Using the Facebook identification

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Overview
The elements proposed by WLanguage
Declaring the application in Facebook
Declaring the Android application in Facebook
Declaring the iOS application in Facebook
Implementing the Facebook identification in the WINDEV or WINDEV Mobile application or in the WEBDEV site
Establishing the connection
Using the Facebook API

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WINDEV Mobile

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Using the Facebook identification

Overview

Facebook, 1st social network in the world, is very much used by the companies to group their customers. Facebook includes a very powerful API to efficiently exploit the platform.

WINDEV, WEBDEV and WINDEV Mobile (for the Android and iOS applications) propose two modes for using Facebook:

a simple use, where the Facebook login of user can be used to identify in the WINDEV or WINDEV Mobile application or in the WEBDEV site. The end user will have less passwords to remember.
an advanced use, allowing you to interface with Facebook in order to use the Facebook API from a WINDEV or WINDEV Mobile application or from a WEBDEV site.

The principle is the same regardless of the selected use mode. You must:

Declare the WINDEV or WINDEV Mobile application or the WEBDEV site to Facebook.
Use the Facebook identifiers in the WINDEV or WINDEV Mobile application or in the WEBDEV site.
Connect to Facebook from the WINDEV or WINDEV Mobile application or from the WEBDEV site to identify the user.

For an advanced use, several WLanguage functions allow you to communicate with Facebook via its API.

Versions 22 and later
Caution: This feature is not available for the WINDEV applications in Linux.

New in version 22
Caution: This feature is not available for the WINDEV applications in Linux.

Caution: This feature is not available for the WINDEV applications in Linux.

The elements proposed by WLanguage

The following WLanguage elements can be used to communicate with Facebook:

the fbSession type. This type of variable contains all the elements required to implement the Facebook connection and authentication .

several functions:


Versions 21 and later FBGetUserInformation New in version 21 FBGetUserInformation FBGetUserInformation	Retrieves the Facebook information of connected user.
Versions 21 and later FBRequest New in version 21 FBRequest FBRequest	Performs a communication request (HTTP request) to the Facebook Graph API.
Versions 21 and later FBSessionStatus New in version 21 FBSessionStatus FBSessionStatus	Checks the status of a Facebook session.
Versions 21 and later FBStartSession New in version 21 FBStartSession FBStartSession	Used to authenticate and log in to Faceboook.
Versions 21 and later FBStopSession New in version 21 FBStopSession FBStopSession	Stops the Facebook session that was started by FBStartSession.

Declaring the application in Facebook

Declaring the Android application in Facebook

A Facebook Android application must be created beforehand.

Remark: Some elements required to create the Facebook application are supplied in the wizard for generating an Android application ("Facebook" screen). In order for the Facebook step to appear in this wizard, you must use a WLanguage function linked to Facebook.

Let's see the steps to follow (valid at the time this page was written):

Connect to the "https://developers.facebook.com/" site.
Identify yourself ("Connection" button).
Register yourself if necessary (click the "Register" button and follow the wizard).
In the "My Apps" menu, click "Add an App".
In the popup that is displayed, specify:
- The name of your application in the "Usage name" control.
- A valid email address in the "Email address of contact" control.
Click the "Create an app ID" button.
The page of the application that was just created is displayed.
Display the dashboard of the application.
Write down the "App ID" and the "Secret key".
Then, click the "Settings" menu and choose "General".
Click "Add a platform" and select "Android".
Specify:
- the name of the application package ("Name of Google Play package" option). This name is given in the wizard for Android generation ("General information" screen or "Facebook" screen).
- the class name. This name is given in the wizard for Android generation ("Facebook" screen).
the hash key of certificate ("Key hashing" option)
Remark: This information can be found in the "Facebook" screen when generating the Android application.
Click "Save the modifications".
Your application is saved.

Declaring the iOS application in Facebook

A Facebook iOS application must be created beforehand.

Let's see the steps to follow (valid at the time this page was written):

Connect to the "https://developers.facebook.com/" site.
Identify yourself ("Connection" button).
Register yourself if necessary (click the "Register" button and follow the wizard).
In the "My Apps" menu, click "Add an App".
In the popup that is displayed, specify:
- The name of your application in the "Usage name" control.
- A valid email address in the "Email address of contact" control.
Click the "Create an app ID" button.
The page of the application that was just created is displayed.
Display the dashboard of the application.
Write down the "App ID".
Then, click the "Settings" menu and choose "General".
Click "Add a platform" and select "iOS".
In the "Pack ID" area, sepcify the Bundle identifier of your application. This name is given in the wizard for iOS generation ("General information" screen).
Click "Save the modifications".
Your application is saved.

Implementing the Facebook identification in the WINDEV or WINDEV Mobile application or in the WEBDEV site

Establishing the connection

To connect to Facebook, you must:

Configure a Facebook session (fbSession variable). In the different proprerties of this variable, you must specify:
- the "App ID" supplied when registering the application to Facebook.
Establish the connection with FBStartSession.

For example:

MyConnection is fbSession
// Configure the session
MyConnection..AppID = "1664XXXXXXXXXXXX"
MyConnection..AppSecret = "c6e7XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"
// Define the rights:
// - Read the email
// - Manage the pages
MyConnection..Permission = [fbEmail, "manage_pages", "publish_pages", "publish_actions"]
// Connection
FBStartSession(MyConnection)

If the connection is permanent, the function presents no connection screen and the session is started directly.

Remarks:

The function is using the Facebook account entered by the user on the phone (if this account is specified).
The "public_profile" permission is always required when starting a Facebook session. If this permission was not specified in the list of permissions for the fbSession variable passed in parameter to FBStartSession, this permission will be automatically requested.
A started Facebook session is a persistent session: it will remain opened:
- until the application is closed.
- until the call to FBStopSession.

Using the Facebook API

FBRequest is used to perform requests toward Facebook.

The following example is used to list the pages and groups managed by the current user:

sURL is ANSI string = GRAPHAPI + "me/accounts?local=en_US"
sJSON is ANSI string
vJSON is Variant

// Retrieves the pages managed by the user
sJSON = FBRequest(MyConnection, sURL)
vJSON = JSONToVariant(sJSON)

The function returns the JSON response of Facebook.

Then, all you have to do is read and access the members documented in the Facebook API: "https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-api/reference".

FOR i = 1 _TO_ vJSON.data..Occurrence
ListAdd(LIST_PAGES, gLink(i) + vJSON.data[i].name)
END