Integration with vBulletin - YAFB - Yay! Another Facebook Bridge

This is not just a "port" for vBulletin 4 of this modification, this is the next version of the modification which support both vBulletin 4 and vBulletin 3 family

IMPORTANT: FILE ISSUES HERE: http://code.google.com/p/vbulletinfacebook/issues/list (require a Google Account)

Yay! Another Facebook Bridge 3.3.2
Tested to work with vBulletin 3.7.x and 3.8.x (3.6.x requires some manual edit, contact me for detail instruction)
Tested to work with vBulletin 4.0 (use different .xml import file)
Please note: this product requires PHP5. If you get weird error messages, please check if you PHP version is still 4 (which is very old and you should change to PHP5 as soon as possible). Also, MySQL 5 is strongly recommended

[WHAT IS IT?]
There are many vBulletin - Facebook bridge out there but installing is always the problem for most of forum owner. So I decided to build this product from scratch and provide you the ability to install this Facebook Bridge into your forum in 10 minutes. The detail install instruction can be found below (under the Feature section). A few technical notes: This product uses Facebook Connect to maintance connection between vBulletin forums and complicated (and awesome) Facebook servers. All most everything is automatically done by the script, even the Administrators don't need to do any manual editing (yeah, I'm talking about manual templates editing, you WON'T need to edit templates each time you implement a new style). Once again, most of everything is options which can be enabled/disabled via AdminCP or UserCP interface. All possible type of caching is use to improve performance and reduce heavy PHP load on server side or javascript load on client side. Well, it's quite a long paragraph for introducing. Let's make it work!

[SEE IT IN ACTION]
Screencast:
1. Installation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ComjeipReE4
2. Connecting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7m85O_iX70
3. Posting and Notifications: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBwwiffLvJ8
Demo board:
vBulletin 3.8: http://daohoangson.com/vb38
vBulletin 4: http://daohoangson.com/vb40
Authentication Username: demo. Password: demo.

[MAIN FEATURE]
*** Damn easy to install!
1. Loaded with long list of actions/notifications: posting thread, posting reply, rating thread, sending pm, sending visitor message, uploading image (avatar/profile picture), uploading pictures, comment on pictures. This list are designed to be expandable easily later by me or other people who loves to develope this product (well, if you do, contact me right now!)
2. Ability to quick register with Facebook credential but Administrator can disable this function via AdminCP. Facebook proxied email addresses are handled completely and vBulletin can send email without any problems (of course, the member must grant the Email extend permission). There is a setting in AdminCP to disallow Facebook proxied email addresses also for boards that need email explicitly
3. Ability to auto login with Facebook session (Administrator can turn this on or off in AdminCP and members can enable or disable this feature on their accounts either)
4. Other abilities: Display a profile block on vBulletin member page. Display a wall tab/box on Facebook profile page. Synchronize avatar from Facebook.
5. [AdminCP] Administrator can "edit" template bundle easily. Actually the old template will be deactivated, the new template will be registered and then all action associated with the old template with be updated with the new template bundle id. Oops, why you need to care about all of it? I did it for you already! Just go the the editing page and click Edit. Yay! All done
6. [AdminCP] Staffs can manage connected users and see basic information about them (including granted permissions)
7. [AdminCP] Administrator can decide to: migrate connected users from other products to YAFB, restrict private forums from being posted to Facebook, view detail log of YAFB in action, send notifications to connected users
*. [Experimental] I have added a fun feature that generate the Fans List, the photo will be posted to new thread with friend tagged (if available). The main purpose of this bonus feature is to demostrate the ability of the bridge. If you have an idea, contact me and I will implement it if I can
*. [Experimental] Friend Inviting functionality is added. Access from UserCP > Facebook Bridge > Invite Friends

[CHANGE LOG]
Version 3.3.2 (released on Jun 10, 2010): Register On-the-fly issue with vBulletin 3.8.4 fixed
Version 3.3.1 (released on Jun 08, 2010): Bug fixes and Migration for vBulletin 4.0.3
Version 3.3 (released on Apr 06, 2010): Auto login related features added. User experience reached a new higher level!

[NEW INSTALLATION]
*. Upload all files/folders in folder "upload" into your forum root (Please upload before importing product)
1. Import Product:
1.1. Go to AdminCP
1.2. Plugins & Products ~> Manage Products ~> Add/Import Product:
1.2.1. Browse to the .xml file (use product-yafb.xml for vBulletin 3 and product-yafb_vb4.xml for vBulletin 4)
1.2.2. Click Import

2. Fill the settings:
2.1. Go to AdminCP
2.2. vBulletin Options ~> vBulletin Options ~> Yay! Another Facebook Bridge
2.2. Create a Facebook Application if you haven't had one for your forum. Refer to the Creating Facebook Application below if you don't know how to do it
2.3. Fill the API key and Secret into the approriate fields. You can leave the Template fields untouch (the will be filled automatically). If you want to use the Account Reclamation feature, please place http://domain.com/forums/register.php?do=fbb_reclaim into Account Reclamation URL field. With other fields, it's your decision to made
2.4. Click Save and you are done!

2.* Creating Facebook Application:
2.*.1. Go to Facebook Developer > Create Application page http://www.facebook.com/developers/createapp.php (login if you didn't)
2.*.2. Enter the Application Name. Suggestion: Put your forum name here. Don't forget to tick the Agree radiobox and then click Save Changes
2.*.3. Now you can get your API Key and Secret (that are needed in step 2.3)
2.*.4. And go to the Connect tab, fill your forum url into Connect URL, fill your domain into Base Domain.
2.*.5. You are done with required information. But you can go through other tab and enter more detail about your forum, your application. I suggest putting a nice icon, banner into it. Happy customizing!

[UPGRADING]
Just upload overwrite files/folders then reimport the xml file. Do not forget to check "Yes" under "Allow Overwrite" to upgrade

[CONFLICT]
Since this product interfere with the registration procedure, I have found some other plugins/products that conficts with this product. Below is the full list of known confict and action taken to resolve the issue
No Spam (Human Verification): Temporary disabled during Facebook registration
vMail (Email Verification): Temporary disabled during Facebook registration

[OTHER PLUGINS/PRODUCTS]
I have developed an easy to use options/permissions system that allow other plugins/products to add it's actions into this bridge and let the forum members experience a whole new era of connections. I did a small demostration with my kBank System (which is a money system with award/thank functionality and a useful hiding feature) and it runs pretty well. If you are interested in testing kBank in action with YAFB, contact me. If you are a developer who wants to integrate your plugins/products with this Bridge, contact me either! You are all welcome
*Also available: Publishing Blog (vBBlog) to Facebook [New! Updated on Jan 10th, 2010]


[KNOWN ISSUES]
FILE HERE: http://code.google.com/p/vbulletinfacebook/issues/list (require a Google Account)

[CoZmicShReddeR]

Originally Posted by iguano

If i turn on che mod i can't modificate my avatar, i see only a white page with this code above the logo:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '.' in /home/*****/public_html/forum/includes/class_core.php(4010) : eval()'d code on line 152

someone can help me? ( second time i ask this )

Originally Posted by iguano

solved with this option:

Yeah that was driving me mad!!!!!!!

Thanks for the fix!

The issue is I couldn't access my edit avatar until I disabled the cache from facebook...

[hatchet]

Well done. Was also wondering if an option could be added that posted to a page instead of my profile in FB or both for that matter? And also, if there is any customization that can be done to what is posted, maybe automatically include the thread title? Just some thoughts.

[vbreal]

short stories are posting to my wall like this. when there is a url.

TigerText: The iPhone texting app for cheaters
Even if you’re not a billionaire athlete, sometimes it would be great to have text messages go away. A new iPhone application, TigerText (http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/...rtnerId%253D30), promises to delete those messages after a set time. TigerText is reportedly not named after that golfing guy and it doesn’t really send text messages exactly. Instead, senders and recipients have to have the app installed and the messages reside on TigerText’s servers. From there, users can set a time limit on ...
See More

[stevemoy]

Does anyone know how to set/modify/update this plugin to sync Facebook avatars automatically upon user registration? I have the FB avatars working on my site, but users first have to go to their avatar settings and manually choose to sync with FB in order for them to appear.

I can't tell if this behavior is supposed to happen or not - it makes sense to me that the initial avatar sync would happen on registration, but from what I can tell by looking at the code it doesn't seem to be the case. I've looked at many of the posts in this thread about avatar problems, but haven't found anything that matches this issue (which I'm not sure is really an issue or just an additional customization that I want to do).

All of the avatar setup stuff seems to be taking place in hook_profile_updateavatar_start.php, which looks like it is only called when a user updates their avatar settings. I'd like to get the sync avatar setting turned on by default for newly registered users from Facebook - I'm not sure if there's someplace in hook_register_start.php or in the register template I can trigger this, or if I should just copy the relevant code from updateavatar_start instead.

I could probably figure it out given the time, but I'm just wondering if anyone's already done this (or if I'm missing something obvious in the settings somewhere).

Thanks,
Steve

[Anas User]

Hello,

I installed the mod but I got the following problems:

- When trying to connect to facebook while logged in from the profile settings, I get the following message:

Sorry, we can NOT proceed your request
It looks like there are some problem in communication to/from Facebook. Please contact Administrators for more detail...

- Also, when trying to log in using face book as a normal visitor, I am redirected to registration and there, I am asked to enter a password and an email. After submitting the info, it reloads the page and asks me to retype the info and that happens everytime I press submit.

Any solution?

[doubleclick]

Originally Posted by Digital Jedi

Shouldn't have anything to do with it. Just try re-uploading your cpnav_arcade.xml to the includes/xml folder.

Yep. Thanks DJ!

dc

[gteh]

[solved] nevermind. according to http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/...nect_Tutorial1 you just use the root URL for the domain

Alright... stupid question. Ive read all 38 pages of this thread and can't seem to find the answer.

what is my 'Connect URL' supposed to be?? I've tried using my forum URL but I get validation errors, and no where in the instructions for this mod does it state what to enter in that field other than to , 'fill in your connect URL'

I watched the video, and according to the video it says to use my domain name.

I filled in http://mydomain.com into the 'Connect URL' field, filled out the rest as per the video, and when I click the fb connect button on my forum and try to log in with my facebook account I get this error:

Configuration errors:
To fix this error, please set your Connect URL in the application settings editor. Once it has been set, users will be redirected to that URL instead of this page after logging in

What am I doing wrong?

thx

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by PI Guy

Ok I updated the MySQL and the importing the xml file worked. However am having problems with the facebook app bit


what do I put in the connect tab? I put it in as follows (is that correct?);



The Facebook bridge doesn't appear on the forum. I don't know why.

Be sure to follow the video tutorial. She demos exactly how everything is supposed to appear in those fields.

[kall]

Originally Posted by Anas User

Hello,

I installed the mod but I got the following problems:

- When trying to connect to facebook while logged in from the profile settings, I get the following message:


- Also, when trying to log in using face book as a normal visitor, I am redirected to registration and there, I am asked to enter a password and an email. After submitting the info, it reloads the page and asks me to retype the info and that happens everytime I press submit.

Any solution?

That's a Facebook error. Their Administrators are probably more likely to answer you if you ask them on Facebook... it's not likely they're reading this thread.

Regarding the other part - already-registered people have to set up the Connect in their UserCP/Settings before trying to connect.

[ErrorJustin]

Hello! I installed this plugin, but when I visit my forum as a guest and click "connect with facebook" I get presented with two options: Register, or Login Now. However, clicking "Login Now" just directs me to the registration page anyway.

The whole reason I am hoping to use this Facebook Connect mod on my forum is so people DON'T HAVE to register. I want them to be able to use their FB credentials to post. Is that not possible with this mod?

What I was hoping for was something similar to what http://forums.zynga.com/ has. When users select "connect with Facebook" and then follow through, the only thing they have to enter is a forum nickname for themselves - they never need to give up an email address, etc.

Is that how this mod is supposed to function and it isn't working properly? Is there another mod that accomplishes this?

4.0.2 FYI.