Facebook CLI

Discover new Facebook functionality from the command line.

Demo

Install

gem install meetup-cli (might require sudo)

Facebook configuration

To interact with the Facebook API you must create and configure a new Facebook application for your personal use.

• Go to https://developers.facebook.com/apps and click "Add a New App"
• Go to the "Settings" tab
  • Click "Add Platform"
  • Select "Website"
  • Set "Site URL" to http://localhost
  • Add localhost to the "App Domains"
  • Click "Save Changes"
• Go to the "App Review" tab
  • Flip the switch that says "Your app is in development and unavailable to the public."
  • Click "Confirm" to make your app live (why?)
• Go to the "Dashboard" tab

  • Under "App Secret" click "Show" to reveal your app secret

  • Open a terminal and save your App ID and App Secret by running:
    

    facebook-cli config --appid=<app-id> --appsecret=<app-secret>
    

See: detailed instructions with screenshots

Logging in

Once configured, you must log into Facebook with your credentials to authorize facebook-cli to interact with your profile.

• Open a terminal
  • Run facebook-cli login
  • Open the URL in a web browser, and log into your Facebook account if prompted
  • Click "Continue" to approve the permissions
  • Select the scope of your audience for any posts you publish using this application (read more)
  • Click "Ok" to continue
  • Close the browser tab

See: detailed instructions with screenshots

Run

facebook-cli login
facebook-cli likes

Commands

Running facebook-cli help shows the list of available commands:

COMMANDS
    api        - Make a Facebook API request
    config     - Save Facebook application ID and secret
    event      - Show event details
    events     - List your upcoming events
    feed       - List the posts on your profile
    friends    - List the people you are friends with (some limitations)
    help       - Shows a list of commands or help for one command
    likes      - List the pages you have 'Liked'
    links      - Some useful URLs
    login      - Log into Facebook and receive an access token
    logout     - Deauthorize your access token
    me         - Show your profile information
    pastevents - List your past events
    photos     - List photos you have uploaded
    photosof   - List photos you are tagged in
    post       - Post a message or image to your timeline
    postlink   - Post a link to your timeline
    postvideo  - Post a video to your timeline
    videos     - List videos you have uploaded
    videosof   - List videos you are tagged in

Running facebook-cli help <command> may reveal more details.

Converting output to HTML

The output can easily be converted to an HTML document using a Markdown renderer. For example, with Pandoc:

facebook-cli likes | pandoc -s -f markdown_github > likes.html

Why can't I...?

Facebook has removed a large portion of their Graph API starting with version 2.0. Niraj Shah has done a fantastic job documenting the cutbacks and their implications in these blog posts:

• Facebook API: Graph API v2.4 Released, Removes Groups, Notifications and Stream Permissions
• Facebook Announces Graph API v2.3, More Deprecations
• Facebook API: Getting Friends Using Graph API 2.0 and PHP SDK 4.0.x

In an article published in October, 2012, Facebook developer Henry Zhang wrote:

Post to friends wall via the API generate a high levels of negative user feedback, including “Hides” and “Mark as Spam" and so we are removing it from the API. If you want to allow people to post to their friend’s timeline from your app, you can invoke the feed dialog.

With so much functionality removed, it's not possible to build a full-featured interface to Facebook through the API.

If you can get a feature to work, please contribute.

Development

Install dependencies with Bundler:

gem install bundler
bundle install

Please read the guide on how to contribute.

Other applications

• fb-messenger-cli
• Messenger for Desktop

License

ISC