Site News & Announcements

[BETA] Facebook Tabs from Writing.Com!

Hello Members!

We're ready to open testing for our initial Facebook tabs: Blog and Journal.

These are two different tabs, they perform exactly the same; it's just a matter of whether you prefer to have a tab titled "Blog" or "Journal"... or both blog AND journal tabs.

For an example of the Blog tab in action, you can check out WdC's facebook fan page:
http://www.facebook.com/writingcom
... or you can view the tab directly at:
http://www.facebook.com/writingcom?v=app_191128961879
In this case, we're simply using this announcements book as our blog item.

To activate the tab(s) for your Writing.Com and Facebook account:
Blog: http://apps.facebook.com/wdcblog
Journal: http://apps.facebook.com/wdcjournal

After following the above link, you'll be asked if you want to "Allow Access" for the Writing.Com application you've chosen. Click Allow to continue.

Then you'll be asked to confirm that you're linking the correct Writing.Com and facebook accounts. Double check it and click to confirm.

Then you'll need to Grant Update Permission to the Writing.Com app. This is where you'll allow Writing.Com to publish to your news feed when you add an entry to the blog/book... and where you'll grant the application recurring access permission (so you don't have to keep allowing WdC access). It's just a couple clicks to get through that.

Once you've granted the permissions, you can set your Blog or Journal Book item ID. (More about your item below...)

And last but not least, head to your Facebook profile and on tabs line, click the + symbol; if the app you just added isn't shown, type either "Blog" or "Journal" into the search box and you'll see it. Just click it to add it to your tab line.


About your Blog / Journal Item:
It must be a Book Item in your own portfolio. The access restrictions do NOT matter. If you have a private item in your portfolio and set it to be your tab item, that overrides the access restrictions for your facebook tab. Facebook, however, will then allow you to restricts access to the tab like they do with anything else (ie, friends, friends of friends, etc). This is done on facebook under "Settings" -> "Application Settings" -> "Edit Settings" for the app you want to modify -> Set the settings. Please note that facebook defaults this to Everyone!


Once added, your Facebook tabs will show up in your My Authorized Accounts area. This is linked from your My Account page. The direct link is: http://www.writing.com/main/my_account/action/authorized_accounts ... You can update the tab's item or delete it at any time from that page.


Again, this is being opened up as testing for our facebook integration. I've been working out a lot of issues with and I think we're to a stable point in development. Facebook provides some tools to us developers, but unfortunately (for fortunately), I'm looking to do far more with it than most sites. That being the case --- while I encourage you to try this out and help along with comments, feedback, bug reports, etc... I ask that anyone using it to please be patient and expect occasional problems.

If you setup a tab and you'd like me to have a look, please be sure you're friends with me, "Joe Storymaster" on facebook... and then let me know I should check it out.

Thanks and enjoy! I look forward to your comments.
~~SM