Facebook Developer Starter Guide

October 2008

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About this Guide
This Guide contains information about developing an application for Facebook, deploying the application on
a Morph AppSpace, and adding the application to Facebook.
Overview
Facebook is a social networking Web site, which allows free access to users wanting to join one or more
networking groups such as schools, companies, regions, or country of origin. Aside from being a social
network, Facebook launched the Facebook platform that provides a framework for software developers to
create applications that interact with core Facebook features.
A software developer who wants to deploy an application on the Facebook platform needs two things: an
application and a host. Your application must run independently on a host. However, ordinary hosting
schemes might not serve your application effectively. As your application requirements change, you have to
think about load balancing, high availability, backup, security, redundancy, and a host of other related
delivery and management things.
Morph AppSpace, an application delivery environment that runs within the Morph Application Platform 1 ,
provides you with a complete deployment, delivery, and management system for your Facebook application.
If you’re excited to create your first Facebook application, read the following sections. You will learn how to
develop a Facebook application using Ruby on Rails, how to deploy the application on the Morph AppSpace,
and how to add the application to Facebook.

1 The Morph Application Platform provides an end-to-end deployment and management environment for Web applications
that includes load balancing, high availability infrastructure, distributed computing, virtualized web stacks, databases,
managed backups, and monitoring. It also provides scalable resources and an environment that grow or shrink as demanded
by utilization, allowing developers to support customers yet avoid over-provisioning.

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Introducing the Morph AppSpace
The Morph AppSpace provides a complete deployment, delivery, and management system for Web
applications. It runs within the Morph Application Platform, equipping you with a fault-tolerant
environment that you can scale as your requirements change.
The Morph AppSpace is complete with load balancing, high-availability infrastructure, Morph
AppSpace cube2, integrated database, managed backups, monitoring, and self repair. All these free
you from the burden of installing and configuring servers. You only need to focus on building your
application and deploying it on a Morph AppSpace. Our well-experienced team will take care of the
rest. Subscriptions for the Morph AppSpace start at USD 1 a day for an entry level Web application. For
more information, visit www.mor.ph.

2A Morph AppSpace cube is a virtualized application compute environment that is managed by the Morph Application
Platform and part of each Morph AppSpace subscription. Each Morph AppSpace cube is a self-contained environment for
running a specific application. The Morph AppSpace cube for Rails includes Mongrel and Nginx.

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Let's take a look at the technology behind the Morph AppSpace:
Deployment
When you deploy your application to the Morph AppSpace, your code is securely transferred to
Amazon S3. Our system fetches the new upload and deploys it automatically to your Morph
AppSpace subscription’s application servers. If some migrations are not applied, we run them for
you so that your database gets automatically updated. Within minutes, your application is up and
running. We even keep multiple versions of your deployed application, just in case you need to
revert to a previous version.
Delivery
The Morph Application Platform’s fault-tolerant environment provides an end-to-end enterprise-
quality solution. Intelligent load balancers ensure that incoming traffic is properly routed to the
application server with the least load. Firewalls protect the environment. Web delivery stacks and
application servers are specifically tuned to optimize the performance of applications. Our system
administrators constantly monitor, update, patch, and manage each component of the
infrastructure. We also created a special library that allows you to leverage a fast cache system
directly from Amazon S3. Our multi-tenant API allows your applications to support multiple themes
and data segregation.
Management
The Morph Application Platform streamlines the way you manage your application. Our
automated monitoring system keeps an eye on the servers, services, and applications, and alerts
us to any potential issues. As a developer, you can view real-time statistics for your application,
including CPU and memory utilization. In a click of a button, you can increase your application’s
resources to meet the needs of your visitors. You can directly manage your database, view your
application’s logs, and execute rake tasks. You totally have control of your application.

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Developing a Facebook Application using Ruby on Rails
In this section, we will create a simple Rails application without any Facebook tools and references.

Note: The following steps assume that you have prior knowledge and experience in using Ruby
on Rails. It is also assumed that you have installed Ruby on Rails on your machine.

As an example, let’s develop the MakePoem application. The MakePoem application is a collaborative
poem writing application. This application allows Facebook users to add the application, create a
poem project that invites friends to write, invites other Facebook users to add the application, and so
on.
The following lists the easy steps to develop the MakePoem application:

1. In the command console, type the following:

$ rails makepoem
$ cd makepoem
2. Create models for the application. Type ruby script/generate
model poem.
3. Create the application’s database. If you want to use PostgreSQL, type
the following in the command console:
$ psql -U postgres
=# create database makepoem;
4. Configure database.yml to point to the database. If you use PostgreSQL, you can
follow this example:
production:
adapter: postgresql
database: makepoem
username: postgres
host: localhost
5. Create migrations for the database. Execute migrations by typing the following:
$ rake db:migrate
6. Let’s create the application’s controller. Type this:
$ ruby script/generate controller home

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7. We need to change the routes of the application. To do this, access config/routes.rb and
add these lines:
map.connect '', :controller => 'home', :action => 'index'
# Install the default routes as the lowest priority.
map.connect ':controller/:action/:id'
map.connect ':controller/:action/:id.:format'
8. Let’s add the view for the application. In the app/views/home directory, create the
index.rhtml file.
<html>

<head>

<title>MakePoem Home</title>
</head>

<body>
<h1>MakePoem</h1>
<h2>The MakePoem application is a collaborative poem writing
application. This application allows Facebook users to add the
application, create a poem project
that invites friends to write, and invites other
Facebook users to add the application.</h2>

</body>
</html>
9. Delete the index.html file from the public directory.
10. In the command console, type $ script/server.
11. Access http://0.0.0.0:3000/. You will see an application such as this:

MakePoem

The MakePoem application is a collaborative poem writing application. This

application allows Facebook users to add the application, create a poem project that
invites friends to write and invites other Facebook users to add the application.

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Adding the Facebook Gems on the Rails application
Since we now have a running Rails application, let’s “Facebook” it. We will use the facebooker (0.9.5)
gem and its pre-requisite, the json (1.1.2) gem.
Perform the following steps:

1. Let’s install the gem needed for the development of the application. In the command console,
type:
$ sudo gem install facebooker

$ cd makepoem

$ script/plugin install http://facebooker.rubyforge.org/svn/

trunk/facebooker
Note: You might also need to install the json(1.1.2) gem.
2. Set up your Facebook Developer account. Go to http://www.facebook.com/developers/.

Note: This assumes that you have already signed up a Facebook account.
3. From your Facebook Developer application, click Set Up New Application. This displays:

• Type the Application Name. Base on the example, enter MakePoem.

• Type the Callback URL. This is the base URL of your server or host.

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 • Type the Canvas Page URL. Users of the application will see this path on their browser.

Note: After setting up your application, Facebook automatically generates the API key and the
Secret key. Click on your application to see the generated keys.

4. Set up the facebooker environment via RAILS_ROOT/config/facebooker.yml. Enter the

Callback URL and Canvas Page Name that you specified on your Facebook application settings.
# File: config/facebooker-mock.yml
# The api key, secret key, and canvas page name are required to
get started
# Your callback url in Facebook should be set to http://
public_host:public_port
development:
api_key: 1234567891011121314151617181920a
secret_key: XXXXXXXXXXXXX
canvas_page_name: makepoem
callback_url: http://makepoem.morphexchange.com
test:
api_key: 1234567891011121314151617181920a
secret_key: XXXXXXXXXXXXX
canvas_page_name: makepoem
production:
api_key: 1234567891011121314151617181920a
secret_key: XXXXXXXXXXXXX
canvas_page_name: makepoem

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5. Open the home_controller.rb file. Add this line:
‘ensure_authenticated_to_facebook’

Note: This line adds a before_filter to the controller.

6. Check in the MakePoem application’s code to a source code control repository such as SVN.

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Deploying the MakePoem application on the Morph AppSpace
The MakePoem application is ready for Facebook. Let’s deploy and run the MakePoem application on
the Morph AppSpace.
Follow these easy steps:
1. Login to your Morph Control Panel account. If you do not have an account, visit www.mor.ph.
2. From your Morph Control Panel Subscription page, create a new subscription by clicking New
Subscription.

3. Fill in the required fields. The Subscription Name must be unique.

4. Click Save to create your new Morph AppSpace subscription.

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5. Select your newly added subscription widget. If your application needs a database, click Create
Database.

6. Download the Capistrano file from the subscription widget. Save this file to your application’s root
directory.

Note: We recommend that you commit the Capistrano file to your SVN repository or to the
version control system you are using.

7. Use a text editor to open the morph_deploy.rb file. Replace the set:repository line with
your version control system.
Example: set :repository, ‘https://dev.myapp.com/repos/ruby/trunk/testing/
makepoem’
8. Upload and deploy your application on the Morph AppSpace. In the command console, type cap
-f morph_deploy.rb morph:deploy (if you saved morph_deploy.rb in another directory,
change this command accordingly).

Note: If you are using a version control system other than Subversion, perform the following:
* If you’re using git:
cap -f morph_deploy.rb -s scm=git -s deploy_via=checkout
morph:deploy

* If you’re using Mercurial with a local repository:

cap -f morph_deploy.rb -s scm=mercurial -s deploy_via=checkout
-s repository=. morph:deploy

* If you’re using a local Bazaar repository:

cap -f morph_deploy.rb -s scm=bzr -s repository=’’ morph:deploy

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9. Once the command has finished, wait for a few minutes (while your application is being initialized)
and then in a browser go to <your_app>.morphexchange.com. The window displays this:

For more information about the Morph AppSpace, refer to the Rails Developers’ Cookbook.

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Morph Labs is the leading provider of Platform as a Service (PaaS) that virtualizes the application
environment through the use of open source technologies to simplify the deployment, delivery, and
management of web based applications.

Morph Labs uses virtual infrastructures including Amazon Web Services to provide a truly elastic
environment for web applications that can be instantly provisioned and seamlessly scaled.

Morph Labs is a global company with headquarters in Cebu City, Philippines with additional
in-country operations in Manila along with Los Angeles, California and Portland, Oregon in the U.S.A.

www.mor.ph

World Headquarters
Unit 1A, Asiatown IT Park,
Lahug, Cebu City 6000
Philippines

Worldwide Inquiries
[email protected]
www.mor.ph

Copyright 2008, Morphlabs, Inc. All rights reserved.

This document is provided for information purposes only
and the contents herein are subject to change without notice.
This document is not warranted to be error-free, nor subject
to any other warranties or conditions, whether expressed orally
or implied in law, including implied warranties and conditions of
merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. We disclaim
any liability with respect to this document and no contractual
obligations are formed either directly or indirectly by this document.
Morph, Morph Application Platform, Morph AppSpace, and
Simplify Innovation are registered trademarks of Morphlabs, Inc.
Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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