Open Source Projects
This page lists some of the open source projects out there that use the Facebook Platform. Feel free to join any of them or just look at the code to learn how things are being done by others.
Installed on Facebook
Actions
Actions is an open-source, GPLv3-licensed Facebook application written in Python using Pylons and the PyFacebook API interface. Actions is a social to-do list intended to be used for political and social action. You can install Actions here.
Actions doesn’t actually work at the present time and no development seems to be taking place. Isn’t that useful?
Facebook PunBB
Facebook PunBB is a modified version of PunBB 1.2.20. It allows Facebook users to login with their Facebook account instead, and can be setup as either a stand-alone forum or a Facebook application. In either setup, it features:
- Automatic registration (and automatic login for the Facebook application setup)
- Link to the Facebook profile with the profile picture
- A new BBcode “quote_facebookID” for quotations
Moreover, the two setups can share the same database such that the forum provides seamless experiences for Facebook users while stays indexable by the search engines. The live demo (doubles as support forum for now):
The patches are available here. It’s licensed under GPL (pending sourceforge project status).
(Special thanks to Chroma Coders for encouragement, advices, and hosting.)
(New installations don’t seem to work with latest API and no support is provided)
Flickr Photosets
Flickr Photosets is a Facebook Photos replacement that displays photos from Flickr. The source code is licensed under the GPL and is available on Google Code.
Import Gallery photos in Facebook
This application allows end users to import photos from an existing Gallery 2.x installation into Facebook.
It has been open-sourced as an example Facebook application, and to allow other developers to submit patches for new features they might need.
Install the Gallery Import Facebook application here
Source code is available on Google Code
Basic Application Framework, Newsroom and CMS
The Newsroom CMS framework (demo on Facebook) is generic Facebook application code which can be quickly and easily installed, configured and customized for any small organization wanting to establish a sophisticated Web presence within the Facebook community. I hope this framework will drastically reduce the barrier to entry for organizations wishing to leverage Facebook. Provides an easy, customizable and economical solution for small and/or non profit organizations to run an application on Facebook.
The default framework provides some basic pages (like a basic Web site or Drupal or Plone installation) e.g. Home page, Newsroom, Photos, Wall, Discussion Forum, Invitations page and About page. It also provides basic content management (CMS) features for customizing the site from within a Web-based management user interface which many users are already familiar with. Pages can be turned on or off or content edited in place.
NewsCloud on Facebook
NewsCloud on Facebook The NewsCloud Facebook application is available via GPL. It offers a number of social news features including the ability to watch Daily Show videos within Facebook and share them with your friends. Email jeff at newscloud dot com to join the development team. Install the NewsCloud on Facebook application here
This one seems to be a little sketchy. One can install, but then you have to need to log in to the newscloud site and create an account. After doing this, it still wasn’t able to log in a user. The newscloud website says the source can be downloaded from the application home page itself in the “lower left” corner” but no link is there.
PledgeBank on Facebook
Pledges on Facebook is part of the PledgeBank.com website. It is open source under the Affero GPL. The source code is available from the mySociety CVS repository. Look in pb/web/facebook.php and pb/phplib/pbfacebook.php for some of the Facebook specific parts.
myQuestionaire
myQuestionaire www.masdo.com/facebook/myQuestionnaire.Source.txt (link made inactive) and running on Facebook) lets users create multiple choice questions to be answered by their friends. It is written in PHP and uses MySQL.
I just checked this site, and the myQuestionnaire.Source.txt file is not accessible (Permission Denied) and the www.masdo.com/facebook/ page contains a non-functional login/create account page with an iframed image hidden at the bottom, loaded from a site Firefox warns is malicious. I would expect this image attempts to exploit a browser vulnerability of some sort.
Software
Facebook Photo Uploader
This is an Open-Source (GPL) desktop application, using Java 6 and Swing. The purpose of this application is to enable people to tag photos and upload them from the desktop.
Project Homepage | Facebook App page
FMenu
FMenu is an open-source, GFDL-licensed, desktop application for Mac OS X. It is written in Objective C and is a simple but useful notifier, essentially replicating the functionality of the Firefox toolbar but in a standalone package.
Ringside Social Application Server
Ringside has been shutdown, no longer available. (May 2009) Ringside Social Application Server is the first open source platform that enables website owners to build and deploy social applications that operate with existing website content and business applications while seamlessly integrating with social networks such as Facebook. Today it supports over 35 of the common Facebook APIs, over 40 FBML tags, FBJS support, and Open Social applications. You can use Ringside Social Application Server to run/test your applications locally or deploy with Ringside to enable applications run on Facebook or other third party websites and networks.
Frameworks
facebook-java-api – Java Facebook Library
An open-source project that is more actively maintained than the official Facebook Java client. It uses the latest official Java client as its starting point, and thus is drop-in compatible for anyone using the official Java client. It includes bugfixes, updates to ensure future compatibility (all UID’s are 64-bit, for example), and added functionality (such as built-in support for ‘feed.publishTemplatizedAction’).
libkfacebook – KDE Facebook library
libkfacebook is a Qt + KDE 4 library for talking to the Facebook API. It is asynchronous, using the KJob pattern for API requests. Responses are mapped to C++ objects. libkfacebook is available under the LGPL.
libkfacebook can be found at svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/playground/pim/kfacebook
Here are some thoughts about the issues facing open source desktop developers using Facebook.
External Websites
urPics Photo Downloader
urPics is a web application that goes off to Facebook to find every photo that you’ve been tagged in, but wasn’t uploaded by you. It then puts all of those photos into a convenient .zip file, which you can then download to your computer. It now also lets you download all the photos any of your friends have been tagged in as well.
It was created open-source, so you can check out the source code in a Sourceforge SVN Repository here.
FBConnect for MediaWiki
The Facebook Connect Plugin for MediaWiki is an extension to the core software behind wiki websites like Wikipedia. MediaWiki is a highly-used software, but because you can edit most wikis without logging in, not as many people sign up. If you’re running a wiki, FBConnect helps fill in that gap by this extension makes it very easy for your users to log in and start making edits. In addition, you can use XFBML tags in wiki text, as well as several other inventive features.