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Topic-icon Utilize FB:s find friends dialogue

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13 years 9 months ago #25913 by chrben
Hi.
Just purchased the extension and I'm really satisfied! I have a feature I'd like to add to my site that I don't think is part of the JFBConnect function portfolio but would appreciate if you could suggest what functions in JFBC to utilize and where to turn for additional information.
Here's what I'd like to achieve:
A user within my Joomla!-application (written as a component) is about to invite other users to create a group for a commercial project. In that selection process I'd like to utilize either FBs "friend's-picker" (as in the request-dialogue) or FB:s type-ahead feature that exists on top of the FB-page where you can type name, person, email etc and get matches. The user should be able to utilize this to add a set of persons to a list and then send a request. Before or after the request is sent though, I'd like to be able to programmatically capture and store aside the names/FB-ids of the persons the user has invited! This to be able to do some housekeeping/eventmonitoring etc until the different invitees have accepted. A reason is also to be able to automatically attach new registered users on my site (through FBlogin) to any pending requests/invitations of the kind mentioned above that are outstanding in their name/id.
Sorry for this rant, but can you please suggest to me the best possible avenue ahead to achieve this? Many thanks in advance.
Christian /Sweden
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13 years 9 months ago #25964 by chrben
Hi again - I apologize for my somewhat immature request couple of days ago. I've looked into the issue a bit deeper during the weekend and come across the PHP/JavaScript SDKs for FB which is of course a must to achieve what I think I need. I've also come across this resource which is a good starting point:

developers.facebook.com/docs/guides/game...uti-friend-selector/

So my strategy right now - at least for the next 5-10 hours - is to rely on the seamless single-sign-on process in JFBC which will take care of the basic things, e g to get the access_tokens for the registered users on my site which is a prereq for many of the API calls into FB, and utilize the Graph API together with the SDKs for PHP/JavaScript for the more elaborate functions.

If you think this makes sense or have any comments on how to best proceed, please let me know.

Cheers/Christian
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Support Specialist
13 years 9 months ago #25975 by alzander
Christian,
Sorry for not getting back sooner. Your question was immature or incorrect to make, it just takes time to think about responses to features we don't currently offer.

Your plan of attack sounds correct. JFBConnect definitely takes care of the 'core' Joomla/Facebook integration.. creating users, storing keys, etc. We have a lot of other functionality on top of that, of course, but what you're looking for isn't one of them. The jfbconnect.js file uses the FB.ui dialog for sending App Requests, and may help see how we use it, in addition to Facebook's examples. I'm assuming you know Joomla a bit too, but if not, the Requests functionality can show you how to mix the Javascript and PHP/Joomla calls to create enhanced functionality.

The multi-friend-selector your looking at also seems appropriate from what you describe, though it ends up using the 'apprequests' FB.ui call, which is what we also use for our Requests logic. The example on that page, for the checkboxes, is just a way to fully customize the Request form instead of using the built-in one that Facebook offers. Either works though. I really think the Requests functionality we have may be a good starting point:
1) Create a request in JFBConnect: "Create your group"
2) Let user's send that request
3) JFBConnect will track the requests automatically
4) As (or after) a user registers using Facebook, you can see if they were previously invited by someone. If so, give that user credit, or put the new user in a special group, or whatever.

If you have any questions on what we've done, or why, don't hesitate to ask. I'll gladly help you try to do what you're looking for!

Best of luck,
Alex
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