Facebook Connect & Cluboholic.com
by Kyriakos on May.08, 2009, under Cluboholic.com Updates
Just finished working on Facebook Connect for cluboholic.com. Its a bit overdue, had it in the works for quite some time now but unfortunately it took me a lot longer than I expected.
For those who haven’t heard what Facebook connect is yet, its basically a way of getting users who are already signed up on Facebook to have access as registered users on third party websites, and in this case on Cluboholic.com. Of course it doesn’t just end there, there’s a lot more to it; for example, as a user you can see which of your facebook friends are cluboholic members and what they are doing on the site, have your avatar change as you change your photo on facebook, post updates from cluboholic.com on you facebook wall etc. There’s endless possibilities but for now only the basic connectivity functionality is there.
You’ll notice in the forum the 
buttons. There’s two possibilities, if you are not already registered to cluboholic.com, you have to click on the button, and a facebook-style popup will show up explaining that you have to login to facebook (or just connect if already logged in). Then you’ll be forwarded to a new page where you are given two options, to either become a user of cluboholic.com with your full name as it is on facebook or with a nickname that you can enter. Then you have to enter a password that you will be using with cluboholic.com in case you want to login indenpentandly from facebook (note that even though it can be it doesn’t have to be the same as your facebook password). Thats all, you’re done, click Connect and you’ll be able to use all cluboholic.com’s registered user features as long as you’re logged into facebook.
If you’re already a registered user of cluboholic.com and your email address is the same on both sites then you can link the accounts together and whenever you visit cluboholic.com while logged in on facebook you’ll be automatically logged in here automatically. The benefit of this is not obvious for now but it will be as soon as more facebook related features get implemented.
The whole system can be considered to be in Beta so if you encounter any problems please let me know!
For anyone who might be interested in the more technical stuff:
Cluboholic.com’s user system is based around its PHPBB3 forum, one of the most popular forum systems available but unfortunately lacks Facebook Connect functionality. After some googling around I discovered that till now no one managed or tried to get Facebook Connect to work with PHPBB3 and yet while there’s been a lot requests for it. This is what basically caused the delay in implementing Facebook Connect on cluboholic.com. The main issue when I’m working on things like this is to ensure that any changes made to the current system won’t break future upgrades which means most work has to be done externally. The way it is done now, absolutely no changes where made to the PHPBB database, and everything was done with changes to two template files and the addition of one more include on the main page files of PHPBB. Later if i have the time i’ll post here full info of how its done cause i’m sure there’s people out there who’d like to have it too.
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June 24th, 2009 on 12:08 pm
As a visitor to Cluboholic for a while & b4 I joined up to FB now that both can connect between each other I can post wthout having to sign in again like now. FB & other social sites will be doing this a lot more in the future so it’s good to get ahead bedfore the rest.
June 24th, 2009 on 1:26 pm
FB seems to be the most popular social networking site in Cyprus thats the reason i went for connectivity with facebook rather than anything else.
June 27th, 2009 on 1:27 pm
Hey there, do you mind writing a tutorial or post up a full mod on how you do it? The entire phpBB3 is waiting for the mod and it seems like you’re the only one who can make it real.
This is one of the many Facebook Connect mod request thread - http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=1610005
Awaiting your response.
June 27th, 2009 on 5:16 pm
I cannot view any boards after logging in using the account created using FB connect. And I cannot logout, it says:
“You were not logged out, as the request did not match your session. Please contact the board administrator if you continue to experience problems.”
June 27th, 2009 on 5:52 pm
idem
June 28th, 2009 on 2:28 am
Like “vincent-c” I, too, am waiting for a tutorial on how to incorporate FB Connect into phpbb3. So far you seem to be the only site I can find that has any success with this.
A step by step guide would be very helpful to many of us phpbb3 users. Thanks!
June 29th, 2009 on 2:25 pm
Could you please, please please give us any info on how to integrate facebook users and phpbb3
June 29th, 2009 on 4:44 pm
Its not working. I tried clicking it after making an account. Its giving me an error. I think you need to have the connect url pointing to your forums
June 29th, 2009 on 5:31 pm
wow.. there’s more demand for this than i thought, i even received emails from people offering money for it.
anyway its working almost perfectly, there’s a few glitches here and there (sometimes it keeps reloading etc). unfortunately i dont have the time to turn this into a proper mod for phpbb3 but what i can do is give out all the files that i used / changed with a short description on how to install it on your board. after that i guess all it takes is someone with the basic php skills and a lot of spare time for it to be perfected.
June 29th, 2009 on 8:41 pm
I actually followed the tutorial here in French (http://mathedit.free.fr/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=130) using Google Translate, and I got it done somewhat. However it’s not a complete MOD and all it do is to link any existing forum account to their FB account. Nothing more than that.
Hopefully I can continue from there to make it able to register accounts using their FB accounts, just like how it works on Cluboholic.
Btw, I can now see the boards already. What did you do?
Awaiting your MOD or tutorial. If I can struggle trough the French tutorial, I guess it wouldn’t be too difficult to follow yours.
June 29th, 2009 on 10:23 pm
I tried the French tutorial as well, vincent-c, but it’s not as good as the cluboholic one that allows new users to register using facebook.
Thanks for the response Kyriakos. I look forward to your tutorial!
June 30th, 2009 on 8:19 pm
Hopefully I can upgrade the French mod to the one on Cluboholic easily
July 14th, 2009 on 7:15 pm
Vincent-C or Kyriakos-
Any timetable on when you’ll have a tutorial up for FB Connect on phpbb3?
Sorry to hassle you, but this feature would be extremely helpful.
Thanks!
September 2nd, 2009 on 7:43 pm
Vincent-C please, can you tell how to upgrade for here: http://mathedit.free.fr/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=130 to cluboholic!!
Thanks so much!