deny/Leave app button will not follow the redirect_uri parameter.

PHP:: Facebook getLoginUrl iframe next parameter redirect issue

DUE TO FREQUENT FACEBOOK API CHANGES THIS ARTICLE IS OUTDATED.

The php-sdk from Facebook has some bugs in it.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3380876/how-to-authorize-facebook-app-using-redirect-in-canvas http://forum.developers.facebook.net/viewtopic.php?id=70575

These solutions didn't work for me, so I had to change the function getLoginUrl in class Facebook

  public function getLoginUrl($params=array()) {
 $currentUrl = $this->getCurrentUrl();
 $args = array(
        'api_key'         => $this->getAppId(),
        'cancel_url'      => 'http://www.facebook.com/',
        'display'         => 'page',
        'fbconnect'       => 0,
        'next'            => $currentUrl,
        'return_session'  => 1,
        'session_version' => 3,
  'canvas'          => 1,
        'v'               => '1.0',
      );
 foreach($params as $key=>$val) {
  $args[$key] = $val;
 }
 return $this->getUrl(
  'www',
  'login.php',
  $args
 );
  }

Example:

if($me) {
 $logoutUrl = $facebook->getLogoutUrl();
} else {
 $loginUrl = $facebook->getLoginUrl(array('next'=>'http://apps.facebook.com/xxxxxxx/'));
 ?>
 <script type="text/javascript">
 top.location.href = '<?=$loginUrl?>';
 </script>
 <?php 
 exit;
}

Example usage of Facebook.streamPublish()

DUE TO FREQUENT FACEBOOK API CHANGES THIS ARTICLE IS OUTDATED.

You can force streamPublish dialog from within the href bar in the browser. Also note the application ID prefix in the functions. More detailed code description is superfluous. javascript:c=9999999;h='Click Challenge';l='http://apps.facebook.com/click-challenge-en/?ref_6w=f_clicks';a126752370697733_Facebook.streamPublish('',{'name':h,'href':l,'caption':'{*actor*} made '+(c/1)+' clicks in 10 seconds.','properties':{'Speed':{'text':(c/10)+' clicks/sec','href':l}},'media':[{'type':'image','src':'http://w6.6waves.com/my-app/data/126752370697733/logo.gif','href':l}]},[{'text':h,'href':l}]);

Facebook Connect: FB.Connect.streamPublish() does not show up

DUE TO FREQUENT FACEBOOK API CHANGES THIS ARTICLE IS OUTDATED.

Here are the reasons why FBJS functions sometimes fail:

• xd_reciever.html is not installed correctly
• application key is not set in FB.init()
• Facebook Connect callback URL is not set in the application settings
• Facebook JavaScript API is not set correctly in your HTML. This should be set immediately after the body tag <script src="http://static.ak.connect.facebook.com/js/api_lib/v0.4/XdCommReceiver.js" type="text/javascript"></script> This should be set before the closing body tag <script src="http://static.ak.connect.facebook.com/js/api_lib/v0.4/FeatureLoader.js.php/en_US" type="text/javascript"></script>
• Facebook functions are called before JavaScript objects are initialized. FB.init(api_key, channel_path); FB.ensureInit(function() { // put your functions here });
• All Facebook JavaScript functions are called BEFORE the FeatureLoader.js.php You should put your functions after this call and into FB.ensureInit() function
• There are JavaScript errors in your code

If any of the errors mentioned above are met, the function will fail. If FBML tags are not rendered, you might also want to check, if you set the HTML header correctly. http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/XFBML Also, XFBML tags are required to render tags correctly.