Joomla-Facebook Account Integration

[amb9800]

Hi everyone,

I've been using PHP-Nuke and Post-Nuke for most of my sites for several years now, and so I thought I'd try out Joomla for my next project.

I'm building a site for a student organization at our college, and while the standard registration method would be ok, I want to minimize the effort required to start using the site (remember, these are lazy college students ).  I'd also like to have people's real names (e.g. first name, last name) used across the site for clarity.

So given that nearly everyone is on Facebook, I'm looking for a way to integrate the Facebook login with my Joomla site (e.g. so people can just log in through Facebook in order to access their profile on my site).  Their Facebook account will have their name, network (to verify they're in our college), and more potentially useful information.  I've seen a couple sites work this way, and Facebook has some docs at:

http://developers.facebook.com/documentation.php

Any ideas?

[amb9800]

Ah k, I found a module for CPG-Nuke that does what I want.  Could someone take a look at this to see how the functionality could be added to Joomla?

http://cpgnuke.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=19233.html

What the module does:
Visiting yoursite.com/Facebook.html will log you on to your site using your facebook credentials if you have a facebook id in your profile. If you don't have a profile on your site, but a user does have a facebook profile, then a user will automatically be created for them on your site and they will be signed in automatically using that user.

[amb9800]

Any ideas?

[Unhindered]

I just created a Joomla-Facebook App.

If you already have an account on the Joomla site, from facebook one login to the Joomla site will add your facebook id to the database, and automatically log you in to the site if you access the site from facebook.

But the only information given by Facebook through the API is the id number of the user - no e-mail address, name, etc. Why add new users with only a facebook ID and no e-mail?

I suppose this could work if you were just using your Joomla site to create a facebook app.

[amb9800]

You can get the first and last name and network affiliations from users.getInfo, right?  (http://developers.facebook.com/document ... rs.getInfo)

So maybe I could have them add the app, log in through Facebook, then if they're part of the correct network on Facebook, I'll ask them for an email address (which would be a valid university address), and then it'll create an account for them using that address and their first and last name (from the API).

[amb9800]

The other option is, a couple days ago, Facebook added the ability to send the user an email (through Facebook, and limited to one per day), so maybe that could be used somehow?  I'm not sure how the email works (e.g. is it sent with the sender as a designated address for the app or a Facebook email?), but maybe it could be useful.

Drupal seems to have a pretty active Facebook integration project, which could be interesting to look at:

http://www.drupalforfacebook.org/

[Unhindered]

Yes, according to that FB link, we can get first name, last name, and some other info - but not e-mail.

Options:
1. Create a fake e-mail address for facebook users
2. Instead of e-mailing them, send messages to their profile, or figure out how to e-mail them via facebook.

[amb9800]

Yeah, FB doesn't release the email address directly.  As for creating a fake email for Facebook-login-created users, at first glance, I think the Drupal project is doing something of the sort (e.g. UID@facebook.com).

FB messaging or email through FB would work, but having a real email would be useful.  In my case, I can get most of my users' email addresses automatically from their name (it's just firstname.lastname @ universityurl .edu), so I might just ask them if that's their address (and have them correct it if it's not), then send a verification email to that address.

[masterstanf2k]

any developements?

[Unhindered]

I developed this for a client of mine, but I'm now the Senior Software Engineer for a silicon valley company and don't have a lot of free time to develop it. I just programmed it as a hack, not as a component that could be easily installed.

Essentially here's what I did:
- created a new custom field in Community Builder for Facebook id number.
- created a new login script that would validate a facebook session, and if the site is being accessed through facebook, log a user in by looking up their facebook id in the database, and display information that would only be seen through facebook.

But getting login integration doesn't do anything for facebook other than provide a link to your Joomla site.

What's the point of you having Facebook integration? What do you want your facebook app to do?

For example, the one that I did was this:
1. On the user's Facebook profile, show what events the user is registered to attend
2. On the application page, give options for logging into the Joomla site, and give the user the ability to cancel their attendence.

[Unhindered]

The other problem still remains, of course, that Joomla requires unique emails for each user, and if you're going to create accounts just with Facebook information you're only legally allowed to store:

Their facebook id number
Their network id number

Now, you could have a form that allows them to click "copy info from facebook" so they're requesting it, rather than you just taking it... but you still get no email address. Would you require the users to come up with an email address? Would you want fake emails (facebookUserId@fakedomain.com) added?

Maybe someone else can answer - if we added fake emails, could a bot be written so that emails from Joomla to that user go through the Facebook notification process instead?

[circsoc]

Hey guys I've made a new component, it's pending approval into the JED but check out this tread
http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=492627
it is a native Joomla component that allows users to log into joomla using facebook connect, and much more

[Unhindered]

Hey guys I've made a new component, it's pending approval into the JED but check out this tread
http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=492627
it is a native Joomla component that allows users to log into joomla using facebook connect, and much more

Nice work. This is an old topic that pre-dates facebook connect. When I got a notification that there was a reply to this thread, I thought: No more facebook hacks, we should just use Facebook connect.

Well done.

[circsoc]

Thank you, I know this tread is old but I'm just trying to drum up some interested as I'm trying to get some good beta testers to find any bugs or ask for new features

[ankitbarot]

hey circsoc,

i am using your component. I dont see that it is storing facebook profile in our database. I want in my application to store user facebook profile on my database.

Kindly reply.

Thanks

[whitehorse1]

Joomla requires unique emails for each user. I like JFBConnect (http://tiny url.com/29a7qer) for the user-mapping. Basically you get a user account screen showing which each joomla user who signed up via facebook.

[ssdheerawat]

hello everyone plese help me how can i Facebook Account Integration with my joomla site

[whitehorse1]

ssdheerawat,
I build joomla sites for a living and every site owner wants this now. A couple years ago there were a handful of small integration plugins (mainly sso, or single-sign-on), now there are dozens. The problem for all of them is Facebook is dynamic - constantly improving (or at least making changes!).

So your facebook-joomla integration needs to be a little more robust than just SSO, and if you want to do it right (and not have to keep going back to fix sites) you should use jfbconnect (http://tiny url.com/29a7qer) and do so on a subscription basis... they keep up with the latest FB is doing, retool, and give you the latest upgrades. For $50 it's more than worth it, esp. if your site uses jomsocial, community-builder, etc... or any type of commenting system.

For example, you know those little notices you get in FB that your friend wants you to try some new app or it's your turn to play a game? That's in the latest jfbconnect pkg (see image) ... free for me because I have a subscription. This let's you send messages to page followers as those types of requests. Very cool and with all the anti-spam (anti-business?) algo changes within FB it's probably the best way to engage customers these days via FB... and I think JFB is the only tool that has really kept up with this.

I'm not big on "only 1 way" to do things, but in this case, the jfb developers (sourcecoast) have earned it. Heck, even joomla.org uses jfbconnect for their facebook integration.