Notes from a wireframe world

The existing documentation for writing Facebook applications is, while quite good for writing miss two important facts.

Firstly output goes to the “Canvas” page, and there needs to be something output there (even if you then redirect to the user to their profile page afterwards)

Secondly to get output to the “Profile Box” you need to post the FBML (FaceBook Mark-up Language) via Facebooks API to the profile box, in PHP this is done with the following code.

$facebook->api_client->profile_setFBML(NULL, $user_id, $profile, NULL, $mobile_profile, $profile_main);

Where $user_id is the Unique facebook id of the user (saved from when they login to your app)

$profile, $mobile_profile and $profile_main hold the FBML intended for the application profile box that appears on the Boxes tab on the user’s profile, the Mobile phones and the front end narrow boxes in that order.

You can, of course, use PHP and whatever database your hosting provides to display stuff in throes boxes, but be careful as not all FBML tags are supported in the profile boxes and the canvas page.

I’ve been watching the US a fair amount recently, not just because of the good news on the elections over there, but also because New York City is hosting the Future of Web Design (FOWD) conference, and the nice people at Carsonified have put a load of the talks on-line.

The one I paid particular attenision to while I was waiting for the votes to be counted last night was Ryan Singer (of 37 Signals) talk on Web Application Usability, it was very insightful, since I’m trying to build a web app. I thought his explanation of flow was particular useful, since while it’s something I’ve known is important, it’s never something I’ve known what it is!

Anyway here’s his video for your viewing pleasure.