As many of you know, the LibraryH3lp widget is composed mostly of JavaScript and runs in an iframe. Facebook does not allow iframes on Wall pages, and the space allocated to applications on Wall pages is pretty narrow to begin with. It's hard to follow a chat in a widget that is too small.
So, our application shows the Facebook user your library's online or offline status, using images you provide. If you're online, clicking the image takes the user to your widget. Your widget is on a Facebook Canvas page, where iframes are A-OK, and where the widget is nice and roomy.
Detailed documentation (larger view here), with abundant screen shots:
Brief instructions, for those that don't want to watch the detailed version above:
- Visit the app page.
- Click "Add to Page" button.
- Navigate to the Page in question.
- Click "Edit Page."
- Find "LibraryH3lp" app and click little pencil icon in top right
corner. Pick Edit and then Allow. - Provide queue URL for your widget (it can be fully customized) and
online/offline images. - Click to Allow Constant Authorization.
- App should be in your Boxes section now.
- Move to Wall tab if desired.
With either approach, chat is one click away. Summary:
- With the LibraryH3lp app, the user can tell if you're online or offline with no clicking. If you're online, a click takes them to a separate page containing a nice big widget.
- With the Meebo Me widget, the user has to click to see if you're online or offline, but then they chat directly from the Wall tab. Caveat: requires Flash, and widgets on the Wall tab will be very narrow, which can make the chat harder to follow. It is also possible to place a Meebo Me widget in its own tab, such as "IM Your Library," where space is not so tight.
Enjoy!
10 comments:
This is great! I just added it to the Baylor Libraries' page. Our chat box appears a ways down the page, though, because of the other info on our wall page. Do you know if there is a way it can be added to its own tab?
Great! Thanks guys, this is timely, as I was just asked to set-up a widget on our FB page.
Ellen, looks great! Love your online image. :) I wish FB would let page admins arrange that left sidebar more flexibly.
Currently, it can't be in its own tab. Tabs have all the same restrictions as the Wall tab (ugh). So, no iframes and no easy way to do dynamic content.
With additional programming effort, we could find a way to put the presence badge in a tab, but then, chat would be two clicks away from the Wall tab. Seems less than ideal.
You COULD currently make a tab with a static *link* (link could be a huge image) to the canvas page using the Static FBML app. Canvas page is the page with the actual widget.
Then there's the Meebo Me widget way. Flash apps can live in Wall tab or in tabs; the user has to click on them to activate.
Currently, on the UL's page, we have the LibraryH3lp presence badge on the Wall page, and then a Meebo Me widget in its own tab here.
Facebook -- land of compromises!
Thanks for this tutorial!
I've embedded the widget on Pollak Library's new Facebook page.
We've tested it and it works great.
I just need to figure out what's going on with the image in our wall box. No matter how small I resize it, or how many times I clear my cache, the image still shows up as the same exact size (which works, but looks funky because it's too big for that box).
Thanks again,
Colleen Robledo
Systems Librarian,
CSU Fullerton
Hi Colleen,
I tried to send you email with a screenshot to start troubleshooting this, but maybe it didn't go through.
In short, I'm wondering if it's caching the "bad" image just for you, or if FB is caching it for everyone and really isn't taking the new image.
If you can email me at psessoms at gmail dot com, that would be *great*!
Thanks!!
Would I be understanding Facebook + Libraryh3lp correctly if I guessed that Libraryh3lp can be added to a Facebook page but not to a group? Looks like my library has a group, not a page, so I need to give up on this, right?
Josh Boyer
North Carolina State
Hey Josh,
Oooh, good question. That hadn't ever occurred to me before. I went looking, and I think you're right. It sounds like FB groups can't use applications. :(
http://mashable.com/2009/05/27/facebook-page-vs-group/
"Pages can host applications... Groups can’t do this."
I really like the idea of a group for a library, though. Feels more personal, like it might foster more interaction.
Yes, things have gotten very weird with the FB app. *Some* pages (newly created ones?) do not seem to have a Boxes tab, and the Boxes tab is where the app goes after the
app is added. For other pages (older ones?), Boxes still exist, and it seems to work fine.
FB is deprecating Boxes currently and will remove them entirely, soon.
We'll have to look at the libh3lp FB app to see if we'll still be able to provide the presence badge on the Wall.
Unfortunately, right now, we're in a serious development phase that is
at the heart of our database architecture on the main system, so we can't switch programming focus to FB right now. We do plan to get
back into the FB app once we're done with our database migration
project.
제시, interesting. I haven't been able to create one like what you have (boxes tab available, but app won't appear). New pages I create don't have Boxes tabs at all, so I'm stuck, and I don't do enough with FB to have any great suggestions for you.
If you're willing to add me as a page editor, I'm happy to take a look. Since I can't setup one that is failing the same way as yours, that's the only thing I can think of that would let me fiddle around with it.
Rogers Library at Francis Marion University has had success using this facebook app (there are several similar) to create a custom page app to which we can add a standard LibraryH3lp chat widget: https://apps.facebook.com/static_html_plus/.
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