Facebook is a social networking website. Users can add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region.
Build social applications on Facebook Platform
The web is social. Developers just like you have built applications on Facebook Platform that millions of people use everyday. Connect users and solve real-world problems with your applications. Build a business by offering users valuable experiences.
Facebook API
The Facebook API is a platform for building applications that are available to the members of the social network of Facebook. The API allows applications to use the social connections and profile information to make applications more involving, and to publish activities to the news feed and profile pages of Facebook, subject to individual users privacy settings.
Before we begin, there are a few things you need to know. In order to create a Facebook application, you should know or need the following:
- You should be well versed in PHP or some other coding language — such as Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, or Python — especially one that has a client library for our API.
- You need to have a basic understanding of the Internet, SSH, MySQL, and Unix
- You need to be familiar with Web hosting fundamentals and have a place to host your application.
Now you’re ready to get started! You can read in depth instructions on the Facebook Developers Wiki, but this outline here should give you good enough idea to get you going.
Setting Up Your Application
- First you need to log in to the Facebook Developer application:
Go to the Facebook Developer App
- Begin setting up a new application. Go to the Developer application and click “Set Up New Application”. Give your application a name, check to accept the Terms of Service, then click Submit. You’ll see some basic information about your application, including:
- Your API key: this key identifies your application to Facebook. You pass it with all your API calls.
- Your application secret: Facebook uses this key to authenticate the requests you make. As you can tell by its name, you should never share this key with anyone.
- Now we need to configure a few more settings before we can get into the code. Click “Edit Settings”. Notice that the support and contact email addresses are pre-populated with the email address associated with your Facebook account.
- Enter a callback URL. This is the address where your application lives on your server, or the server where the application is being hosted.
- Enter a canvas page URL. A canvas page is the address where your application lives on Facebook. When users access your application on Facebook, they’re taken to your canvas page. It’s a good idea to use your application name or something similar. It must be at least 7 characters long and include only letters, dashes and underscores.
- You want users to be able to put your application on their profiles, so select “Yes” at “Can your application be added on Facebook?”
- Believe it or not, this is all we really need to get a simple application ready to go. Click “Save and continue”.