Facebook Cookbook - Jay Goldman [27]
http://www.flickr.com/photos/splat/sets/981332/
http://veerle.duoh.com/blog/
http://www.31three.com/weblog/
http://www.qbn.com/
http://vectips.com/
An important tip that I can’t stress enough: don’t be afraid to join in the discussions of the sites you find! A big part of creativity and inspiration is sharing.
Finally, it’s very important to find the time to spend alone to let your creative process begin. If possible, find a place where you can avoid all the distractions of your normal everyday life. For me, this could be my home office or even a coffee shop in a neighborhood I don’t really know. The latter is especially effective for me, but everyone will find a different place that suits them best. Many of my best designs have begun on a napkin or back of a receipt! Good ideas wait for no man, so it’s really critical to get them down on paper as soon as they come. Try to learn to detail your creative ideas in ways that will help them make sense when you view them again later on.
Picasso said he could never have made any of his famous abstracts if he hadn’t spent so much time initially learning the ins and outs of well-applied artistic theories and styles. His most simplistic work was his best, but developing his ability to do it with such a developed personal style was part of his life’s work. The Web is much the same. Creative processing and learning to find inspiration is a road you must explore first, and then, in time, make your own. It’s something that has to be done consciously, in order to unravel the direction you will take as you grow, but you have to begin by learning to flex your own creativity muscle.
Chapter 3. Hello World
“Hello World” is the Citizen Kane of computer programs: it’s hailed as a classic by almost everyone, but seriously misunderstood the first time it’s tried. If you’ve ever learned a new programming language, the odds are pretty good that your first program was some variation on Hello World: just enough complexity to get a flavor for the environment and to fill you with satisfaction at seeing those beautiful 10 letters paint across the screen, which is what this chapter is all about. Time to get Facebook Platforming!
Installing the Facebook Developer App
Problem
How do I actually add an app to Facebook? How do I configure and manage my apps? Where are the stats?
Solution
It’s all about Facebook’s Developer app, which acts as a control panel for managing all of your apps, a portal into the Developer Discussion Board, a listing of News published by Facebook, and a Marketplace listing that shows Platform-related jobs available and developers looking for gigs. It’s also where you’ll add a new app to Facebook, so install it here: http://www.facebook.com/developers/.
Discussion
You’re going to spend a lot of time in this app, so it’s worth taking a quick look around. Figure 3-1 shows the app’s home page.
Figure 3-1. Facebook Developer app
Let’s take a quick tour of the major areas you’ll be interacting with:
Setup New Application
Starting in the top-right corner, you’ll see the all-important “Set Up New Application” button. That’s the key first step in adding a new app to Facebook, which we’ll cover a little later in this chapter.
My Applications
Immediately below that button, you’ll find a listing of all the applications that you’ve added, including the number of daily active users and fans of the app’s About Page.
Developer Status Feed
If you’re suddenly running into a problem that you didn’t have before, or you want a quick hit of what’s going on right now, check the Developer Status Feed list right under your applications. The Developers page pulls in the three most recent posts, but you can click through to the full list or subscribe to the RSS to stay absolutely up-to-date.
Discussion Board
To the left of