James Andres has been working on Drupal modules for integration of the Facebook API client and a module that would allow easy creation of Facebook apps using Drupal. My name is Séamus
O'Connor and I am working with James to get these properly released onto Drupal.org.
Here is a short list (in no particular order) of what we would like
to accomplish, and help in doing so would be greatly appreciated.
1) Right now the current codebase is in James' sandbox CVS area. We
would like to get a 'Facebook' project created that could house the
modules that James created.
2) Get the code into Drupal.org's 'Contrib' section.
3) Get co-maintainers on these modules to further their development and keep the ball rolling.
4) If it makes sense (and please let us know!), break some of these modules up into more granular pieces. For instance, it has been mentioned that the facebook_apps module should be broken up into a facebook_authmap (not to be confused with facebook_auth) and facebook_apps module.
Comments
Thanks Seamus
Thanks Seamus, I'm glad for the help in keeping this ball rolling :-)
Cheers,
James.
facebook_app
I created a facebook_app project at http://drupal.org/project/facebook_app with some revamped FB app code (although it's kinda borked right now). Can we centralize FB app code there?
RE: facebook_app
Hello Rob,
Yeah I noticed you moved that code over to the contrib section :-). From the looks of it, that's the code you sent me a while back, from MyChipin? Anyway, I agree we should definitely join forces on this and merge our code.
A few questions:
Thanks,
James.
Sponsoring the closing of Drupal/Facebook divide - & issues
Sponsoring the closing of Drupal/Facebook divide - & issues to note.
I've spent a considerable amount of time staying on top of facebook since June 2nd, so maybe I can provide a different perspective... Firstly, Facebook users are NOT going to be providing more content for a Drupal community meaning if an individual is a member of both In fact, the way the app development is going there, on top of the difficulty of any app with a little more sophistication and hence more time to comprehend, further encumbered by the "gated" nature of the networks, is going to make apps that prevail more and more generic, superficial, yet of course, still effective in giving a random "poke" to a random person.
There is little content creation but maybe "activity"... There really isn't any community, just folks tagging themselves into groups, causes, events,... no real discussion really. And that really has been the way the large networks have intended to do business, skip the most difficult part about this online community "business" we're in -- textually communicating with each other and trying to get our real point across -- There used to be days when we'd all get flustered by that odd webmaster or two well it still happens in some more primitive boards but generally, look at the different direction Drupal as a CMS has taken. And that reason is what had motivated me to choose Drupal when creating a private online community... the Forum. So in fact, by linking Drupal and Facebook, we should argue, is giving our Drupal users a chance to create real content, even though through various reasons you just have to stay on FB longer hey sometimes you just gotta poke those umpteen people back, and write a "I had to message you on top of poking" messages. LOL
I see connecting Drupal to Facebook as a chance to inject back into that limited resource of time spent online, a way to maintain/still interact meaningfully with other users. And to that point, I think the issue of "this violates FB's TOS" sounds a little soup-Nazi to me. Hey, if I want everybody to know when I'm online then folks shouldnt give the developer any crap about an app "potentially violating" my privacy... As it stands, FB is unbelievably weak with protecting privacy.....
Did you also know of apps that have users who don't even know or didn't install those apps? How? Its incredibly easy -- I'll throw some words out there -- name change, worm, consolidation, dev mode, bait n switch...
Having said that, here's how I am running a private community (as I look to include FB elements into my Drupal release). Worst case scenario, my app is going to have user's info pre-filled yes yes, only after the user approves, online status through the IM platforms, and maybe the app just as a hyperlink to my site... It sounds terribly simplistic and inane but consider this, consolidate whatever you want your Drupal user to be accessible to from Facebook, into ONE application. So in the rush to bring Drupal to Facebook, we cannot do it like we're bringing modules to a Drupal platform. So MANY reasons why, but unless it isn't too clear I won't elaborate now.
All in all, if anyone has ideas to develop any cross-platform application *Drupal, vis-a-vis Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Orkut, Googlemail, Google Apps, hi5, etc, pls do get in touch, I'd like to participate in funding and moving the process along.
Until then, cheers,
If folks would like any feedback on fb app competitive space, do get in touch. Oh, if anyone's going to the Community Next conference later this week, it'd be great to get together.
Kien M. Lee
kien@senat.us
I´ve also touched base with
I´ve also touched base with James on this, as I´ve been developing for facebook too. I just presented (yesterday) at the drupalcon regarding this, and I´m getting my code into CVS now. I´ve asked the owner of the contrib module currently called facebook if I can have that cvs directory, but so far I have not heard back.
Here are a couple demos. I´ll post back as soon as the code can easily be shared.
http://apps.facebook.com/drupalforfacebook
http://apps.facebook.com/drupalcon
until I hear back about the
until I hear back about the modules/facebook directory, I´ve posted code in my sandbox:
http://cvs.drupal.org/viewvc.py/drupal/contributions/sandbox/yogadex/dru...
Dave you mind checking out
Dave you mind checking out http://drupal.org/project/facebook_app and seeing where our code overlaps. I want to get these all merged as soon as possible. My code needs some final tweaks FYI.
What I'd like to do is
What I'd like to do is discuss it in person or over the phone. It takes a while to look over code, and its easy to not understand it or see where a person wants it to go. I think we all want to consolidate these efforts into one package that solves the problems for all of us.
Could we have a phone call sometime next week, with James too?
Action Items!
Hello Dave / Rob,
I don't think I'll be available for a phone conference any time soon unfortunately :-/ I'm knee deep in a big project with some ridiculous timelines.
That said, I, humbly, propose that we agree on a plan of action for this project. I feel we could get a release together quite a bit more quickly if we had a defined set of goals. Here's my proposal, please feel free to pick it apart! :-)
A suggested list of modules (again, pick this apart as you see fit!)
Thoughts?
OT: Currently Seamus is working on implementing an app using the facebook_api and facebook_apps modules. He's new to Drupal so he might not be too active in this forum yet, but feel free to poke him via his contact form. Pretty much 100% of his time is spent developing this stuff, so he'll likely give a faster response :-).
Will try
We should talk, but things are crazy for me. Let's try and connect on Skype (I'm schoolengine) and get a group IM going where we can figure this out at our own schedules.
Some thoughts/suggestions
The original "Facebook" owner is MIA. Here's how I see the landscape:
* Facebook project -- MIA, probably gone
* Facebook Auth -- login only, quite useful as is, should remain standalone, although sync / share code? not sure...
* Facebook App -- some helper stuff from RobRoy for writing Facebook apps on top of Drupal
* DrupalForFacebook -- if I understand Dave's intent correctly (sorry I didn't have time for more talking, Dave, and missed your preso, too....) it is to easily turn on a module that allows ANY Drupal site to be Facebook-enabled
* James / Donat Group code -- merge with Facebook App stuff from RobRoy -- it's a toolkit for building / outputing custom FB content using Drupal
So, how do we centralize code that overlaps while still allowing these different purposes to be met?
I would suggest a Facebook API module where all the basics go. And maybe that's just Facebook App. Then Facebook Auth and Dave Cohen's DrupalForFacebook depend on the Facebook App code / module (e.g. that's where you put dev key and basic settings and such).
Other option would be to move it all into one project, with a contrib folder of modules, and everyone becomes co-maintainer.
Note: I haven't looked at code, just have a rough idea of what each piece does.
RE: Some thoughts/suggestions
Hey Boris,
Whoops, I just posted a similar comment to Dave without reading yours. I tack a few more thoughts onto this thread, before the boss comes by and tells me to "git back to werk!"
Thanks,
James.
Question about creating a Facebook app
Hiya,
Sorry for butting in but I've been following your conversations and you seem to be the guys 'in the know'. I'm launching a drupal site into beta on Monday and I want to create a Facebook app which provides a block for someone's facebook profile which displays some info from their drupal profile, their total userpoints, and recent blogs and forum topics they've submitted, as our members will want to promote their content across multiple sites because they want to get more people to vote on them, and each vote means a point. And you know what points mean... ;)
I've had a brief look at the Facebook sample app - is your stuff the stuff I should be looking at to build upon?
thx
Custom
If you want to create custom functionality (you are), then you want to look at James' code at http://docs.projectopus.com/releases/facebook_api and/or some of RobRoy's stuff.
thanks!
thanks, much appreciated.
+ co-maintainer
I'd like to help with these modules, but can we please get them merged/organized to avoid overlap? If needed, lets start a thread on how to break the components down (api/auth/app seems like a good start).
I'm most interested in managing the Drupal users with their associated Facebook uid and session key. Ideally, a user would be able to authenticate with only the FB API, which would create an associated Drupal user (passwordless?) to allow for all the standard access permissions and profile editing.
Once that is solid, I'd like to integrate a management tool for (live/asynchronous) feeding and profile writing.
From a big picture view, we should think about how the FB auth is setup since Google (11/5?), MySpace, Bebo and LinkedIn are all rumored to be creating their own APIs. Would it be feasible to hook the auth into the existing Roles system? Can roles have attributes - to store id/sessionkey/etc?
where are we now?
Ok, so what's the status of merging all the code together? I've been working on facebook apps and am finding that there's some duplication between FB and facebook_auth and I'm wondering which one to expand upon.
They do very different
They do very different things.
If you are wanting just a simple login solution (like openid) then you want facebook_auth.
If you want to create a facebook app or interact with facebook other than just auth, you want the facebook suite of modules.
Right, I get that. It just
Right, I get that. It just seemed unnecessary to have both modules using a place in authmap when it'd be nicer if it was more integrated.