FacilBook - Simple Facebook Navigation

Facilbook is a set of tools that makes navigation with Facebook easy. See usage below.

Facilbook is used in conjuction with Omniauth for Facebook. It is recommended that you have authentication in place using the omniauth-facebook gem (see the Simple Omniauth Railscast)

One of the best features of this gem is that it places the decrypted signed request into the request scope. Anywhere in the application you can access this via @signed_request.

0 - Prerequisite: You need a facebook app. Have your API Key, Application Secret, and Application ID handy.

1 - Add gem 'facilbook' to your Gemfile and run bundle install.

2 - Create config/facilbook_config.yml with the appropriate environments.

production:
  app_id: <your application id>
  app_secret: <your application secret>
  facebook_app_url: http://apps.facebook.com/<your app name>

This data will be in your facebook settings. For example:

3 - Create config/initializers/load_facilbook_config.rb and place the following in it

raw_config = File.read("#{Rails.root}/config/facilbook_config.yml")
FACILBOOK_CONFIG = YAML.load(raw_config)[Rails.env].symbolize_keys

This creates the static variable FACILBOOK_CONFIG which is used within the gem.

4 - Add the following line to your app/controllers/application_controller.rb

(add it right after the line class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base so as to add the Facebooker2 instance methods to the Application controller)

include Facilbook::ApplicationControllerMethods

5 - Add the following line to your app/helpers/application_helper.rb

(add it right after the line module ApplicationHelper

include Facilbook::ApplicationHelperMethods

redirect_to_facebook(target_path)

Redirects to the Facebook url with the target path.

  redirect_to_facebook("/foo/bar")
  
  will redirect the user to the following url:
  
  http://apps.facebook.com/<your app name>/foo/bar

current_user

Returns the current user that is either in the session, or one that exists with the same UID as the current Facebook user account. This is done via the signed_request from Facebook.

This assumes that there is a User model with the attributes :provider (being 'facebook') and :uid as explained in the Railscast mentioned above.

url_for_facebook(path)

Creates a Facebook link using the relative path. This is accessible by any controller.

  url_for_facebook("/foo/bar")

  creates the following:

  "http://apps.facebook.com/<your app name>/foo/bar"

facebook_image_tag(uid, options = {})

Loads the image of a Facebook user based on their Facebook UID.

  Options
    :type - Type of image to display. Can be 'square', 'small' or 'large'.
    :size - Size of the image in width and height (example: 100x150)

  Examples:

    facebook_image_tag('100003043983036')
    facebook_image_tag('100003043983036', { :size => '100x150' })
    facebook_image_tag('100003043983036', { :type => 'small' })

link_to_facebook(*args, &block)

Same as link_to but ensures that the link directs the user to the parent window via a javascript onclick action. You should only use the relative path as the first argument and never the full url.

  link_to_facebook("/foo/bar")
  
  creates the following:
  
  <a href="#" onclick="window.top.location='http://apps.facebook.com/<your app name>/foo/bar'; return false;" />

url_for_facebook(path)

Creates a Facebook link using the relative path. This was created for use in Javascript.

  url_for_facebook("/foo/bar")

  creates the following:

  "http://apps.facebook.com/<your app name>/foo/bar"