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.

[john graham]

Originally Posted by wolfstream

Some have said they get it done within hours, but since the owner hasn't shown up here in 2 months, I would think you won't have much luck

Great!? I finally try to change my forum and this....=/

[asiaphoto]

Hi all,

I'v sent the coder Sllik an email and couldn't get any replies. Read somewhere later in this thread that he last logged on around mid-april...

is there another experienced coder willing to provide support for installation as well as further modifications of this facebook connect app?

pls PM me to discuss budget. thanks

eagerly in need of support.

Originally Posted by Digital Jedi

I think you should wait until the coder comes back and verifies that. Second hand accounts of what a coder is doing based on whether they got help or not is always just speculation at best.

[Smitty]

I'll admit to having paid a coder to take an abandoned script and update it to work with the vB version I use. If the mod author leaves and does not respond to emails, I'll get a coder to update the mod and they leave the appropriate credits in the script. If the mod author would complain, I'll offer to pay US$100 or so. That has never happened, but I'm not wanting to avoid paying. The *function* of the script is important to me.

[asiaphoto]

Hi Smitty,

any chance of me paying the same coder or you to get it installed to work with my forum at http://www.asiaphoto.com/forum ?

i'm also concerned that the new version of vbulletin's coming up, version 4.0 and i hope it will continue to work.

Smitty, could you PM me your forum url so i can take a look to see how it's working out so far?

[Smitty]

The last time I used someone was a couple years ago. I'll look at the script this afternoon and PM you the person's email, but you may want to look around for a coder - The fellow I used may not still be around. I will say you can expect to pay some $.

[Lee G]

I just installed this and if you follow the instructions to the letter it is surprisingly simple.

I was a bit hesitant myself after seeing how many pages had accumulated on this thread.

Great little hack

[wolfstream]

Originally Posted by john graham

Of course, the problem is I already sent the money via paypal to have it done. What recourse do I have?

Sadly, not much, especially if you specified 'services' when you sent the money.
Paypal does not cover 'services' in their normal refunds.

Now, if you funded the transaction through your CC, then you can call your bank and have them take care of it. Usually banks are pretty good about that as they want to keep their own customers!

[renlok]

brilliant

[asiaphoto]

Hi Wolfstream,

i was just looking thru the old threads and saw this post of yours.

yes, it will be great if you could contribute to further development of this mod. i see it being put to action in some forums... which i logged in with my facebook account. it's really need.

but there could be more improvements such as

(1) disabling the prompt to publish everything into the user's facebook wall
as a user, it gets annoying each time i'm asked and i have to click "skip"

(2) adding a link to members' facebook profile automatically.

(3) an option to request facebook members to also key in their email addresses during the signup stage (where they choose their username for this forum)

(4) an option to automatically add such users to a facebook group so admins can email them as a group.
currently, i think no email addresses are captured to the forum mailing lists.

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.

[wolfstream]

There are problems with the last two. Because of this, you may want to require users to register before using this application, and then link the app to their account.

When a user registers through facebook, they expect that all details will be kept there. This is a security thing, more than anything else, just like a user paying through paypal expects THEIR details to be kept @ paypal.

You can't mess with the facebook email addresses at all without screwing things up, unfortunately.