Integration with vBulletin - Facebook Connect - Allow your users to login with their Facebook account (for 3.8)

Staff Note: Moved to Graveyard - this will never work now that the old style facebook authentication is no longer available.


Facebook Connect
This add-on allows your guests and existing users to login with their Facebook account through Facebook Connect.

There is NO NEED to upgrade or reinstall if you already installed this mod for 3.7

Upgrade to 2.0.6 so that users with the new super long IDs will be able to login.


This mod conflicts with PhotoPost vBGallery!
Quick fix:
Disable the following PhotoPost vBGallery plugins:

• Userinfo Merge
• Integrate Postbit Showthread

Benefits of Facebook Connect

• Users can simply login with their Facebook account without going through the registration process.
• Increase user interaction and your traffic through Facebook notifications and news-feeds!

Features
Facebook users will be able to receive Facebook notifications when:

• There is a reply to their thread or a thread that they're subscribing to
• They receive a new PM

News-Feed will be published on to the user's wall when the user:

• Logs in for the first time
• Replies to a thread
• Creates a new thread

Fetch user data from Facebook
Fetch data like name, location, profile picture and use it on your forums! (NOTE: Some data may not be available for some users)

Automatically befriend user's friends
If any of the user's friends are also registered on the forum, they will automatically be friends!

Professional Install/Upgrade/Support Services
Want this mod professionally installed? It's guaranteed to work on your forum! Download the archive and see INSTALL.html/UPGRADE.html for more details!

Troubleshooting
Server Requirements:
PHP 5

If you get an error:

The Facebook Connect cross-domain receiver URL http://www.SITEURL.com/xd_receiver.h...%220.699%22%7D must have the application's callback URL http://www.SITEURL.com/forums/ as a prefix. You can configure the callback URL in the application's settings.

Means that there is something wrong with your callback URL. Your callback URL must be where xd_receiver.htm is; so when you enter [callbackurl]/xd_receiver.htm into your browser you should see a blank page (not a 404 page not found error or anything else).

If you get a continues this means there is a javascript error. Make sure you've done all the template edits correctly (especially footer & navbar). Clear your cache and reload the page.

If nothing happens when you click the Facebook Connect button make sure your callback url domain is the same as you forum domain (the one set in your forum settings) - more specifically make sure that there is a www (or isn't) in both domains.


Many more features may be implemented in the future so keep checking for updates.

[Code Monkey]

Does this allow people to bypass the forum rules agreement?

[Brandon Sheley]

thanks for the update, I'll update our setup as soon as I get time :up:

[jacobi]

Originally Posted by Code Monkey

Does this allow people to bypass the forum rules agreement?

Thanks for asking this... I've been wondering, too. That's an important factor for the forum/community I run and a real "deal breaker" for using this mod

[Ted S]

The default templates don't check for the TOS but you could easily add this once you have it installed. I've done this for my client installs and can post some code if you need it but basically just edit the template fbconnect_login and the register routine in fblogin.php. it's about 3 lines of code.

[GetGamer.com]

I've installed this mod (just updated to the latest version), and I've got a question about how this mod is supposed to handle existing forum members who want to link up their Facebook account.

What should happen
A person with an existing forum account clicks the Connect with Facebook button. They authorize my Facebook app. They are then presented with an option of selecting a nickname for the forum, or linking to an existing forum account. They choose existing, enter their forum credentials and are now signed in.

Posts that they make are updated on their Facebook Wall.

They leave my site, shut down their computer for the day. The next day, they sign-in to Facebook. Then in another browser tab, they open my forums. The forums should detect that they are signed-in to Facebook and automatically sign them into the forums, using their original forum account (which is now connected to Facebook).

What actually happens
Every time an existing user visits the forums, if they don't select Connect with Facebook, they get logged in the "old way" (no Facebook connection). And if they do select Connect with Facebook, they are prompted (again) to select a nickname or choose an existing account. This should not happen, right?

Is there something wrong with my install of this mod, or is this the way it "works?" Because this seems very wrong.

For what it's worth, this mod seems to work great for Facebook users who don't already have a forum account; the problem is really only with existing forum users.

If you'd like to check it out, I'm using the mod at this site: http://www.bigblueball.com/forums/

[drsli]

Originally Posted by jacobi

Thanks for asking this... I've been wondering, too. That's an important factor for the forum/community I run and a real "deal breaker" for using this mod

I catch this point, but I think, that in most cases the rules are just let through on the nod and if there is someting fishy afterwards with a user, moderation has to be placed anyway.

[Crystal Shards]

Some styles don't use the code you want us to replace and the like. Adobe Blue is one example. Any way around this?

EDIT: Sorry, should have given an example:

Find:
<form action="newreply.php?do=postreply&amp;t=$threadid" name="vbform" method="post"<if condition="!is_browser('webtv')"> onsubmit="return vB_Editor['$editorid'].prepare_submit(0, $vboptions[postminchars])"</if>>
Replace With:
$fb_prepare_submit
<form action="newreply.php?do=postreply&amp;t=$threadid" name="vbform" method="post"<if condition="!is_browser('webtv')"> onsubmit="return fb_prepare_submit(this, 0)"</if>>

I can't do that with some of the templates.

Also, how are they supposed to add the application on Facebook if it goes straight back to the site?

[drsli]

I had to uninstall unfortunately, cause I didn´t get my existing vb-account to connect to facebook.

Hopefully I´m not wrong: if new users are connecting via facebook and if their new vb-accounts are solely related to the addon, their vb-accounts would break, if the addon isn´t compatible any more or is uninstalled?

Or does the addon create a regular vb-account (with the facebook-password), which is independent from the addon in the future, that means a login without connecting to facebook would be possible for the users too, who initially connected via facebook?

[Code Monkey]

Originally Posted by drsli

I catch this point, but I think, that in most cases the rules are just let through on the nod and if there is someting fishy afterwards with a user, moderation has to be placed anyway.

You're missing the point. It's so later you can say "you agreed to the rules of registration" when you joined or connected with FB the first time. It's an important legal issue for some.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Code Monkey

You're missing the point. It's so later you can say "you agreed to the rules of registration" when you joined or connected with FB the first time. It's an important legal issue for some.

Definitely is. I imagine the rules tool will be added shortly to this awesome mod but in the mean time for those who need it today, here's how to do it:

Part I - Check that the TOS was agreed to

Step 1: Open fblogin.php
Step 2: Go to line 93 or just after the code:

$vbulletin->input->clean_array_gpc('p', array(
  'username'            => TYPE_STR
 ));

Step 3: Add the following code:

// add tos check -- HACK
 $pagenumber = $vbulletin->input->clean_gpc('p', 'agree', TYPE_BOOL);
 if (!$vbulletin->GPC['agree'])
 {
  eval(standard_error(fetch_error('register_not_agreed')));
 } 
 // end tos check

Part II - Asking the user to agree

Step 1 - Open the template fbconnect_login
Step 2 - Find the code

</fieldset>

Step 3 - After this code add:

<input type="checkbox" name="agree" value="1" checked="checked" style="font-size:11px;" /> 
   I agree to abide by the XYZ <a href="#" onclick="window.open('/XXXX.php','review','resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes,height=480,width=640');">Terms of Service</a>.

Step 4 - Change the above code to reflect your forum name and the path to your forum rules. The rules will be shown in a popup window.

Hope I'm not stepping on any toes here. Just thought this could help some people who have concerns get by until the mod can be upgraded.