Using the Facebook Javascript SDK

I have been messing with the FB API’s for a while to get that counter customized for us. The more I messed with the API’s the more I got the feeling that FB is not quite sure what is doing.

The Javascript API that we seen is the new Javascript API and it seems it is on Alpha release. The good thing is that with it we wont need anymore that .htm verification file for running cross-domain javascripts, but the bad part is that currently Goal uses for the fan badges the old javascript API.

New: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/javascript/
Old: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/oldjavascript/

I found a comment saying that if we are currently wanting to use the new API (Javascript SDK) we should fully remove the old references from the site and since it is on Alfa release the data functionality are still not ready. Besides this I was getting error after error when using the new API even after removing all old references from the application.

http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/JavaScript_Client_Library

The best way to keep track of the Javascript SDK from Facebook is by following the issues list at: http://github.com/facebook/connect-js and by checking on the FAQ. There is a lot of good information there.

Just a note, the Wiki is being deprecated. All the information that we should look are under the developers.facebook.com/docs.

Playing with the API’s, I have created a custom AJAX call using JQuery and JSONP. the JSONP allows a cross-domain request from Jquery AJAX and with that I was able to correctly execute a query using FQL.

The query is a parameter given to a url (http://api.facebook.com/method/fql.query?query=QUERY.) and it will return in either XML or JSON format.

Anyway using the query is pretty simple and if you want to give a test run of the results format before doing anything the best place is:

http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/rest/fql.query

There is one annoying bug that I could go through with the new SDK, the SDK wont bootstrap giving an error at line 3. I think is related to cookies and the old API. I will still give a search on that and when I find the solution, I will place it here as an update.

Have fun.