Objective
We're developing a PHP console app that will be a running as a daemon using the PEAR System_Daemon class. The script is ideally a timed loop, that executes indefinitely until terminated.
What this loop does is query a database of players of our FB game on timed intervals, and then make posts using certain criteria to their Facebook walls/timelines.
Our app will be hosted on our Facebook page, which will also contain some albums, photos and videos that we are using to feature on these posts.
Posting on Walls/Timelines
My question is, whether we would be able to use the Facebook PHP SDK to, from within our console application, running as a service, share these albums from our console app, as posts on the users timeline, without having need for confirmation from the FB user in any way, providing we have acquired the appropriate extended permissions of course.
Appearance Sharing vs Uploading
Will the appearance for sharing an album, or video appear the same, on the users timeline as if they posted it themselves, or will the post simply appear as a thumbnail with text next to it.
I've noticed that Facebook nowadays posts photos in a neat collage with more than one thumbnail, and this is the effect that we want to achieve. Also, if not mistaken, I believe that videos added to your wall post also shows inline, as a nice large video, instead as a thumbnail.
Would we rather have to upload these images to a Facebook users account, and if so, is it possible to create new Albums on a users FB account, using the PHP SDK, and the required extended permissions granted? Or can we achieve the same look and feel by simply sharing?
Hosting media externally
Can we add photo's to users profiles, hosted externally perhaps, that will allow the PHP script to post them to an album on their account without needing to upload?
We are trying to avoid uploads, as this will have a performance impact on the server side application.
Providing you request the correct permissions, you can upload photos to the user's account using the Graph API quite easily. To post multiple photos you will have to make multiple API calls. If you post to the wall, the photos will be added to the "Wall Photos" album.
The Graph API does allow you to create albums on the user's behalf, and lets you upload photos straight to the album too. This will create photo stories on the wall like the image you posted in your question.
What you can do, however, is host the files externally. Facebook will always load the images from their server so you have to upload them to facebook. If you want to host the photos externally, you must post the images to the user's wall / timeline as links, but these won't appear under the user's Photos or under Albums.
Hope this answers all your questions. Documentation for uploading photos and creating albums can be found on the Facebook developer website.
Related
(Using Wordpress plugins and Vimeo API)
I have had a bespoke Wordpress plugin built and am struggling now with one capability.
I have paid for a Pro Vimeo account so that I have better privacy options, but I need to have the videos viewable and most importantly DOWNLOADABLE on my client's website.
I am sure this was possible before, but after three software developers have tried and mostly not managed to complete my job briefs, I am left pretty desperately on how to finish this key functionality.
When I try to download the videos straight from the website, it won't let me and takes me to a blank page. The only way to fix it is to make my Vimeo profile and videos public on Vimeo however, it is vital that they are private on there.
I would be SO GRATEFUL if someone could help me.
You need to use the API to retrieve file download links for your videos.
Make an authenticated request to https://api.vimeo.com/videos/[video_id] using a token with the video_files scope. In the response is an array "download" that will contain video file metadata, including download links, and the expiration time of those links.
I am newbie in Wordpress development. One of my client is asking to create a new project. My Clients' needs are:
Basically he wants to add contests for city wise. On the website entering page, a user sign up form would be there. If a user enters a zip code then according to zip code his/her city will be traced and this entry would be filled under this city. After signing up he/she could upload their videos on the server. There will be an another option to record audio/video online on the website. To record video on live contestant needs to pay little amount. Admin can create couple of logins for the CMS. These users can login and only see contestant's videos not their private information. These users can send video download link to anyone as they want. Admin also wants to run sweepstakes for cities.
Can I create this whole project in Wordpress ? If I could, then which plugins do I need to research more ? Thanks in advance.
I am currently working on a project for new homes throughout neighborhoods in Indiana. I'm using Google Fusion tables to populate the map on my site.
We want to be able to force users to sign in after they click the "builder site" link on the info card (the pop up from the google location marker). Is there a way to add events to the google info cards?
You can't do this with stock Fusion Tables info windows because we scrub any JavaScript in them. You can code this up yourself if you want; see this question for an example.
A cleaner way might be to process all the links on your own HTTP server, showing the login page if necessary or redirecting to the builder site if not. That would work with no custom client code, but would require the appropriate server-side setup.
I would like to make a streaming store like Lynda.com, Udemy.com, or other video-training websites - where the customer can buy and/or subscribe to my digital library, but the customer can only stream the content, no downloading. Is this something I should do in WordPress, Shopify, or something else? A key aspect would be the customer being able to go back-and-forth between buying an individual stream and a monthly subscription without losing their purchased streams.
The content will be self-created audio files. As far as the audio-player, I was thinking about using SoundCloud.com and privatizing the audio on SoundCloud.com. Then embed the audio onto the site to prevent pirating and rely on a third-party site to host the audio content rather than burdening the hosting provider. Or is there a better solution?
Thanks for any feedback!
You CAN use Wordpress, but there will need to be more involved then just setting up a basic website. You'll need to provide the user with a unique URL to stream the content from.
Other than building a custom platform, you can use something like http://buddypress.org/ to create user profiles. And only allow paid users to access certain content.
Shopify will only help with taking orders. Not giving users account access to login.
You could use shopify, then build out a user login side using something like Heroku. We had a similar goal to build a marketplace for live music bookings - basically the difference here being that the artists were the users, not the customers. We used Collections as profiles and Products as bookable packages. We simply embedded youtube vids and made sure to turn off recommendations in the youtube embed code. We currently make this information public, but it could be behind a login (the basic login/account that shopify provide) in your instance. It would be a little bit manual: e.g. they 'purchase' the subscription, then they create a login at checkout, whereby they're then able to access the videos/audio.
Have a play with our marketplace as an example of what I mean: tremolo.com.au
I'm build an image site right now, and I have of course implemented Facebook login to make everything convenient for the user.
My plan was to build a function where a user could go in and look at the pictures they have on Facebook, and click on the one the want, and then my script would use CURL to get the image and upload it to my server.
Is that allowed ? They of course have the possibility to delete the images afterwards if they don't want it there anymore.