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Messages: BookMooch Social Plugin for Facebook
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BookMooch plugin updated
As of a few days ago I updated the application to include some new features I put in to accommodate John's new recent books function call in the API. The recent books call is not ready yet, but what I had to do to solve the main screen getting too crowded (and I realized a lot of work has gone into features that are too subtle and small to be noticed easily), everything has been sorted into a 'tabbed interface'. There are now three tabs,  Bookshelf, Friends, Recent Books. In the short term, this has been done to make things more clear as to their intent, also to make some important features larger and to give room to provide clear help text up front where it can be easily accessed. If you get a chance, please give this new look a whirl and tell me what you think. My commitment to the goals of the community are largely feedback driven. Again, the application is more easily accessed from a bookmark, you should be able to put on your Facebook screen by accessing the 'Bookmark on Facebook' button in the bottom-right of the screen. If you don't have a bookmark, then you can get in using the Fan page at http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=318357593072
and by clicking on 'Go to application'. -Dan
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Dan Shields
13 years ago
no comments
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A new Facebook plugin is being tested
Hi, I'm the developer behind the new BookMooch plugin for Facebook, and I would really appreciate it if you tested out the software and told me what you think. Be honest, don't worry about hurting my feelings. The best way to make things better are through honesty and constructive criticism. To try it out, go to the fan page (which you can Like if you want to receive newsfeed updates when new code is put up): http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=318357593072 then click on the link 'Go to Application'. The plugin has been tested and runs well on Internet Explorer 8, Firefox, and Safari.
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Dan Shields
13 years ago
14 comments
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| (13 years ago) | bio:d4nshields wrote:
| | I do not store your credentials anywhere except on your own computer in a temporary storage location designed for this use. |
Thanks for the information and for clearing that up. It might be good if this was also explained, when the plugin asks for the BookMooch user id and password.
 Taneli T's  inventory (worldwide)
- Taneli T | | (13 years ago) | I wouldn't want to give your password to Facebook, and, neither would I want to assume responsibility for managing your password on any of my systems as well, so I do not store your credentials anywhere except on your own computer in a temporary storage location designed for this use. I also take the extra measure of obfuscating the credentials in case anyone is concerned about accidental disclosure, in case of forensic analysis of your hard drive.
- Dan Shields | | (13 years ago) | bio:d4nshields wrote:
| | The two main features requiring a member login are:
1) add books to your inventory
2) mooch books |
I see, ok. Those functions clearly do need user's password to work. However, could you clarify what exactly happens to the BookMooch id and password, when a user logs in using the plug-in? Is there a direct connection to BookMooch servers to authenticate the user once or does this information get stored someplace else (for example, to your server) and then used when needed (for example, when he's adding books to his inventory or mooching them)?
Taneli T's inventory (worldwide)
- Taneli T | | (13 years ago) | Ah yes, the popup problem. That popup is created by Facebook, it's part of Facebook's infrastructure and relatively inflexible in the way it works. I've been tweaking things here and there in an attempt to get better results on different browsers. Obviously with limited development time and budget for this, support for the most popular browsers has been implemented first. Thanks for the report.
As far as the username and password are concerned, I admit this is probably the most serious known issue with the BookMooch-Facebook integration. John and I have examined these issues from many, but not all, different perspectives. In a perfect world there would be no username/passwords for authentication here at all, rather the user would merely have to 'switch on' support for the connection from within the BookMooch member page. For now, I would consider login to be one of the areas that is under active testing.
If putting in your userid and password here is a concern, I would like to hear more about this.
The two main features requiring a member login are:
1) add books to your inventory
2) mooch books
Thanks for your comments.
Dan.
- Dan Shields | | (13 years ago) | Using Camino browser, I realized what the problem was: the Facebook application wanted to open a pop up window, which was very efficiently blocked by Safari. Maybe there could be a mention that you need to have a popup blocker temporarily off for the app to work? Or, better yet, show the next step inside the main window and thus not needing to show a popup at all.
However, now the application requires my BookMooch id and password, which is problematic since I'm in Facebook inside an application and not directly on the BookMooch site. I do not mean to sound harsh, but I don't like to give my BookMooch password away to strangers. How can I, from the perspective of a Facebook user, can be sure what happens to my BookMooch id and password after I fill them in?
What functions of this application there are that actually need my BookMooch password and could not be handled by my user id and api combination?
- Taneli T | | (13 years ago) | Dan Shields wrote:
| | For me, the problem went away if I held down the shift key and hit the reload button (the little arrowed circle to the right of the location bar). The plugin then worked the same as on other browsers after that. Are you seeing similar behavior? |
No, holding down the shift key and reloading the page did not alter the behaviour for me.
Taneli T's inventory (worldwide)
- Taneli T | | (13 years ago) | I've got limited Mac testing and debugging ability unfortunately, but I was able to reproduce this problem. For me, the problem went away if I held down the shift key and hit the reload button (the little arrowed circle to the right of the location bar). The plugin then worked the same as on other browsers after that. Are you seeing similar behavior?
- Dan Shields | | (13 years ago) | Hi, with Safari 5.0 (on a Mac), when I click the "Go to Application" button in Facebook, the page loads with a top banner ("Social Plug-In Facebook Edition") and the donate button, but there's no other content on the page. Taneli T
- Taneli T | | (13 years ago) | I just put up Release 91 of the BookMooch Social Plugin.
This is a big-fix release, addressing:
1) page reloading issues,
3) a fix for the plugin asking you to re-login too frequently, session timeout is now 10 days.
- Dan Shields | | (13 years ago) | I spent all day laboring in the hot sun disassembling and reassembling a large, wooden, 12-year-old second-hand swing-set for my girls' birthday present this year, and I am totally exhausted. It's all together now, and it looks great, however I did not spend as much time this weekend in front of a screen as I thought I originally was going to.
Earlier in the week I promised myself that I would release whatever new features for the Plugin were working reasonably in my test sandbox as of this evening (Sunday). The changes this week were two-fold:
1) many of you may remember when I first released the plugin there was no support for Internet Explorer. That has now been corrected. I am now running VirtualBox on my development system with a real installation of Windows XP and Internet Explorer 8. I'm hoping this is the most common configuration that most people will have.
2) I enhanced the 'Your friends who use BookMooch:' section. If you do not have not any Facebook friends who use BookMooch, it reminds you in this area to encourage your Facebook friends to begin to use BookMooch and the BookMooch Social Plugin through the process of adding books to your inventory. Adding books adds links to the newsfeed on Facebook that will assist your friends in a) knowing about the books that you are giving away, and b) registration of a BookMooch userid in the event that they do not already possess one. Looking back at the 'Your friends who use BookMooch' section though, once you have actual friends who use BookMooch, their profile pictures will appear in a small images under the heading. Clicking on one of the profile pics of your friends will immediately cause the main screen to be redrawn with a view of their inventory/wish-list. Clicking on another friend's profile pic will bring you to that other friend, and clicking on your own profile pic (top-left) will reset the view and bring it back to the normal 'Books you are giving away...' view.
These were both requested features, if you have any features that you would like to see in the application, please don't hesitate to post your ideas to the BookMooch forum and/or to the fan page (I check both).
- Dan Shields | | (13 years ago) | Okay everyone, got the IE cookie problem fixed. It's been released! 'r73' (release 73) is up.
See http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=318357593072
- Dan Shields | | (13 years ago) | re: Opera
@Rachel, thanks for helping out! I'm not sure about Opera because my only experience with it has been running Opera Mini on my iPhone, which seemed to have some problems with Facebook in general that prevented me from even launching the app. I guess the best thing to advise here is to give it a try and let me know how far you got.
Thanks!
Dan.
- Dan Shields | | (13 years ago) | Hi,
Changes to the plugin that are clearly 'bug fixes' I will try to fix and post as soon as possible. On the other hand, new features, great though they may be, always carry the possibility of adding new bugs, so I am using a more conservative testing policy, and trying to release new features on a weekly release cycle. I test new code in my own sandbox for the safety and sanity of users, of course. Once a new release is ready, I will make the announcement, including an official and unambiguous 'release number' to the Facebook Fan page: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=318357593072
If you are interested in testing the plugin, please go to the Fan page (and click the Like button), you'll start seeing postings announcing new code releases and bug fixes. Once there is an established rhythm, it will hopefully be more obvious what day to expect new features, and when to expect bug fixes to be posted.
Dan.
- Dan Shields | | (13 years ago) | Does it work with Opera? If so, I'll have a fiddle around with it and see if I find any bugs.
- Rachel |
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Starting a new forum
Hiya,
This sounded like a great idea,... only when I tried to start a new forum, every time, as soon as I'd filled in the required three sections and clicked "Create", a message would come up telling me to fill in the very sections I had just done ! Finally I gave up. Sometimes the particular language a computer system requires in order to operate is so obscure as to render the program almost useless. Any suggestions as to what might have gone wrong ? Cheers, Sombrio
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Sombrio
13 years ago
1 comment
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| (13 years ago) | Sombrio,
Are you having trouble with the facebook plugin, or with writing in the forums? If it's the forums, it might not be seen in this section (which is for the facebook plugin).
Cheers,
Jennifer
- Jennifer Tough |
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