Platform Updates: Operation Developer Love

By Matt Mallozzi

This week we announced how to implement flashHideCallback to support "wmode=window". We are also announcing the following changes:

Getting SubscribedTo and Subscribers via Graph API

We are now providing the ability of reading a user's subscribers and subscribees list via the Graph API. To access this information, your app is required to have the user_subscriptions permission for the user, and friends_subscriptions permission for their friends' info. Refer to the documentation for SubscribedTo and Subscribers for more details.

To access a user's subscribers list, issue an HTTP GET request to the subscribers connection like the following:

https://graph.facebook.com/USER_ID/subscribers?access_token=...

Similarly, to access a user's subscribees list, issue an HTTP GET request to the subscribedto connection.

https://graph.facebook.com/USER_ID/subscribedto?access_token=...

The following PHP example demonstrates how to read the subscribed-to list:

<?php
  $app_id = 'YOUR_APP_ID';
  $app_secret = 'YOUR_APP_SECRET';
  $my_url = 'YOUR_URL';

  $code = $_REQUEST["code"];

  if (!$code) {
    // user_subscriptions and  friend_subscriptions permissions 
    // are required
    $dialog_url = "http://www.facebook.com/dialog/oauth?client_id="
     . $app_id . "&amp;redirect_uri=" . urlencode($my_url)
     . "&amp;scope=user_subscriptions";
    echo('<script>top.location.href="' . $dialog_url . '";</script>');
  } else {
    $token_url = "https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token?client_id="
     . $app_id . "&amp;redirect_uri=" . urlencode($my_url)
     . "&amp;client_secret=" . $app_secret
     . "&amp;code=" . $code;
    $access_token = file_get_contents($token_url);

    // Get request for the subcribed-to list
    $subscribedto_url =
      "https://graph.facebook.com/me/subscribedto?"
     . "access_token=".$access_token;
    $subscribedto_resp_obj =
      json_decode(file_get_contents($subscribedto_url), true);

    // Parse the return value and get the array of people subscribed to.
    // This is in returned in the data[] array
    $subscribedto = $subscribedto_resp_obj['data'];

    print_r($subscribedto);
  }
?>

Improved Search Results on the Developer Site

We improved search results on the Dev Site. Search now includes Technical Q&A from Stack Overflow and Bugs. You can also filter your results to only show the type of information you are looking for (e.g., blog posts, documentation, API reference, technical Q&A, bugs).

manage_notifications Permission Now Required for Managing a User's Notifications.

As announced on the blog on July 29, 2011 and on the Roadmap, to read or manage a user's notifications we now require the manage_notifications permission. The "Require manage_notifications" migration has now been removed per our 90-day breaking change policy. For more information, see the User object documentation.

Upcoming Breaking Changes on February 1st 2012

Removing FeatureLoader JavaScript SDK. As part of the OAuth2 migration, we announced that the FeatureLoader SDK is no longer supported as of October 1st, 2011. On February 1st 2012, we will remove FeatureLoader. Please ensure that your app is using the JS SDK.
Removing canvas_name Field from Application Object We will be deprecating the canvas_name field in favor of namespace field on the application object on February 1st 2012.
Removing App Profile Pages We will be deleting all App Profile Pages and redirecting all traffic directly to the App on February 1st 2012. For more information, please refer to the blog post.
Removing REST support for Ads API We will be removing REST support for the Ads API on February 1st 2012. All Ads API developer must move their applications to use the Graph API.
Improved Auth Dialog On February 1st 2012, all apps will be enabled for the improved dialog, but those that haven’t fully configured their dialog can disable the setting in the Developer App until February 15, at which time it will be turned on for all apps.

New Breaking Changes

Pages Insights Metrics Deprecations. We are in the process of deprecating some old Page Insights. We announced this in a number of forums, but failed to outline this change in our Platform Roadmap per our breaking change policy. Our apologies. You can find a full list of the Insights to be deprecated from the Insights documentation. These Insights will be completely removed from API on Feb 15th 2012. Please make all necessary updates as soon as possible so that you can transition smoothly.
Throwing an Exception for Invalid filter_key. We will throw an exception if you try to query the stream FQL table with an invalid filter key. Currently if you call stream.get with an invalid filter_key value, the query silently fails, and with this change we will be throwing an exception. Refer to FQL stream documentation for details on using a filter_key. This change will take effect on May 1st 2012.