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.

[cad2go]

Originally Posted by wolfstream

cad2go:

Is this on the forums you have in your sig (rletc)? I was able to get to them and connect just fine using FF3, and IE8 didn't give me any issues either.

Most likely, this is a browser specific problem, and I'd lay 10:1 that browser isn't going to work with any facebook app outside of their page, not just the vB connection.

The code is pretty much facebook owned stuff, obviously fblogin.php is custom, but the rest of the user handling stuff is all facebook classes and whatnot. It's universal across god knows how many sites.

I'm not saying that your error didn't happen, but a bit mroe information would be good to help figure it out. If the latest version of the browsers work, then chances are it has something to do with the earlier, older version of the browsers

yeah rletc

It worked for you!

I'm on chrome latest (2.0.172.37), ff3.0.12 and ie8.0.6001.18763 - all up to date.

Very weird.

I wonder could it just be a cookie issue or something with being logged in and out of fb on all 3 browsers and with a couple of accounts?

I looked through the logs and I didn't see any 500 errors tbh. Let me reboot, clear cache etc and report back

[cad2go]

No joy. Got the same error

Fatal error:

* Please complete the required field "Email".

Unable to proceed with save while $errors array is not empty in class vB_DataManager_User in [path]/includes/class_dm.php on line 810

However I was able to join http://www.necrotania.com/ (a site on this thread) using fb.

[wolfstream]

Originally Posted by cad2go

It worked for you!

Ayep
No problems at all here.
One thought might be the flash ad you've got running, as it does interfere with the fbconnect interaction. This might be part of the issue here, however I've never seen a 500 error on any install.

[cad2go]

Cheers wolf! Great to get that working. Appreciate the help.

Think you might be right about flash. I've had some odd issues with it and vista.

Anyway I'll see what I hear back from fb-ers.

Thanks

[Bounce]

Originally Posted by Loco.M

installed and working great
I'm going to setup facebook connect on the wordpress blog as well

how did you do that mate?

[ZiG]

Originally Posted by wolfstream

Right now, we don't know what vB4 is going to have in store, honestly, so let's just focus on vB3. Since alpha's not even out for vB4, theoretically it could be a year or better (we really don't know, and yeah, that's just speculation), the best focus is on what is here in front of us.

You say this mod is lacking features. Honestly, I don't see it as such, but what do you see it lacking? If it is possible to add them (without stepping on toes), I can add them as a new mod, or an addon, possibly. However, my hands are tied with license garbage here, so I can't redistribute the OP's code.

well, there should be more of an indication that a user has either connected with facebook (made an account with facebook), or that a user has linked his/her current membership up with their facebook acount in the user profile or in the postbit. i realize you can bring over data from facebook, but this isn't really a clear indication that the user has connected with their facebook account.

to me it seems like this mod is really only for people who are very lazy to sign up for vbulletin on their own, which is good because most people are very lazy to sign up for vbulletin so it would probably bring in more memberships. however, as it is it's just a simpler way to register.

digg.com shows how this mod can work better, for example digg.com automatically figured out that the e-mail address you provide for your facebook login details could be similar to the e-mail address you used when signing up, so it immediately asks you to login with your current account rather than even giving you the option to create a new username which makes you end up with 2 accounts. it then also presents you with the option to friend other users on digg.com who are using facebook automatically, as well as asking you if you would like your avatar/profile photo transferred over to digg rather than automatically doing it. then when you have your user account linked together with your facebook account there is a clear indication of this reflected in the avatar, that hovers the facebook icon a little above and to the left of your actual digg.com avatar. a clear indication that you are logged in via connect with facebook, and that your facebook/digg membership have been linked together. when you go to settings, your facebook connect settings allows you to invite other friends via facebook to join digg, as well as a full buddy list of who is your friend on digg.com that also uses facebook. you can then also choose via checkboxes what you want automatically fed to your facebook wall...

this mod should take the usage of facebook connect on digg.com as an example, this mod already has some of these features but definitely not as well implemented as they should be. i also never figured out what that security hole was about...

template edits should also be reduced, there is a template modification engine available and most good plugins use it. there should be no need for all of these template edits...

[Bounce]

anyone know if its possible to change the image colour of the "connect with facebook" image, can the image be changed to my own custom one?

edit: found it, changed the url of the image in clientscript/fbconnect.js

[bahrainonline]

i manage to install this product, but i am still getting this , i edited the all template twice but still getting this

any idea

[wolfstream]

Originally Posted by ZiG

well, there should be more of an indication that a user has either connected with facebook

There is, right here:

Originally Posted by ZiG

you can bring over data from facebook

Originally Posted by ZiG

this isn't really a clear indication that the user has connected with their facebook account.

Uhh, yeah, it is.

Originally Posted by ZiG

to me it seems like this mod is really only for people who are very lazy to sign up for vbulletin on their own, which is good because most people are very lazy to sign up for vbulletin so it would probably bring in more memberships. however, as it is it's just a simpler way to register.

It's not a matter of being 'too lazy', it's a matter of being 'more secure'. Think of it. One password, one login, multiple forums. no spam!!! Facebook handles everything, including password and email changes. Now THAT is unique. It's not about being 'too lazy', but keeping everything under one roof. Now, if that one roof caves in, you're screwed, but you still have that one roof

Originally Posted by ZiG

... automatically figured out that the e-mail address you provide for your facebook login details could be similar to the e-mail address you used when signing up

That's good for dig, but the way the facebook API works , the email address is hashed, and the end user (developer) doesn't actually SEE that email address

Originally Posted by ZiG

template edits should also be reduced

Nonsense. It takes all of 5 minutes to edit the templates. Why use an "auto template parser" which forces a linkback on every page to a pathetic author? Take 5 minutes, edit the templates, and you're done. This way you KNOW what you're doing, and can actually LEARN from it.

Originally Posted by hIBEES

edit: found it, changed the url of the image in clientscript/fbconnect.js

Be careful when playing with that, because you can very easily screw up the setup. The button and link and all that come directly from facebook

Originally Posted by bahrainonline

i manage to install this product, but i am still getting this , i edited the all template twice but still getting this

See my screenshots a few posts back, make sure your app configuration follows that EXACTLY. That is the #1 reason people get that error

[moonclamp]

What happens to the user if they decide to disable or delete their facebook account? Will they still show on the memberlist, and will their forum account be disabled too?

... and similarily, what happens to facebook connect member if you get rid of the addon at a later date?

Oh, and what happens if two members are on each others facebook ignore/block list?