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It appears that EE developers now have two options when it comes to Facebook Connect. One is FabEE, developed by Purple Dogfish (UK). At Grist we’ve done quite a bit of tinkering around with this add-on and like aspects of it. (More on this in future posts I hope.) Just last week, however, Solspace released a beta version of their own Facebook Connect add-on. It looks quite promising, and with Solspace’s caché I’d expect that it turns out to be quite successful. When it rains, it pours!
Here’s a basic feature comparison … but please check out each product for the details:
FabEE ($59.95):
- Provides SSO and linking of EE accounts with Facebook accounts.
- Batch-sends account info to Facebook application for quicker integration … hmmm.
- Possible to extend through custom plug-ins … this allows for the use of most or all of the available Facebook Connect API.
- Implements a number of template tags, including some special conditionals. Optionally includes JQuery 1.3. Some examples of available tags: {fabee:login_button}, {fabee:linked_profile_pic} etc ….
Solspace’s Facebook Connect Beta (also $59.95)
(Note: I have not used this yet … just going off the Solspace docs:)
- Three modes: passive (provides SSO, and creates shell EE accounts in the background as necessary), a mode that requires EE accounts before sync and an intermediate mode where an abridged registration or sync is used. This seems cool.
- also implements various template tags, including various facebook member data tags. Could presumably be extended.
- provides an account sync form tag to remove or add an account sync.
- implements publishing items to facebook profiles.
It should be noted that both options require that your instance of EE be open to the world — ie not behind a firewall or other barrier — since Facebook will actually ping your site under certain conditions (such as if someone deauthorizes your application on Facebook.) Also, both of these add-ons are subject to Facebook’s terms of service, which are a bit hard to understand, but include restrictions on caching data for more than 24 hours, and other restrictions, like 10 posts/account/day.
(This little post is in part due to a tidbit fed to me by the inimitable Natebot — thanks Nathan!)
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
