This application allows a user to authenticate with their Facebook account in order to see a list of their friends.
Install Node.js 0.10.30 (optionally using nvm):
$ nvm install 0.10.30
$ nvm use 0.10.30
Install npm dependencies:
$ npm install
Install Bower 1.3.9:
$ npm install -g bower
Install Bower dependencies:
$ bower install
Register your application with Facebook at Facebook Developers and configure the application to have support for the following platforms under the Settings tab:
- Facebook Canvas (required for invitable friends API, see Issues and Workarounds below)
- Website
Under the App Details tab, make sure you set the category to "Games" (required for invitable friends API).
Copy the example environment variables and fill them in with correct values, including the Facebook App ID and App Secret from the Facebook Developers site.
$ cp .env-example .env
Run HTTP server:
$ npm start
Navigate to http://localhost:3000 in a browser.
This application violates the Facebook Open Graph API Terms of Service because they no longer (since v2) allow applications to enumerate the entire list of friends for a user. Thus, it is not advisable to use this proof of concept in a production application.
The workaround, as implemented in this application, is to register your application as a game and merge the results of the friends API (friends who are also using the application) with the results of the invitable friends API (friends who are not also using the application). Unfortunately, this means that you cannot provide a link directly to a friend's Facebook profile, because the user IDs provided by the invitable friends API are anonymized.