jomsocial plugin - facebook post

Right now, that plugin should post status updates that you make in JomSocial back to Facebook. The idea is to add support for 'pushing' other things back to Facebook, but obviously, that's not there yet. To make it work, you simply should publish the plugin, enable the setting for pushing status updates, and in JFBConnect (in the Wall/ Status tab) make sure the "Enable Status Updates:" setting is enabled.

If all of that is setup right (which I assume it is), can you tell me what version of JomSocial are you using? We've tested with 2.0 and 2.2. If it's earlier than that, that's likely the issue. If not, definitely let us know and we'll investigate more.

Thanks,
Alex

Good to hear that it's working. In the future, the idea is to have more settings for "Post events to FB", "Post video's to FB", etc. At first, these would just be simple "I just signed up for an event" or "I just posted a video" (without the actual video), but realistically, we could add rich data to the post as well.

If you have feedback on what you'd like to see posted first (and how), we'd love to hear it.. Specifically, for events, what would you want shown in Facebook, how should it be linked back to the site/event, etc. Now that we have the first thing done, adding more hooks for other things to post should be easier, which is a good thing.

As for 4.0, it's still not available yet as an update from Facebook that we were expecting still hasn't been released (July 1st, then July 20th, then yesterday.. still nothing). We're excited for the K2 support too!

Regarding invites, that system hasn't been changed. For invites, we're using Requests 1.0 from Facebook. We're looking into moving to Requests 2.0 with either JFBC 4.1 or 4.2 (still scoping some things out). That will have a lot more features for pushing things to Facebook and will enable a better invite system as well.

Hope that helps, and look forward to your suggestions and feedback!
Alex

There won't be another 3.x release. The 4.0 release is just about ready, as you read, with us just waiting on the updated code from Facebook. We can't really release what we have in a new 3.x series because we've changed some of the code to make improvements, but it breaks backward compatibility in a few ways for user's who have custom coded their own modifications. Nothing major, and very easy updates, but we are moving to the name 4.0 so we can easily delineate what's available in what release and easily debug issues if a user's using 3.x or 4.x in the future.

Additionally, we try to avoid 2 back-to-back releases when possible. We did it once in the past and got -a lot- of flack from users. Even with new features, constantly upgrading seems to rile some feathers.

With that said, we're still in a holding pattern waiting for Facebook's release which support their new authentication mechanism. This method will be required by Facebook as of Oct 1st, so we want to get it out as soon as possible to make sure everything goes smoothly for the migration. Originally, it was supposed to be out July 1st.. then the 20th, then the 29th. It was delivered on Friday, and we're waiting to hear the next release date. It should be next week, and our updates to use it should be quick.. so, hopefully the 2nd week of August is looking good.

Regarding invites, we agree, it could be better.. and that's something we're definitely investigating for 4.1. The new Requests system can do a lot more than just invites, which is very cool, and we are investigating a lot of ways to integrate and take advantage of the system. I'm not sure what the invite log-out bug you're seeing is.. first I've heard of it. Can you try our demo site (www.sourcecoast.com/jfbconnect/demo) and see if you have the same issue there?

Finally, for JomSocial, again, we agree, there's definitely more that can be done there too (there always is). We're always adding more integration points for extensions and working toward exactly the things you mention. With posting to walls, we think it's pretty easy to post links to videos and other rich media, and plan to add that in a future update to the activity plugin.. the plugin we released was the first rev, and after 4.0 finally comes out and any bugs/issues settle out, we want to add more to that plugin for tighter integration.

Hope that all helps and answers your questions!
Alex

I may backtrack on everything we said above. Facebook is pushing back the updated PHP library until this Friday. Additionally, from other testing, we've realized there are a few other bugs that we don't like with their current implementation. We've already submitted bug reports to them, and are pursuing them to get them fixed as soon as possible. However, we're currently looking at releasing 3.4 this week with all the features 4.0 was supposed to have, except the updated authentication mechanism.

We'll release 4.0 later in August once we're more confident in the updated authentication scheme. That will also include any bug-fixes that may pop-up in the 3.4 release, to make 4.0 even more stable (hopefully won't be much/anything, but this new release has a lot of new stuff).

This is still tentative, but pretty confident in the plan. If so, 3.4 will be out Tuesday or Wednesday this week.

Thanks again for all the feedback!
Alex

Mr Steele,
Just wanted to let you know that we just posted JFBConnect v3.4. It has all the features that 4.0 was supposed to have, except the updated authentication mechanism. We'll be releasing 4.0 later this month which will include the new OAuth2 protocol.

Please let us know how it goes, we'd love your feedback on the new release!

Thanks, and good luck,
Alex

Remington,
Actually, we don't have a way to prevent the email from being sent if the user hasn't given permission. Never thought about it, actually.. and it would only affect sites with Facebook User Only set -and- not requesting the email permission. For Full Joomla User, the user can set their email address during that registration flow. I did take that down as something to prevent in the future though.

With that said, I'm a little confused with why you disabled it. Was there actually an issue, or was it simply a user not wanting to give his email address? If it's the latter, in the permissions pop-up, Facebook gives the option of changing the email to a special 'proxy' email. This can only be sent emails from the domain of your application, and is a great way for user's to give out an email address with confidence that their account won't get spammed.

I actually wish this was made more prominent in the permissions window, but there is a "Change" link there.. unfortunately, we can't control the look of that window.

Hope that helps,
Alex