Over the weekend I released the next version of Facebook.NET over on the CodePlex project site.
If you've built a Facebook application using my framework, you'll definitely want to check out this build. Facebook has deprecated the setFBML API as it currently exists (read about this on the developer blog), and I can't think of any application that isn't affected by this. To summarize the old signature, now marked obsolete, was effectively:
SetFbml(string userID, string fbmlMarkup)
and the new signature has the FBML markup broken out into separate parameters:
SetFbml(string userID, string profileMarkup, string actionsMarkup);
SetFbml(string userID, string profileMarkup, string actionsMarkup, string mobileMarkup)
This actually makes constructing the FBML a bit more cleaner, as it keeps the different logical bits of markup separate. Facebook.NET has contained support for the new updated SetFbml API for a while now, but its now packaged as part of the 0.3 release. The old API goes out of service on the 17th, at which point I'll update the framework to completely remove the obsoleted API as well.
I love the fact that Facebook is able to announce changes to the API or mark things as deprecated when they need to, give some time to developers to allow them to catch up, and then actually go ahead and flip the switch to actually make the change. Relating this to the .NET Framework APIs and personal experience with the process, its certainly a luxury when if you can afford to do that. It certainly speaks to something about the dynamic nature of the Web, and the need for developers creating mashups or using services to keep up!
There are several other changes including several bug fixes that have been packaged up into this release, that you can read about on the project's page. These were also available in source code form during the past month.
- The big one is support for creating applications for Facebook Pages. Facebook introduced the Page/Fan-of concept sometime back, which allow the page creator to add applications. Facebook.NET supports these applications. As an aside, there is a page for ASP.NET if you're on Facebook, and you'd like to declare yourself as a fan :-)
- Various other APIs are now covered. These include detecting application permissions, storing application preferences, etc.
- I've added a sample that demonstrates using Facebook.NET for creating desktop applications to complement the samples for the regular FBML/IFrame application styles.
I'll be creating a show case of applications using Facebook.NET soon. I know of a few, but if you'd like to submit your application to show up on the list, feel free to list it down here in the comments.
Posted on Sunday, 1/13/2008 @ 11:53 PM
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