Update: Since writing this, Facebook has altered the look of the Application Settings page. Now there’s only two major settings that you need to set, and they’re both on the Web Site tab: The Site URL and the Site Domain. Set those correctly and your App will work with SFC. Set them incorrectly, and it will not. So, much simpler, really. 🙂

The majority of the email I get from users of the Simple Facebook Connect plugin is questions regarding how to setup their Facebook Application. It’s really not that hard to do, but the plethora of options can seem somewhat intimidating. So here’s the basics of what you need to do.

After creating your application, you’ll need to visit the Apps section in the Facebook Developer Home area. Here you’ll find your application, and the all critical “Edit Settings” link.

Main Application Screen

Firstly, never give out your Application Secret. If you give this out by accident, then use the Reset Secret Key link to get a new one.

Anyway, from here, you want to go into the settings. The settings area is divided into six main sections, but most of the settings are irrelevant. See, you’re building a “Connect” application, not a “Canvas” one. So most of these are meaningless for you. The following ones are what you actually care about:

Application name

Obviously, you want the name of your Application to make sense. I suggest using the same name as your website. You can even use your domain name here if you like. Just be aware that this name is what the Fans of your site will see in their Applications area.

Basic Information

The Basic Information section is important as well, fill it in as you see fit. I also recommend uploading good icons and/or logos for your site. Gives it that finished look.

Contact Information

Contact Information is obviously important as well, but don’t worry about all those extra URLs. They really apply more to Canvas apps. Of course, if you want to make special pages on your site for them and provide the URLs here, feel free.

Authentication Settings

The Authentication Settings page is surprisingly important. Those top two boxes need to be unchecked for a Facebook Connect application. Why? Because when they are unchecked, your Application becomes an “External Website” as far as Facebook is concerned. If you have either them checked, then your app’s Canvas section becomes active and you might have users trying to add it to their profiles and such, resulting in broken pages and a general bad user experience.

Connect Settings

The Connect Settings page is probably the most important one. These settings must be filled in and they must be absolutely accurate. Specifically, the URLs must be the URLs that are actually used by your site. Capitalization matters. The leading “www” or lack of one matters. Whatever the URL your site is in the browser is what you MUST put into these fields. Anything less and your site will not work.

Advanced Settings

The Advanced Settings screen contains these three fields which you need to set in the same way I did. The email domain no longer exists, however. They removed that in favor of a different approach, so you can ignore that field.

Application Profile

Finally, after you have saved those settings, take the time to go back to the main application screen and click the “Edit Application Profile” link. You’ll be taken here, where you can set up the “look” of your application page on Facebook. This includes what tabs are visible, the stuff in the Info section, etc. You can add extra Applications tabs to this page and generally customize all sorts of stuff. None of that affects your site, but it does affect how the App Page looks in Facebook. The more polished it is, the more likely people will “Fan” your Application. And Fans get updates from when you publish posts to the Wall. Great way to drive traffic to your content.

Hope this helps! Mainly, I hope this reduces the number of questions I get about this process. Enjoy SFC!

Shortlink:

204 Comments

  1. I tried to install, I got everything turned on and then I got the message

    “Facebook doesn’t like your settings, it says: Incorrect signature.”

    What is an incorrect signature?
    How do I resolve this matter?

    Would love to use the plug-in if there is a simple solution but will just move on if there is no viable solution.
    Do you have any suggestions?

  2. I’m trying to install the app, but can’t find the connect tab on facebook.
    Did anything change? Looking forward to your reply, thanks!

  3. My facebook application settings don’t look anything like this. I think the must have changed it.

    I am getting the following errors in my console:

    Uncaught ReferenceError: FB is not defined
    post.php:666Uncaught ReferenceError: FB_RequireFeatures is not defined

    and this in the edit post page:
    If you can see this, then there is some form of problem showing you the Facebook publishing buttons. This may be caused by a plugin conflict or some form of bad javascript on this page. Try reloading or disabling other plugins to find the source of the problem.

    Thanks!

  4. Like the other recent posts the set up page for FB applications has changed.
    I’m not getting errors just blank space.

    • Yes, the setup has changed, but it’s much, much simpler now. Now there’s only one or two fields to fill in. On the Web Site tab, just put in the URL of your website. Done and done. That’s the only required piece. Everything else is optional.

      • Thanks, Otto. This was exactly what I was looking for. Just installing now… but I like how it works on your page. Thanks.

      • Does it still work with Fan Pages (instead of application page)? I have the url in, but I’m still getting:

        If you can see this, then there is some form of problem showing you the Facebook publishing buttons. This may be caused by a plugin conflict or some form of bad javascript on this page. Try reloading or disabling other plugins to find the source of the problem.

        I disabled all other plugins other than SFC and askimet.

        Thanks!

      • Hi Otto,
        Can you please help us? I am getting this error, after reading your instructions carefully and doing everything you said:
        Fatal error: Cannot redeclare class Facebook in /hermes/web04/b1786/moo.joycegrace/wp-content/plugins/simple-facebook-connect/facebook-platform/facebook.php on line 37

        Is this something fixable? Are we doing something wrong?

  5. Solid application, thank you for making it.

  6. This post needs an update, lots of stuffs have changed with facebook

  7. I have installed SFC, activated the base, publish, share and like. Set up an application in FB. Filled in the IDs on the SFC admin page, including the Fan Page #. From withing the edit post screen in WP I have 2 buttons, “Publish to Facebook Fan Page” and “Publish to your Facebook Profile”. When I hit Publish to Fan Page I get the following error:

    API Error Code: 110
    API Error Description: Invalid user id
    Error Message: Missing user cookie (to validate session user)

    If I publish to my Profile page it works fine. I have double checked the Fan Page ID, the 3 extended permissions show as granted and the settings page has been saved (several times). I have the application Site URL set to my site. The Advanced Settings does not appear to have an Application Type option any longer.

    What else do you suggest that I try?

    Thanks.

  8. I get the following message

    Fatal error: Cannot redeclare class FacebookRestClientException in /home/scooduc/public_html/wp-content/plugins/simple-facebook-connect/facebook-platform/facebookapi_php5_restlib.php on line 3428

    • Sure. Disable the other Facebook-related plugin that you’re using.

      This is the problem with plugins using FB code. You can only use one. That’s why I created SFC as an expandable system. The base plugin includes the FB libraries, all the other plugins use the base for their main functionality.

      • I did not have any other FB plugins, only SFC. I have uninstalled and reinstalled SFC, activated the base and the SFC publish. I have deleted the FB App and created a new one, set up as described here (web address on settings page), entered the App ID, App Secret and API Key. Saved SFC settings. Hit Grant Publish Permission which opened the request for permission FB page. I selected Allow for the Fan Page, get an “An unknown error occurred. Please try again later.” message. If I try to grant permission again, and select the App, the allow function seems to work, but when I try to manually publish I get

        An error occurred with SPSW Website. Please try again later.

        API Error Code: 240
        API Error Description: Desktop applications cannot call this function for other users
        Error Message: User needs to be admin of the page

        Let me know what else to look for.

      • My theme requires a plugin which declares the facebook class in multiple files.. if I have to keep the plugin activated to maintain operation of the theme, is there a particular file I should I go about editing?

  9. I am using your simple facebook connect wordpress plugin. I am a complete rookie. I have been trying to set up my app page on Facebook using the screenshots you provided. The problem is that my ‘editable’ stuff looks nothing like your screenshots so I am getting mightily confused (not hard cos, as I said, I am very new at this). Is there a difference between USA and UK apps setup? Sorry to bother you, I will not be offended if you choose not to reply.

  10. ive set my application up and all seemed fine but the problem I have is when someone clicks ‘go to app’ button and are taken to the allow permissions page once they click ‘allow’ instead of getting taken to my app inside the facebook canvass page, it is re-directing them to my website just normal domain outside of facebook. does anyone know how I can get it to redirect users to my site running on the facebook canvass page? thanks

  11. Okay, I think I’m getting close. I got the connect to facebook to show up under the publisher box on a post and was able to login. I now see 2 buttons, one that says publish to facebook fan page and another that says publish to facebook profile. If I click either one of them I get this error:

    The post’s links must direct to the application’s connect or canvas URL.

    I’ve quadruple checked my settings on both facebook and sfc and can’t figure out where I’m going wrong. Any ideas? Thanks!

  12. Alright, I deleted my facebook app and started over. Seems to be working fine now.

  13. We have two Facebook pages related to our church that we would like to link to our WordPress website. Is there a way to use SFC to do that, maybe with Fan Box or Connect?

  14. Otto, I am wondering if you can help me, I am trying to set up Simple Facebook Connect WordPress plugin for my site, however Facebook itself says I need to verify my account before I can create any apps.
    To do this I need to enter my mobile number, however when I do so it says my mobile number is registered to another account.
    I was wondering if anyone has come across this before and if anyone knows of how to rectify this with facebook so I am able to verify my account. I dont understand how someone else can have my mobile number already registered.
    Cheers

  15. I am also trying to set up this plug-in and when I try to “Set Up A New App” FB has me enter my mobile number and then when I get the code from my phone and input it into the FB code box, it tells me it’s the wrong code. Have done this twice now, with FB generating the same exact code it is refusing to take in the box.

  16. Got it to work … but not as I expected. Before I heard of this plugin I created a FB page that I wanted to connect with my WP blog. I figured this app would send posts from the blog to the FB page. Instead it sends posts to FB app. Does the app now become my page? Can I assign it a unique name, e.g. facebook.com/unique_name? Tx.

    • You can use the plugin to send to the Page instead of the App. Just put the ID number for the Page into the proper place on the SFC Settings screen.

      • Ok so I’m basically just trying to find a plugin that will automatically publish my posts from wordpress on to my facebook page. I already have a facebook page. But I just went through and set up my app and am feeling like I may have set up a new page? Is that right? How can I get this to work on my current facebook page. I would appreciate any direction! Thanks so much for your help!

        • Get the number of your page, then put it in in the proper place on the SFC Settings page, and it will do the magic for you. Works. 🙂

          • What do you mean by the number of the page? The facebook page? Will I just have to do this one time? Sorry I’m such a beginner and need it in Layman’s terms! Do you mind giving me a few more steps to do this? Thanks so much!

            • I’m not sure I can make it any more obvious, really.

              Yes, the ID number of your Facebook Page. Every page in Facebook has an ID number. Usually it’s in the URL of the page. If you click the profile picture of that Page, then it will be listed in the URL of the album.

              Take that number, copy it, and paste it into the field that asks for the Fan Page ID on the SFC Settings page. This reconfigures SFC to use your Fan Page as the basis for everything it’s doing. You still do need the FB Application, because everything has to go through the Application. But SFC, once it has the Page number, will change itself to Publish to that page, to show that Page as the basis for the Fan Box, etc, etc.

              • That’s what I needed. Sorry but for people like me who are just starting out it’s like learning a new language. I’m spending hours going in circles trying to figure this it out and it’s great when people like you can just make it simpler. Saves me so much time. I wish I could just pay someone but I don’t have the funds yet and I would like to have an idea of how it all works. Thanks for your help!

  17. Is there a way to make every WP-post to go automatically to FB without having to press anything like “publish to page” when typing the post to WP? I’m using an app that gets posts to my WP from an email account. And I would like that these posts would go to FB automatically as well.

    Any ideas?

    Also, now the post goes to FB allright, but the original title in WP post turns into “Auto Draft”. In posts admin panel in WP the title remains correct, but in visible post the title is missing and replaced with title that says: “Auto Draft”. Whats the case in this?

    • Ok, sorry about the stupid questions above. The “auto Daft” had something to do with a updated WP version that acted differently than the old one. Also the automation issue solved.

      But one thing remained. The like button seems to occupy a bit too large area on posts. So when I call the button to the post footer, it tears the footer to something like 50px in height, although the actual button is only about 1/3 from that height. Any ideas with this? Theres no other content in the footer, and when removed, the footer goes back to normal. Are there any way to change the size of the like-button or the space it occupies? Thanks!

  18. Thanks for the guide. Just one question, my wordpress blog is situted in sub-directory path(mysite.com/blog) . So, what should I put in “Site URL” and “Site domain” ?

  19. I installed the Simple Face Book Connect Plugin for my website and set it up for publishing to the Fan Page.

    I gave all necessary extended permissions for automatically publishing to the page; however, after I had done that I decided that I did not want all pages published automatically.

    Whenever I click the Publish to Facebook Fan Page” button of the Facebook Publisher widget displayed in the WP Admin for editing posts or pages, I am takent to a modal pop up dialog which has the the following:

    * Title: Publishing this story to the Page’s Wall?

    * Content:
    ** facebook logo with the “Go to Facebook.com” link below.

    When I click the Facebook logo, Facebook opens and displays the following error message:

    An error occured. Please try again later.

    This has been occurring for some time now and I have been forced to manually share the links to my posts and pages for my blog.

    What do I need to do to get clear of this issue so that I can publish my content to Facebook when I create the article without having to manually enter every detail into the FAn page?

    Your reply would be most appreciated.

    Sincerely,

    William Siegel

  20. Hallo
    I have linked my application ID 204440806253815 to my http://www.tv-surf.com/it/index.htm page.

    I inserted the like button

    that indicate me that 143 likes the page..

    the problem I have is that the page
    http://www.facebook.com/developers/apps.php?app_id=204440806253815&ret=2
    indicates me 0 likers !!

    Linters address
    http://developers.facebook.com/tools/lint?url=http://www.tv-surf.com/it/index.htm
    is ok

    where is the problem ?

    thank you

    • There is no problem. Somebody liking your webpage is not the same thing as them liking your application.

      If you use the Fan Box widget, then that like button in there will make them like your application. Inserting a like button onto your webpage makes them like the webpage itself, not the application.

  21. Thank you for the help with the FB app setup for the Simple Facebook Connect plugin. Just got the plugin going on my site and it was refreshingly simple – as advertised.

  22. Hi……….i have uploaded the plugin and i Have installed it but I have added all facebook app secret and all but there is no update or enter option or subimt option so how to update it

    • The save button is on the bottom of the page. If it’s not appearing, then you either a) have your PHP memory settings set too low, or b) have your server blocked from talking to Facebook directly, in which case the plugin won’t work anyway.

  23. then how to recover it or how to set php higher already i have facebook share its working

  24. Hey thanks Otto for the Simple Connect. I have it set up and everything appears to be running fine with one small exception. When clicking on the Share button the the comment is posted on the user’s Facebook wall with the default “Your Blog / Just another WordPress Site”. I have triple checked the Settings > General set up and the Site Name and Tagline are accurate there (WriterzKramp / Stories from an Incurable Imagination).

    Do you know how I can fix this?

    It makes no sense pulling a generic “Your Blog / Just another WordPress Site” to someone’s Facebook wall.

    Thanks for the help.

    David

  25. I have installed the plugin into WordPress. Followed all the directions but it says that:

    API Error Code: 191
    API Error Description: The specified URL is not owned by the application
    Error Message: redirect_uri is not owned by the application.

    What do i do? What am I doing wrong?

    • Your FB application has the wrong URL for your website. Correct the URL in the app settings to be the actual URL of your website. An incorrect “www” or capital letters or what have you will make it not work.

      • How can I enable this in localhost for dev and test?

        • You can’t. Facebook doesn’t support developing on localhost environments. The callback must be a valid and working URL. Furthermore, for any of the sharing or posting to Facebook to work, the URL must be publicly accessible on the internet, since they use a crawler mechanism to get the OpenGraph tags.

          If you want to develop locally, then make the dev site use the production name and edit your hosts file to point to 127.0.0.1 for the development.

  26. Hello, I have noticed that on some sites we have this plugin running, the buttons disappear from the settings page.
    On new sites, we add all the data that it needs. All 3 buttons show, but only the last button is clickable. We click it, confirm the permissions and then click on save. When the page reloads, the first two buttons are entirely gone.
    If I remove the permissions via facebook, the buttons can be seen within the settings, but again only the last one is clickable. if I click it and add the permissions, again the two buttons above disappear.

    What can you suggest?

    Many thanks
    Dave

  27. Otto, SFC looks like a terrific app. But I am having a heck of a time trying to make it work. As you can see at vmrcommunications.com toward the bottom right of the page, it’s not working. I’m guessing where i have gone wrong is in creating the app that relates to my website. Here is the profile page for the app i created:
    https://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=163863937012600

    I entered the API key, secret, etc… into the SFC settings page in wordpress and I don’t get an error message. But when I look at vmrcommunications.com it looks like it is not working right at all.

    I checked your guide to creating an app from about a year ago and the app settings pages I am looking at look a bit different than what you show in your otherwise very helpful instructions.

    Do you have an updated version of these instructions? Any idea what I might be doing wrong?

    Thanks!
    Hugh

    • Most of this is outdated. There’s nothing really to configure anymore. The only thing that matters for the FB App is to make sure you get your URL correct.

      I don’t see anything particularly wrong on your website. What isn’t working specifically?

  28. Hello,
    I installed the plugin and loaded all of the settings. Got a few errors and now they are resolved. I see the widgets in the widgets setup menu, but when I put them in a widget bar, they are not showing up in the live website pages.

    Is this something with the plugin, or the theme. Just need some direction on where to look.

    Thank you.

  29. Otto, I am wondering if you can help me, I am trying to set up Simple Facebook Connect WordPress plugin for my site, however Facebook itself says I need to verify my account before I can create any apps.
    To do this I need to enter my mobile number, however when I do so it says that the message has been sent but it is never delivered. I´ve tried over and over again for 2 weeks but it isn´t work at all.
    I was wondering if anyone has come across this before and if anyone knows how to deal with this problem.
    Thanks in advance.

  30. […] on how to set up and register a facebook app have been covered elsewhere, over here I’m going to focus on the code which makes this […]

  31. ran through all the comments so not to repeat, running WP 3.2 and attempting to setup .. here’s my problem:
    your app is asking for a API Key and Application ID. Facebook has bunched these together i.e. App ID/API Key:

    so I put the number in both places and save settings it says: Simple Facebook Connect needs configuration information on its settings page.

    and the API Key field is empty…
    can you help me?
    best regards,
    Bill

  32. The Simple Facebook Connect Plugin is not saving my API key. I’ve tried saving over and over and it just removes it from the field and says more settings are still needed. What’s the deal?

    • The deal is that you’re putting in the wrong API key. Facebook changed things around recently, and as usual, screwed it all up.

      Go to https://www.facebook.com/developers/apps.php and get the correct information.

      Version 1.0 will no longer require an API key.

      • Thank you, Now I just have to figure out why the heck when I click on the settings for the individual widgets that it forwards me to “Live Chat Settings” (Another Plugin). Besides, what’s the purpose of have FB connect if the users can’t do anything with it once they’re connected, right? Any ideas what’s going on here? Nothing shows up when I insert an individual SFC widget, however I can connect via Facebook. (that’s it though).

  33. Hi hope your well. Any ideas how i can get the time and date to come op in line.. As it currently goes over the grvitar image and name..

    please have a look at this link>>> http://www.spiritosorecords.com/label/?page_id=17

    Thanks for you help.

  34. Hey thanks Otto for the Simple Connect…………

  35. This plugin is great and I have used it before for personal facebook pages – but I can’t get it to post to a fan page right now. I can set it up to post to my personal profile but when I try to set it up to post to a fan page it keeps giving me an “An unknown error occurred. Please try again later.”

    Any ideas?

  36. My Facebook Connect application has the name of my website, so it makes sense when users get the “Request for permission” window. My website also has a normal Facebook page. Now when people search Facebook for my website they’ll find two results: the page and the app. But there is nothing to see on the wall of the connect app. How can I hide the app from search results?

  37. hi installed sfc today , made my fb application got all the keys etc pasted them in all seem to be working …at the bottom of the sfc page in word press is the following

    Offline Permission is needed to access your Page as if you were publishing manually.
    blue button here
    Publish Permission is needed to publish stories to the stream automatically.
    blue button here

    Be sure to click the “Save Settings” button on this page after granting these permissions! This will allow SFC to save your user id and session key, for usage by the plugin when publishing posts to your profile and/or page.

    however when i try to click on these buttons nothing happens the mouse just hovers over then and no click is occuring???

    any ideas on what ive missed or what dependencies this requires?

    just trying to auto update my face book

    any help thanks in advance

  38. I use your plug in on a couple sites in past and it worked great. Facebook no longer offers both an App ID and App Key, but your plug in requires it. Settings Page gets me nowhere. Is there a fix or a place to find id/key
    App ID/API Key
    242186582480378
    If i put it in the api key bar it just disappears
    Please Help

  39. Nicely done on the Twitter and Facebook apps. I like the simplicty and ease of use.

    I placed the page ID into SFC (I already had a Fan Page) and it takes me to a different page. Ideas?
    Or delete and try again.

    Thanks!

    Randy

  40. Hello and thanks for the great plugin!

    We installed Simple Facebook Connect on our website over at MMAFight.com. My question is, how would I be able to integrate Facebook comments/likes that are done on Facebook itself and have that appear on MMAFight.com? Same vice versa…

    When I post an article, I have it set up so that the article also shows up on Facebook. Sometimes we receive comments via Facebook and not on MMAFight.com itself. How can I have that comment appear on both Facebook and MMAFight.com? The same would go vice versa, how can I have my MMAFight.com article comments appear on my website and on the Facebook wall as well (for that particular article)? I would understand if non-Facebook comments don’t appear on our Facebook wall, but there are people who sign in via Facebook and leave comments.

    Hope the question is clear and we’d greatly appreciate it if someone could help us with this.

    Thanks in advance!

    • SFC has the ability to display comments left on auto-published FB posts on the post they came from. Facebook back to WP, basically.

      Doing it the other way around (WP->FB) isn’t possible. The comments module offers the user the option of posting their comment back to their own profile page though. The goal of this is to allow them to share the post with their friends, sort of thing.

  41. Hi Otto,

    I used this plugin for a web site about the end of 2009 and it had lots of sub plugins at that time and it worked well once Facebook sorted themselves out. I’m now beginning to set up SFC for a new website and I can’t help noticing that there are no sub plugins when I download it from wordpress ! Does this mean (1) Facebook changes have made them obsolete and you’ve removed them or (2) there’s something wrong with my download (3) I need to go and buy them somewhere or (4) something else ?

    What should I do next ?

    BWs
    James

    • People found the multi-plugins thing confusing and weird. So in 1.0 I ditched that approach in favor of checkboxes for each “module” on the main SFC settings screen.

      The operation is basically identical, meaning that if you don’t check the box then that module doesn’t load, in the same way that you had to activate the sub-plugins before.

      Everything except the connect widget (which was buggy and didn’t work most of the time) is still there, and many new features have been added as well.

  42. […] Otto on WordPress Blog: How to Set Up Your Facebook Connection Application (Excellent!) […]

  43. Hi there!

    This plugin is great work. Thanks a lot!

    For 2 issues i could use some help.

    1) Textencoding
    My site is in german. Simple connect seems not to provide text in utf-8 code:<meta property='og:description' content='Wenn eine Innenministerin über Illegale spricht, [open-graph-info in sourcode header-section]
    The vowel mutation like the “ü” in this example produces ugly text on the facebook-page Wenn eine Innenministerin über Illegale spricht,
    What can i do?

    2) Default-Image
    I have images in the navigation area, sometimes in the single post area and id like to use a hidden default-image for facebook-posts. Obviously “send” grabs the first picture on the site for posting – which in my case is one from the navigation-area. How could i hack the plugin to act like this: Ignore the image in the navigation area, if there is a picture in the post area use it, else use the default image.

    Best, Philipp

    • Hi Otto!

      I deleted the locale de_DE argument in sfc-base.phs now i get üs and äs and ös if i like a post 🙂

      Plugin seems to pic images like i wished obove.

      This Plugin is a miracle!

      Thanks again for your great work!

      Best,
      Philipp

  44. Hi,
    I have installed the application and created the Facebook Application ID and Application Secret. But my problem is I’m not get the facebook login button on my frontpage.
    And also i need twitter login and linkedin login for my site and comments section. Plz guide me how can i acheive this.

  45. Thanks for the clear tutorial, but until now, the version of facebook is different.

  46. Hi Otto!
    As Kurt Emka says, facebook has updated Facebook Developers site and it’s so many diffrences that I can’t connect my web @Wordpress to site on facebook. Could you update tutorial?

  47. Dear Otto,
    thank you very much for this great work!

    I follow all the guides for posting from WP to a FB Page via a Facebook app,
    everything works but I have the “published via [App Name]” sign in every post.
    I repeated the procedure twice, with no changes. Can you please give me an advice?

    Thanks in advance.

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