Visual Studio 2005 Express Developer Center > Home > Showcase > Facebook QuickStarts

Getting Started with the Facebook Developer Toolkit

Windows Forms Quickstart
Web Quickstart

Windows Forms Quickstart

Start a new Windows application project
- File–New–Project
- Windows application
  Visual C#
  
  Visual Basic
Add the FacebookService component from the toolbox to the Form's component tray.
Provide the API Key and Secret values.
Drag a FriendList from the toolbox onto the design surface for the form.
Hook up the Form Load event:
- Find Load in the Event list.
- In the property window, type Form_Load. Press Enter.
In the generated Form_Load method, set the Friends property of the FriendList control to the Collection returned by calling the GetFriends method of the FacebookService. As shown here:

Visual C#:
        privatevoid Form_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            friendList1.Friends = facebookService1.GetFriends();
        }

Visual Basic:
    PrivateOverloadsSub OnLoad()
        friendList1.Friends = facebookService1.GetFriends()
    EndSub
Press F5 to run the application.

Web Quickstart

In Visual Web Developer 2005 Express edition, start new web application project.
- File–New–Web site
  
  Visual C#:
  
  Visual Basic:
Switch to Design View of Default.aspx.
On Default.aspx, drag a friendlist from the toolbox.
Add the following code to the Default.aspx code file.

Configure the API key and secret.

Visual C#
publicpartialclass _Default : Page {
    Facebook.Components.FacebookService _fbService =
        new Facebook.Components.FacebookService();

    protectedvoid Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) {

        // ApplicationKey and Secret are acquired when you sign up for
        _fbService.ApplicationKey = "YOURKEYHERE";
        _fbService.Secret = "YOURSECRETHERE";

Visual Basic:
PartialPublicClass _Default
    Inherits Page
    Private _fbService As Facebook.Components.FacebookService = _
        New Facebook.Components.FacebookService()

    ProtectedSub Page_Load(ByVal sender AsObject, ByVal e As EventArgs)

        ' ApplicationKey and Secret are acquired when you sign up for
        _fbService.ApplicationKey = "YOURKEYHERE"
        _fbService.Secret = "YOURSECRETHERE"
Set the IsDesktopApplication property of the FacebookService component.

Visual C#:
_fbService.IsDesktopApplication = false;

Visual Basic:
_fbService.IsDesktopApplication = False

Check if we have already stored the Facebook session information or if the auth_token is in the query params. We will store what we know about the current user’s Facebook Session in a server-side variable. We will then check that variable to see if we already have established a Facebook session on behalf of the current user.

Visual C#:
        string sessionKey = Session["facebook_session_key"] asString;
        string userId = Session["facebook_userId"] asString;

        // When the user uses the facebook login page,
        // the redirect back here will will have the auth_token in the query params
        string authToken = Request.QueryString["auth_token"];

Visual Basic:
        Dim sessionKey AsString = TryCast(Session("facebook_session_key"), String)
        Dim userId AsString = TryCast(Session("facebook_userId"), String)

        ' When the user uses the facebook login page, the redirect
        ' back here will will have the auth_token in the query params
        Dim authToken AsString = Request.QueryString("auth_token")
If we have an established session, set it into our instance of the service.

Visual C#:
        if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(sessionKey)) {
            _fbService.SessionKey = sessionKey;
            _fbService.UserId = userId;
        }

Visual Basic:
        ' We have already established a session on behalf of this user
        If (NotString.IsNullOrEmpty(sessionKey)) Then
            _fbService.SessionKey = sessionKey
            _fbService.UserId = userId
If not, check if we have the auth_token in the query params. If we do, it means we just got called from the Facebook login page.

Visual C#:
        elseif (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(authToken)) {
            _fbService.CreateSession(authToken);
            Session["facebook_session_key"] = _fbService.SessionKey;
            Session["facebook_userId"] = _fbService.UserId;
            Session["facebook_session_expires"] = _fbService.SessionExpires;
        }

Visual Basic:
            ' This will be executed when facebook login redirects to our page
        ElseIf (NotString.IsNullOrEmpty(authToken)) Then
            _fbService.CreateSession(authToken)
            Session("facebook_session_key") = _fbService.SessionKey
            Session("facebook_userId") = _fbService.UserId
            Session("facebook_session_expires") = _fbService.SessionExpires
If neither, we need to redirect the user to the Facebook hosted login page.

Visual C#:
        else {
            Response.Redirect(@"http://www.facebook.com/login.php?api_key=" +
                _fbService.ApplicationKey + @"&v=1.0");
        }

Visual Basic:
        Else
            Response.Redirect("http://www.facebook.com/login.php?api_key=" & _
                _fbService.ApplicationKey & "&v=1.0")
        EndIf
Set the Friends property of the friendlist.

Visual C#:
        if (!IsPostBack) {
            // Use the FacebookService Component to populate Friends
            MyFriendList.Friends = _fbService.GetFriends();
        }

Visual Basic:
        If (Not IsPostBack) Then
            ' Use the FacebookService Component to populate Friends
            MyFriendList.Friends = _fbService.GetFriends()
        EndIf
Press F5 to run the application.