Registering Your Facebook Application

Registering Your Facebook Application To register your Facebook application, simply do the followings:   Login to your own Facebook account. Go to the official "Developer" Application by visiting http://www.facebook.com/developers/?ref=sb. Once you go there, you should see the following at the top of the page: <img src="img/fb_developer_page.jpg" alt="Official Facebook Developer Appl" width="779" height="128" vspace="10" border="1" /> Simple click the "+ Set Up New Application" button to start setting up your Facebook Application. Enter your application name in the "Application Name" field and agree the "Terms" as below: <img src="img/create_app_01.jpg" alt="Official Facebook Developer Appl" width="617" height="224" vspace="10" border="1" /> Click "Create Application" to register your application.  Note: After clicking the "Create Application", if error message or blank page is displayed. First ignore it and go to http://www.facebook.com/developers/apps.php, your application should had been registered and is listed there.  This is a well-known issue in registering applications in Facebook at this moment (at least up the moment when the article is written). For details, see the FAQ "I can't register new App, blank page is returned".   Configuring Your Facebook Application <span class="highlight">Note: Recently (in Aug2010), Facebook had changed the layout and field names for the Application Settings page. The following screen shots had been updated to reflect the changes.</span>  After registering the application, if everything goes smoothly and Facebook does not report false alarm saying that there is problem in registering the application, the "Edit [Your_Application_Name] Page" should be displayed. (Or you can simply click the "Edit Settings" link in your application summary page under http://www.facebook.com/developers/apps.php.) <img src="img/app_setting00.jpg" alt="Official Facebook Developer Appl" width="762" height="549" vspace="10" border="1" /> You can simply take the default values.   You can visit the details of each field either at this moment or when you gain more knowledge about developing Facebook applications. If you are building a website that will have Facebook integrated to, then click the "Web Site" menu item at the left-hand column and configure the "Site URL":  <img src="img/app_setting01.jpg" alt="Official Facebook Developer Appl" width="776" height="247" vspace="10" border="1" />  Site URL This should be the URL pointing to the root of your web site folder, e.g. http://www.takwing.idv.hk/site_with_fb_integrated/.     <blockquote>  <span class="highlight">If you are building an Facebook canvas application, then simply ignore this page and leave the "Site URL" blank for the moment.</span>  </blockquote>  If you are building Facebook canvas applications, then click "Facebook Integration" and configure the "Canvas Page" and "Canvas URL":  <img src="img/app_setting02.jpg" alt="Official Facebook Developer Appl" width="767" height="556" vspace="10" border="1" />   Canvas Page This is previously known as "Canvas Page URL". This is the URL that your application is known to other facebook users. You can choose anything you like as long as it is still available. For example, http://apps.facebook.com/myTestApp/.   Canvas URL This is previously known as "Canvas Callback URL". This is the URL path where you application is 'physically' located.  Just image the case where you application's main page is index.php. If after uploading it to your web space, you can access it as http://www.xxxx.com/mypath/index.php, than the Canvas URL is "http://www.xxxx.com/mypath/".   Canvas Type This is previously known as the "Render Method".  A Facebook canvas application can either using FBML (think of it as Facebook's HTML tags) in displaying the application page or embedded your application page inside an iFrame. So, choosing "FBML" or "iFrame" depends on your need.     Click "Save Changes" to save your application settings.  After saving the changes, you will see a page with your application settings summarized. <img src="img/app_setting03.jpg" alt="Official Facebook Developer Appl" width="619" height="530" vspace="10" border="1" />  In the above screen there are 3 fields that you should note:  Application ID API Key Application Secret  These are the most important information for a Facebook application. They will be required when your application communicates with the Facebook servers. You also need to specify some of these values when using the SDKs for Facebook development.    That is what you need to do in setting up your Facebook Application, at least for those primitive applications.   Note: Facebook had recently changed the application settings screen layout and some of the field names. For details, please refer to the following 2 FAQs:  http://www.takwing.idv.hk/tech/fb_dev/faq/appsetting/appsetting_07.html http://www.takwing.idv.hk/tech/fb_dev/faq/appsetting/appsetting_08.html