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.

[LightScribe]

I have a question about this modification. Say for example somebody wanted to sign in using their facebook account. I want to have promotions set up so after so many posts, people get extra permissions on the forum. When they sign in with their facebook, does it still create an account on my forum and link it to the facebook account?

Would I be correct in assuming that if I just put the facebook users into the registered group they'll still be promoted just like normal members?

Would I be correct in assuming that if someone was promoted to Moderator or Administrator their facebook account would still be linked?

Can people link their facebook account after they've signed up as a regular user?

Also, what information does this hack pull from facebook to put into a user's profile?

[wolfstream]

Originally Posted by LightScribe

I have a question about this modification. Say for example somebody wanted to sign in using their facebook account. I want to have promotions set up so after so many posts, people get extra permissions on the forum. When they sign in with their facebook, does it still create an account on my forum and link it to the facebook account?

Exactly. The user still is created and exists in the database, however their password remains @ facebook, and their email is proxied through facebook.

One thing to note though is that this skips a LOT of the usual 'registration' protocol. So, if say you have vbcredits and are running a membership drive, those will need to be given manually to the facebook users.

Originally Posted by LightScribe

Would I be correct in assuming that if I just put the facebook users into the registered group they'll still be promoted just like normal members?

The only thing "special" about these users is their proxy mail and password storage, so yes, that would be a correct assumption, however, as the author has said in the initial release, and I've said a few times now, do not put them in the original usergroup. Create a duplicate of the original usergroup, put them in that. This will make things soooo much easier if/when the inevitable comes and facebook completely changes things making this app useless, and the developer doesn't fix things in time. This way, you can isolate the problem users and change their emails if necessary.

Originally Posted by LightScribe

Would I be correct in assuming that if someone was promoted to Moderator or Administrator their facebook account would still be linked?

Their account is linked via their email address, not their usergroup, so yes.

Originally Posted by LightScribe

Can people link their facebook account after they've signed up as a regular user?

Yes

Originally Posted by LightScribe

Also, what information does this hack pull from facebook to put into a user's profile?

Whatever you'd like it to, within reason. Currently, it can pull up (supposedly)

First Name
Last Name
UID
Name
Location
Facebook Profile URL
Profile Picture (small,square or normal)

You can djust how this is mapped in the FBconnect options -> data mapping setup. I have noticed a few problems with it, but not many.

[LightScribe]

Thanks for your help with that, mate. Having a second usergroup with the same title and permissions wouldn't be hard to do so I'll make sure I do that.

Also, how does it work if a user wants to change their forum password but not their facebook password (or the other way around), or is this not possible?

EDIT: also, does a facebook user get the ability to choose their own forum username when they join?

[wolfstream]

Originally Posted by LightScribe

Also, how does it work if a user wants to change their forum password but not their facebook password (or the other way around), or is this not possible?

Not possible

[puppetmaster222]

Works as advertised and an amazing mod at that.

Thanks for the hard work put in, I can assure you this user appreciates it!!

-Steve

[hobsdv]

installed

this is one of the best mods yet

[Teletubby]

wolfstream,

Thanks for all your help/offer to help with this mod - I am thinking it will be a big help to me and really anyone who has a bunch of Facebook friends/potential friends that they want to get registered on their board.

Originally Posted by wolfstream

Ok, well, that didn't go over too well, apparently. Despite the author's being gone, there's really nothing more I can do here.

I HATE that, because there's just sooooo much good that can come from this application, but if the gods say no, the gods say no.

I'll look through his code, see how impossible it would be to rewrite and SEE (note: see) what I can do. I really can't guarantee much, however.

Those who are having installation problems: I did pay the $25 a couple of days ago and got it professionally installed (see INSTALL.html file in download) in just a few days.

I am hoping that this mod will help me drive registrations to my High School Reunion/Classmate/Alumni site which it hopefully will but I'm not sure if I will have to manually request that the newly registered members from facebook manually fill in the custom user fields for "name known by in high school" and "graduation year" which are required by me so that users can search for classmates in their class.

Thanks again wolfstream and slick or whoever is willing to keep this mod working, better documented/features etc

**I just read all the pages on this post and it would be nice if some of how it is implemented, exactly, and more detailed installation notes were added to the initial post on the first page.

I am willing to pay more money to keep this mod alive/working and add features to it.


Brad

[globofan]

any way of getting this to work with vb bridges?no?

[elrwnq]

i have php 4.8.8
whate i can do ????

[wolfstream]

Originally Posted by elrwnq

i have php 4.8.8
whate i can do ????

Upgrade!
php 4 has been unsupported and dead for close to two years now. You can't just keep running old software like this, you need to upgrade it!