MyFacebook Connect 3.6

MyFacebook Connect 3.0 is out

This is a major release with breaking changes. The SDK has been updated, 1 template has been added, 1 feature has been deprecated, 1 feature has been added and many bugs have been addressed. Here's the complete changelog:

Facebook SDK version 5.4

After 2 years the old 3.2.3 version retires with honor in favor of the latest available SDK, version 5.4. This is the breaking change of today's update. As such, it comes with evident benefits like improved speed and reliability, but it shifts the minimum requirements to PHP 5.4+ with mbstring extension enabled.

Given this was the main reason why I was reluctant to update the plugin, from now on SDK updates should become a lot easier. The latest version of Facebook's SDK features a modern PSR-2 compliant structure, and by following standards there shouldn't be any major changes in future updates.

Continuous operational status

Fancy name to indicate a simple feature introduced with 3.0: by enabling this option you can force MyFacebook Connect to work even if registrations are disabled. This is particularly useful if you want to restrict registrations to Facebook-users only.

Post on wall feature deprecated

Unfortunately, today's update marks the end of the "post on wall" feature. Facebook's new API policy does not allow posting prefilled content on users walls. Hence the feature has been removed from the plugin.

Better template handling

As requested by multiple users, the login button has been put into a standalone template rather than a search and replace patch to the header_welcomeblock_guest template. The button, available in the myfbconnect_login_button template, can now be referenced in any template with the variable {$facebook_login}. By default, the plugin tries to add the variable to the header_welcomeblock_guest template upon installing.

Complex passwords compliant

Requiring complex passwords has always been an issue for MyFacebook Connect, since it generates passwords automatically when an user registers. Version 3.0 generates complex passwords by default, so it doesn't matter anymore if you have the option enabled.

Duplicate users bug fixed

One nasty bug affecting MyFacebook Connect at the 2.x times was the possibility users had to register multiple accounts using the same Facebook account. Although it was a rare situation, some boards were affected more than others for still unknown reasons. The bug has been finally addressed.

Better error handling

Many users lamented poor error message handling in the past, so I reintroduced on-screen error messages produced by the SDK during showtime while still providing an automatic bug collector which stores the complete fail record into the database, ready to be downloaded and analyzed in case something goes wrong.

Nonetheless, thanks to the new SDK and to fresh routines written appositely for version 3.0, errors have been lowered down to the minimum.

Minor bugs addressed

Minor bugs such as missing language variables, styling and code issues have been addressed to ensure more stability.

How to update

First of all, perform a backup of your database and of all your board's physical files eventually. This is not mandatory, but it's highly recommended.

Proceed to delete the /myfbconnect folder. It contains the SDK which has changed dramatically, so simply uploading the new files will not overwrite the old ones and will result in potential errors during operational status.

Upload all the files in the package, eventually overwriting the old ones. Uninstalling or deactivating the plugin is not necessary.

An updater (inc/plugins/MyFacebookConnect/class_update.php) is included in the package which should handle everything for you. Make sure you upload this file as well. You will be asked to run the script.

There are some steps intentionally not included in the updater which you need to handle by yourself.

The updater does not add the myfbconnect_login_button template automatically. If you are upgrading from older versions, you must add it to your template sets manually. You can find the template HTML code in the /inc/plugins/MyFacebookConnect/templates/login_button.html file. On the contrary, the {$facebook_login} reference is automatically added, but since it relies on a search pattern, it may not work as expected. If you don't see the variable in your header_welcomeblock_guest template even after you have ran the upgrade script, add it manually wherever you feel like it's suitable.

If you have any questions, feel free to open a new thread in this forum.