Title:       Facebook Application Development - .NET Software Development - Generate Facebook Content using FBML (part 1)
Author:      Greg Dubinovskiy 
Email:       [email protected]
Environment: c# .NET
Keywords:    Facebook Application Development - .NET Software Development - Generate Facebook Content using FBML
Level:       Intermediate
Description: Facebook Application Development - .NET Software Development - Generate Facebook Content using FBML
Section      Miscellaneous
SubSection   General

Siccolo Development Articles - Facebook Application Development - .NET Software Development - Generate Facebook Content using FBML - using FBML - using FBJS
table of contents:
Setup Facebook Application Using <asp:GridView> with FBML Using <fb:dashboard> in ASP.NET using FBJS Animation to show DIV Using <fb:friend-selector> with ASP.NET and FBML
Using <fb:editor> with ASP.NET and FBML Adding FBJS client-side validation Using FBJS Dialogs Using <fb:iframe> with ASP.NET and FBML using FBJS AJAX with ASP.NET/C# Sending notifications with ASP.NET/C# and FBML

1. Getting started with Facebook... Not so needed introduction

There are plenty of resources out there that shows how to start developing Facebook application using ASP.NET/.NET environment. For example Step-by-step Guide to Creating an Application and Creating a Facebook Application and many others. But how do you take that "Hello, World" Facebook sample to the next level? Hellooooooo,world? "Don't leave me hanging"....

In this article, I will show (or will try to show) how to build a more sophisticated Facebook application that interacts with Facebook users and with a SQL Server database.

As you may know, Facebook application is "hosted" within Facebook Canvas Page, and canvas page is within Facebook frame (kinda like russian doll house, er?). Facebook application can be FBML or .... just take a look at Anatomy of a Facebook Application.
(When you're ready to develop your own Facebook Application, don't forget to "create" it first and request Application Key and Application Secret in Facebook at Facebook Developers Application).

In this Facebook Application, I am using Facebook .NET Toolkit, found at Facebook Developer Toolkit library. And to use it - simply reference it in your project, for example: 

using Facebook;
using Facebook.WebControls;

public partial class _App : CanvasFBMLBasePage
{
	...
	...
}
* notice using CanvasFBMLBasePage base class

2. Developing Facebook Application with .NET - Create sample user presentation using ASP.NET and FBML - building Facebook canvas page using ASP.NET and FBML

So, let's say I have data in SQL Server database:

and I want to display it in my Facebook Application, for example using GridView control, like this:

How do we go about developing this?


First (or not so first) thing first - create or add new application in Facebook Developers. I have mine setup as:



Now, open your favorite Visual Studio (I am using VS 2005), and start/create a new ASP.NET Web site. I am using C# in this article, but you can adapt the code for VB.NET.
Don't forget to add references to Facebook Developer Toolkit library:

In first (and only) ASP.NET form (chances are it's called Default.aspx), open page and add GridView control to it. 
<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true"  CodeFile="app.aspx.cs" Inherits="_App" %>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >

<head runat="server"> <title>Facebook Test Applicatioin:Traveling Babies</title></head>

<!-- <body> -->

<form id="formDataContent" runat="server">
 <asp:GridView ID="gridSelectObjects" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="true" style="width:80%">
   
 <AlternatingRowStyle BackColor="#f7f7f7" />
 </asp:GridView>
</form>

<!-- </body> -->
</html>
* Notice body element is commented. We're using FBML, and it will be hosted inside Facebook canvas, so no body.

Switch to "code view" and let's add some code: 
using Facebook;
using Facebook.WebControls;

public partial class _App : CanvasFBMLBasePage 
{
    //keys for FBTestApplication:
    private const string FACEBOOK_API_KEY = "xfxfxdx7xbx7xbxfxaxdxsiccolo";
    private const string FACEBOOK_SECRET = "dx8xfx9x8x1xsiccolo2x4x1xfx2xdx";
    
    //db interface:
    private FacebookDB m_FacebookDB = null;

    new protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        base.Api = FACEBOOK_API_KEY;
        base.Secret = FACEBOOK_SECRET;
        base.Page_Load(sender, e);
	
	string facebookUserID = this.FBService.GetUserInfo().UserId;

	 try
         {	
		bool result = false;
                string connectInfo = Settings.ConnectInfo();
                m_FacebookDB = new FacebookDB(facebookUserID, connectInfo);

                string applicationUserID = String.Empty;
                string applicationUserObjectID = String.Empty;
                string objectType = String.Empty;
                string objectDescription = String.Empty;
                string errorInfo = String.Empty;

 		result = m_FacebookDB.GetApplicationUserID_withObjectInfo(out applicationUserID,
                                                                        out applicationUserObjectID,
                                                                        out objectType, 
                                                                        out objectDescription,
                                                                        out errorInfo);

		if (!result || applicationUserID == String.Empty)
                {
                    this.labelFBDashboard.Text = "Failed to retrieve Application User:" + errorInfo;
                    return;
                }


		//show object list in a grid
                result = ShowObjectListGrid(applicationUserID, out errorInfo);

	 }

	catch (Exception)
          {
                throw (new System.Exception "Your mama off the train");
          }

    }


    private bool ShowObjectListGrid(string applicationUserID, out string errorInfo)
    {
        errorInfo = String.Empty;

        try
        {
            bool result = false;

            DataSet objectList = null;// new DataSet("ObjectList");
            result = m_FacebookDB.GetObjectList(applicationUserID,
                                                out objectList,
                                                out errorInfo);
            // bind the data
            this.gridSelectObjects.DataSource = objectList;

            this.gridSelectObjects.ShowHeader = false;

            //bind
            this.gridSelectObjects.DataBind();

            return result;
        }

        catch(Exception ex_show_grid)
        {
            errorInfo = ex_show_grid.Message;
            return false;
        }
    }
}
Where FacebookDB is a middle-layer, to interface with SQL Server database.

But, let's also explore options that FBML adds to your Facebook Application, so we can create a Facebook-alike application, something like this:


With FBML "approach", we can put FBML tags right into aspx page, or have web application generate them dynamically. To add "Facebook dashboard", I am using the following code: 
new protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
	...
	...
	//FMBL part:
        FBMLMaker fbmlMaker = new FBMLMaker(this.FBService.GetUserInfo());
        //set dashboard
        this.labelFBDashboard.Text = fbmlMaker.Dashboard();
	...
	...
}
Where labelFBDashboard is <asp:Label ID="labelFBDashboard" runat="server" Text="... fb-dashboard ..." ></asp:Label>, and Dashboard() method: 

public string Dashboard()
    {
        //for FBML generations can also be used StringBuilder();

        //http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Fb:dashboard
        string fbDashboard = "<fb:dashboard>";
             
        fbDashboard += "<fb:action href=\"http://www.siccolo.com/\">Developer Site</fb:action>";
        
        //show greeting as a link..
        fbDashboard += "<fb:action href=\"#\" >" + this.Greeting() + "</fb:action>";

        //show application help link:
        fbDashboard += "<fb:help href=\"http://www.siccolo.com/\">What do I do with this?!</fb:help>";

        fbDashboard += "<fb:create-button href=\"http://www.siccolo.com/\">Take me away!</fb:create-button>";

        fbDashboard += "</fb:dashboard>";
        return fbDashboard;
    }
Or you can simply add <fbml > tags right into your aspx page (see bellow using <fb:friend-selector/> element).

3. Developing Facebook Application with .NET - adding user-page interactions with FBML and FBJS - allow to select a Friend

As you may know, you can use FBJS on FBML pages.

So, let's modify grid to add a link on each row: 

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true"  CodeFile="app.aspx.cs" Inherits="_App" %>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >

<head runat="server"> <title>Facebook Test Applicatioin:Traveling Babies</title></head>

<!-- <body> -->

<form id="formDataContent" runat="server">
 <asp:GridView ID="gridSelectObjects" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="false" style="width:80%">
   
		 <Columns>
                        <asp:TemplateField ItemStyle-Width='180px' ItemStyle-Wrap=false>
                            <ItemTemplate>
                            
                            <a href="#" onclick="select_object(<%# Eval("object_id")%>, '<%# Eval("type")%>', '<%# Eval("description")%>');return false;" 
                                    style="color:Black;background-color:Transparent;border-color:Transparent;border-style:None;"> 
                            
                            <img src="http://www.siccolo.com/fbtestappsiccolo/images/select.gif" 
                                    border="0"
                                    align="center"
                                    title="select <%# Eval("description")%>"/> select <%# Eval("description")%></a>
                            </ItemTemplate>
                            
                        </asp:TemplateField>
                        
                       
                    </Columns>

 <AlternatingRowStyle BackColor="#f7f7f7" />
 </asp:GridView>
</form>

<!-- </body> -->
</html>
Notice calls to select_object() javascript (FBJS) for each row. So, when user clicks on "select..." link, on the grid row, page will display selected row and will allow user to perform some action on selected item:

Selected information is displayed in its own DIV element: 
<div id="data_selected_content1" style="display:none">
            
<span class="detached_label">Baby 
                
	<span id="spanSelectedObject1" style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal;"></span>
                
  needs:  
<asp:DropDownList ID="listObjectAction1" runat="server" CssClass="listElement" ></asp:DropDownList>
      ...and then off to  
<fb:friend-selector idname="textSelectedFriend" />

<asp:Button ID="buttonSend" runat="server" Text="Send" CssClass="inputsubmit" OnClick="buttonSend_Click" />
</span>
                
</div>
So, my javascript (FBJS) function: 

<script>
        function select_object(object_id , type, description)
        {
            Animation(document.getElementById('data_selected_content1')).to('height', 'auto').from('0px').to('width', 'auto').from('0px').to('opacity', 1).from(0).blind().show().go();
            document.getElementById("spanSelectedObject1").setTextValue ( description) ;
            document.getElementById("buttonSend").setValue ( "Send " + description) ;
        }
</script>
Notice using Animation() to show DIV element - see FBJS/Animation for more information. As you can see, in order to change SPAN innerText, I'm using setTextValue() method, and for a button, I'm using setValue().

To provide user with ability to select a Friend, we can add <fb:friend-selector idname="textSelectedFriend" /> FBML element (more at Fb:friend-selector)



* Notice idname attribute of <fb:friend-selector> element - the name of the hidden form element that contains the user ID of the selected friend when form is being submitted, as we will see later on.



The same section can be built using <fb:editor> element (see more at Fb:editor): 

<div id="data_selected_content2" >
            
                <fb:editor labelwidth="200">
                
                <fb:editor-custom label="Baby">
                     <span id="spanSelectedObject2" style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal;"></span>
                </fb:editor-custom>

                <fb:editor-custom label="Needs">
                     <asp:DropDownList ID="listObjectAction2" runat="server" CssClass="listElement" ></asp:DropDownList>
                </fb:editor-custom>

                <fb:editor-buttonset>
                          <fb:editor-button value="Send to Comrade"/>
                </fb:editor-buttonset>

                </fb:editor>
               
</div>
The result is:

4. Developing Facebook Application with .NET - submitting form information - adding client-side validation - using FBJS dialogs

So, at this point we have a nice looking form that presents a list of items, allows user to select a Friend... But, it would be nice if the appliction could pass that information back to us, a?

Do you remember the server-side button buttonSend I had: 

<div id="data_selected_content1" style="display:none">
            
<span class="detached_label">Baby 
                
	<span id="spanSelectedObject1" style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal;"></span>
                
  needs:  
<asp:DropDownList ID="listObjectAction1" runat="server" CssClass="listElement" ></asp:DropDownList>
      ...and then off to  
<fb:friend-selector idname="textSelectedFriend" />

<asp:Button ID="buttonSend" runat="server" Text="Send" CssClass="inputsubmit" OnClick="buttonSend_Click" />
</span>
                
</div>
When user clicks on this button, page supposed to a) check user input - if a Friend is entered; and b) submit information back.

Let's check user input - when form is about to be submitted:
On apsx page, I added javascript (FBJS): 
<script>
        function displayError(title, message, context) 
        { 
            new Dialog(Dialog.DIALOG_CONTEXTUAL).setContext(context).showMessage(title, message );
        }
        
        function check_form(form) 
        { 
            if ( form == null) { form = document.getElementById('formDataContent');}
            
            var params=form.serialize();
            if (params.textSelectedFriend==null || params.textSelectedFriend=='' )
            {
                displayError("Error", "Please select a Comrade!" , document.getElementById('data_selected_content1') );
                return false;
            }
            else 
            {
                return true;
            }
        }
</script>
And, in the code: 
new protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
	...
	ClientScript.RegisterOnSubmitStatement(this.GetType(), "sudmitformDataContent", "return check_form(this);");
	...
    }
Here, I'm using Dialogs provided by FBJS (see more at Dialogs), and the result is stunning!:


And if input passes validation check (in this example, we only check if user selects/enters a Friend), then page is submitted and we have a chance to save selected data into the database. Hooray!: 
protected void buttonSend_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
	string selectedFriendID = String.Empty;
        try
        {
            selectedFriendID = Page.Request.Form["textSelectedFriend"].ToString();
        }
        catch
        {
            //oh-ho, no friend is selected!!!
            return;
        }

        //save selected action and friend to database:
        bool result = false;
        string errorInfo = String.Empty;
        string connectInfo = Settings.ConnectInfo();
        string facebookUserID = this.FBService.GetUserInfo().UserId;
        m_FacebookDB = new FacebookDB(facebookUserID, connectInfo);

        string applicationUserID = this.textApplicationUserID.Value;
        if ( applicationUserID == String.Empty)
        {
            this.labelFBDashboard.Text = "Application User ID is missing!";
            return;
        }

        string applicationUserObjectID = this.textSelectedObject.Value;
        if (applicationUserObjectID == String.Empty)
        {
            this.labelFBDashboard.Text = "Application Object ID is missing!";
            return;
        }

        string selectedActionID = this.listObjectAction1.SelectedValue.ToString();
        string expandedUserObjectActionText = String.Empty;
        string notificationTextToFriend = String.Empty;
        result = m_FacebookDB.DoObjectAction_And_Do_SendToFriend(applicationUserID,
                                                applicationUserObjectID,
                                                selectedActionID,
                                                selectedFriendID, 
                                                out notificationTextToFriend,
                                                out errorInfo);

        if (!result)
        {
            this.labelFBDashboard.Text = "Failed to perform selected action!" + errorInfo;
            return;
        }
}
* Notice reference to Page.Request.Form["textSelectedFriend"] form field, from <fb:friend-selector> element. No, we didn't create this element on the page, instead Facebook platform added it "dynamically".

You can also use other types of Dialogs, for example DIALOG_CONTEXTUAL:

To display such CONTEXTUAL dialog we can use "inline" javascript (FBJS): 
<div id="data_selected_content1" style="display:none">
            
                ...
                <a href="#" onclick="new Dialog(Dialog.DIALOG_CONTEXTUAL).setContext(this).showMessage('Selected Object', 'This is the object you\'ve selected'); return false;">
                    <span id="spanSelectedObject1" style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal;"></span></a>

		...                
</div>
Or to display POPUP

5. Developing Facebook Application with .NET - using iframe in FBML

If you need to "insert" a page within your application, FBML canvas - you can use <fb:iframe> element (see more at Fb:iframe)
For example, I use <fb:iframe> element to reference a apsx page to retrieve user IP address - using Request.ServerVariables["REMOTE_ADDR"] (remeber, that FBML application is within canvas, within Facebook... so you'll get something like 204.15.23.168, which is IP address of Facebook server, not of your user). Then, based on given IP address I can display various information, for example weather forecast:

In page code, to reference <fb:iframe> element: 

...
<div style="text-align:right;position: relative;bottom:1%;width:99%">
       <fb:iframe src="http://www.siccolo.com/fbtestappsiccolo/clientdata.aspx" style="width: 99%;height:135px" smartsize="false" frameborder="no">
       </fb:iframe>
</div>     
...
Very similar to using <iframe> HTML element.

6. Developing Facebook Application with .NET - using FBJS AJAX with ASP.NET/C# - display dialog with dynamic content - using FBJS POPUP Dialogs with ASP.NET/C#

One of the feature of FBML and FBJS - ability to display standard dialogs (see above - Using FBJS Dialogs). We can use one of standard dialogs to display dynamic content - for example, list of records from SQL Server database:

To do this, first of all I needed to add a link to main GridView (see above - Using <asp:GridView> with FBML): 

...
<asp:GridView ID="gridSelectObjects" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="false" style="width:80%;text-align:center" align="center">
                    <Columns>
                        <asp:TemplateField ItemStyle-Width='180px' ItemStyle-Wrap=false>
                            <ItemTemplate>
                            
                            <a href="#" onclick="select_object(<%# Eval("object_id")%>, '<%# Eval("type")%>', '<%# Eval("description")%>');return false;" 
                                    style="color:Black;background-color:Transparent;border-color:Transparent;border-style:None;"> 
                            
                            <img src="http://www.siccolo.com/fbtestappsiccolo/images/select.gif" 
                                    border="0"
                                    align="center"
                                    title="select <%# Eval("description")%>"/> select <%# Eval("description")%></a>
                            </ItemTemplate>
                            
                        </asp:TemplateField>
                        
                         <asp:TemplateField ItemStyle-Width='180px' ItemStyle-Wrap=false>
                            <ItemTemplate>
                            
                           <a href="#" onclick="show_object_info(<%# Eval("object_id")%>);return false;" 
                                    style="color:Black;background-color:Transparent;border-color:Transparent;border-style:None;"> 
                           show <%# Eval("description")%>'s history</a>
                            </ItemTemplate>
                            
                        </asp:TemplateField>
 
                    </Columns>
                <AlternatingRowStyle BackColor="#f7f7f7" />
</asp:GridView>     
...
So, when user clicks on "show...history" link, in the main Grid, application shows records from the database. In order to get anything back from database, or from the server-side, application needs to "post-back". Fortunately, FBJS has built-in support for AJAX (see more at Mock AJAX). So we can post-back to server and patiently wait for reply: 
<script>
        function show_object_info(object_id)
        {
            var ajax = new Ajax();
            ajax.responseType = Ajax.FBML;
            ajax.ondone = function(data) 
                        {
			                var dlg = new Dialog();
                            dlg.showMessage('Object Action History', data ); 
	                    }

            
            ajax.post("http://www.siccolo.com/fbtestappsiccolo/object_action_history.aspx?id=" + object_id);
        }
</script>
Where object_action_history.aspx ASP.NET page: 
<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="object_action_history.aspx.cs" Inherits="_ObjectActionHistory" %>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head runat="server">
    <title>Object Action History</title>
</head>
    <form id="formDataContent" runat="server" >
    <div style="text-align:center">
    <asp:GridView ID="gridSelectObjects" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="false" style="width:95%"> </asp:GridView>
    </div>
    </form>
</html>
Basically, object_action_history.aspx, when returns from ajax.post() to ajax.ondone() gives nothing more, just a "rendered" Grid View. Then, in javascript (FBJS), on ajax.ondone, we take that data and "shovel" it down Dialog.showMessage(): 
<script>
        function show_object_info(object_id)
        {
            //var dlg = new Dialog().showMessage('.. Traveling Babies ..', 'Select a baby and send it to your comrade...');
           
            var ajax = new Ajax();
            ajax.responseType = Ajax.FBML;
            ajax.ondone = function(data) 
                        {
			                var dlg = new Dialog();
                            dlg.showMessage('Object Action History', data ); 
	                    }

            
            ajax.post("http://www.siccolo.com/fbtestappsiccolo/object_action_history.aspx?id=" + object_id);
        }
</script>

7. Developing Facebook Application with .NET - using Facebook Notifications

So far so good. We have Facebook-alike interface, user selects data, selected data is being saved in the database. But I forgot that Facebook really is a social network, it's about social interactions... Let's add a "social interaction" in a form of user notification to our Facebook Application.
Thanks to Facebook Developer Toolkit library, notifications are very easy to do: 

protected void buttonSend_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
	string selectedFriendID = String.Empty;
        try
        {
            selectedFriendID = Page.Request.Form["textSelectedFriend"].ToString();
        }
        catch
        {
            //oh-ho, no friend is selected!!!
            return;
        }

       	...
	result = m_FacebookDB.DoObjectAction_And_Do_SendToFriend(applicationUserID,
                                                applicationUserObjectID,
                                                selectedActionID,
                                                selectedFriendID, 
                                                out notificationTextToFriend,
                                                out errorInfo);
	...
	string notification_result = FBService.SendNotification(notificationTextToFriend, selectedFriendID);
	...	
}
To send notification, we need to call SendNotification() method and pass notification text and ID of Facebook user. In this code, ID is of selected Friend.
Because I'm too lazy, notificationTextToFriend notification text is built in the stored procedure, not in the application code. But you can "compose" notification in the code as well. The result is something like this:

where, in my stored procedure, I can do something like this: 

declare @application_path varchar(255)
set @application_path = 'http://apps.facebook.com/fbtestappsiccolo'

declare @notification varchar(8000)
select @notification = 
		' on [' + convert(varchar(10), action_date, 101) + ' ' + 
			convert(varchar(8), action_date, 108) + '] ' + 
		' sent '+ 
		'<a href="' + @application_path + '">' + o.description + '' +
' to you!' +
' <fb:name uid="' + @facebook_user_id + '" /> already ' +
replace( oa.action_performed_text_ex, '<object_description>',o.description )





And that's it for part 1.

And you can see this sample application on Facebook - Traveling Babies



Article keywords: Facebook, FBML, FBJS, AJAX, Mock AJAX , fb:action, fb:create-button, fb:help, fb:dashboard, fb:friend-selector, fb:editor, fb:iframe, , Animation, setTextValue, setValue , getElementById, span, div, ajax.post, , asp:DropDownList, asp:Button, asp:GridView, form, runat=server, server-side, DataSet, DataColumn, DataRow, GridView, DataSource
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