Facebook Developers: FBML No Longer Active

It’s a new week and that means a new Operation Developer Love. Facebook is busy prepping for the launch of App Center, which should happen any day now, so there’s obviously not a lot going...
Facebook Developers: FBML No Longer Active
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  • It’s a new week and that means a new Operation Developer Love. Facebook is busy prepping for the launch of App Center, which should happen any day now, so there’s obviously not a lot going on. It is the first Wednesday of the month, however, so we get our first look at all the breaking changes going into effect for September.

    First, it should be noted that there have been a few breaking changes that went into effect Wednesday. The biggest one of course is the removal of FBML. If your app uses it, the app is not going to work anymore. You can easily migrate using “FBML Removal,” but Facebook understands that some of you may not be ready just yet. If you need to, you can disable the migration and re-enable FBML, but it will only last you for another month until July 5. After that point. it will be completely killed off.

    Another breaking change that went into effect was that STARTTLS must now be used when apps connect over the XMPP service. If the app is trying to connect over an unencrypted line, the communication request will be rejected.

    These new breaking changes will be going into effect on September 5 giving developers 90 days to stop using these features. You can start using the September 2012 Breaking Changes migration tool on June 13 to test out you apps.

    The first change is the removal of the Live Stream plugin. Facebook recommends the Comments Box plugin instead and encourages all developers to switch over as soon as possible. If you are just too lazy or like to see Facebook do work for you, they will automatically switch your app over to using the Comments Box plugin on September 5.

    The likes and votes properties will getting a name change starting in September as well. “Likes” will be known as “like_count” and “votes” will be known as “vote_count.” Be sure to update your code appropriately for Comments and QuestionOptions.

    If you use the admin.getAppProperties call, Facebook will now return an empty iOS Bundle ID as [ ]. Previously, it would return [” “]. It’s not a huge change, but it’s good to know so you’re not caught off guard.

    Another minor change will have Facebook returning the actual size, height and width of photos when using the photo_src FQL table. It used to return the dimensions of the bounding box.

    It’s noted that 178 bugs were reported over the last week and 54 of them were fixed. To see the full list of bug fixes, check out the Operation Developer Love blog post.

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