questions

Whew. Lots of questions, and sorry for the delay. We've been laser focused on releasing JFBConnect 3.0 the last few days. Should finally be on the site later today.

So from what I understand, JFBC will pull a user's FB profile information and populate it onto my JS site? A user who just arrived on my site, enter their FB login info and BAM all their information on their FB site will be on my site?

Yes. It pulls in their Facebook information and can store it in a JomSocial, Community Builder, or Kunena profile. You can test this functionality out on our demo site if interested:
demo.sourcecoast.com
The profile import is similar to JomSocial's built in FB support, but much more configurable. You can choose which FB fields are 'mapped' to each JS text field. A good picture of the JS/FB mapping config screen can be found here:
www.sourcecoast.com/jfbconnect/docs/configuration-guide

Is the information pulled on my site stored on my site permanently or just temporary meaning if the user were to cancel/delete their FB account, will their information still remain on my site? If not, is there a way to import their FB account over?

Yes, the information is stored permanently in the JomSocial, Community Builder, and/or Kunena tables. It is not stored within JFBConnect itself. This allows those respective components to not even know (or care) where that information came from originally and therefore, they operate just like normal.
On a side note, there's a switch to set whether the profile is imported only at registration or on every return visit by the user.

What happens if I disable the JFBC plugin? Will all the user's FB data on my site be lost?

Nope. Each user that logs in with JFBConnect can be given the option to create a standalone Jomla account. If you were to uninstall JFBConnect entirely, their imported profile would still remain in JomSocial and they could use their Joomla account to log in. The only thing you'd loose at that point is for the user to return to the site and log in manually (or automatically as of JFBConnect 3.0) with their FB credentials.

About their profile information. On FB, for example, My Favorite books, movies, etc are all searchable profile fields. But in JS, those fields aren't searchable. So when a user is on my JS site, will those profile fields be linked or not?

We don't modify JomSocial's behavior, we merely import data into it as if the user entered it themselves. If it's not searchable before JFBConnect, it won't be after. If it is searchable, it will be after you install and use JFBConnect.

Are the activities cross linked meaning what I do on my JS site will show on the FB wall and vice versa? Is the linking automatic or does the user need to click a "Link" button of some sort to sync both account?

Not yet. Right now, it's a one-way street where information is always pulled from Facebook to your Joomla site. With JFBConnect 3.0 we're including modules that let you implement all of the following features (comment boxes, Like buttons, recommendation buttons, etc):
developers.facebook.com/plugins
These will help start pushing content from your users and site to Facebook. We have a lot more methods for driving information to Facebook that we will be implementing in future releases as well.

Is the information linked on each site posted immediately from FB to JS instantly or is there a delay from one site to another meaning if I upload a photo on my JS site, it gets posted immediately on FB. But if I post a comment or upload a photo on FB, it doesn't get posted on my site as immediate. In fact, it might get posted on my site every 30 minutes or so for example. Is this the case?

Information is only imported into a user's profile when they login to the site. We're investigating ways to refresh this content more frequently, but have nothing to speak of now.

Is everything I do on my JS site gets posted on FB and vice versa such as uploading a linked video, uploading a photo, creating a group, event, etc? Are there activities that doesn't get shared between the two sites?

See above post. With JFBC 2.x, very little activity gets pushed back to Facebook. With 3.0 right out of the box, there's a lot of ways for content to be pushed back to Facebook, but it's not automated. With future releases, we plan to bridge the information much more tightly between the 2 systems based on customer feedback and feature requests.

Hope all this information helps. May use this to write up an FAQ of what JFBC does and doesn't do, since the product page isn't always the best way to convey feature lists.

Alex

The best list is on our demo site. It's a little old, and now there are some extra fields which you can import, and, unfortunately due to the new Graph API from Facebook, there will be a few that you can't import with JFBConnect 3.0. However, it's pretty accurate as to what's available for now.
demo.sourcecoast.com/

3.0 will be out tonight. We're testing the install package now on our dev sites and will be loading it on the demo site shortly. After that, it'll be on SourceCoast.com for download by subscribers.

We're in the process of updating documentation for configuration, installation, and overall use of 3.0. That should all be complete by the end of this week.

No, those do not get imported for various reasons.

Events were just added in JS 1.8, so we haven't had much time to investigate implementation. However, keeping event information in-sync could be a nightmare simply because if they accept in one place, how does it affect the others. Alternatively, if you're attending an event that doesn't exist in JS, what should happen when we try to import it? Create the event completely? Who gets set as organizer, and how to update information, attendees (since we may not be able to see all the info about the event since you aren't the organizer, etc)

Groups are a similar situation. If you're a member of a group on either FB or JS, how do you create that group on the other? There may be thousands of people in that group on FB, but only 2 of your friends on the site are a part.

Photos and videos become a sticky situation due to Facebook's privacy policies. We are currently working on some ways to display a user's photos to other users on the site, but importing directly is a bad thing as you need to ensure that the viewer has permissions to see the FB user's photos. If you violate their privacy terms, Facebook can and will disable your application. Additionally, if a user joins your site and has hundreds or thousands of videos/photos in their account, how to import. You could easily overload a site during the import. It's something we've thought through quite a bit, and again, we're working on some integration methods, but it's more difficult than you may realize.

In general, JFBConnect takes the tact that JS and FB are separate communities. While it's nice to have your profile used across all of them, the information, content, and activities on each site is usually unique to that site (otherwise, why do you have a site at all, and not just use your FB page exclusively). We've heard similar feedback from our subscribers in the past in multiple different ways, including feature requests.

Our extensions are open-source and GPL compliant. We do not encrypt them in any way. You're free to modify the extension in any way you choose. For more information on these types of questions, we recommend reviewing our (short) Subscription FAQ:
www.sourcecoast.com/joomla-facebook/

No problem for the answers. Our support is top-notch, and I hope we've convinced you to become a subscriber. It definitely helps future development take place.