Facebook has some of the best and brightest young people working for them, but somehow they’ve managed to provide some of the worst documentation for developers of their platform.
Due to lack of properly organized documentation, setting up a simple Facebook application can be a frustrating task (even with Google at your disposal). We’ve prepared this guide to get your Facebook application off the ground FAST.
Two things you’ll need before we proceed:
- A domain with an SSL certificate to satisfy Facebook’s mandatory secure connection.
- A marked up webpage that will act as your application. This is essentially a basic website that we will be embedding into an iFrame on Facebook. This should live in a directory on your secure server. You also need to ensure that you are loading the JavaScript SDK on your webpage.
Sign Up for Facebook Developer
The first step is signing up for a Facebook Developer Account. Here’s how:
- Sign up for Facebook. If you already have an account, you can skip this step.
- Visit the Facebook Developer website. Navigate to the apps tab on the developer toolbar (top right, next to your name).
- Facebook will ask you to install the Facebook Developer App. Click the blue “Go to App” button.
Create the App
Now that you’ve installed the developer tools, navigate back to the apps tab. Click the + Create New App button. Fill out the form with the basic app information.