This example is concentrating more on twitter and facebook integrations with rails.

Rails has many more gems to post, manage the social pages. I would like to discuss about facebook & twitter integrations.

For managing the pages and apps in facebook, we have to create an account in the facebook. Signup a facebook account with http://www.facebook.com

After creating the facebook account, create a page by using this link

   https://www.facebook.com/pages/create

we must login to facebook developers page to get access token

   https://developers.facebook.com

• Select Application from the drop down in graph explorer tools, and select the get access token button, it prompt for permissions, select basic permissions and generate short access token.

     https://developers.facebook.com/tools/explorer

  

  

• Facebook provides debug token explorer, it displays info about Access Token, Open Graph Id. more about Debugger Tool

  

• We need to create an facebook app, for creating the app, go through -> Apps -> Create a New App in the facebook developers home page

  

• In the process of managing pages through the app, we need App ID & App Secret.

  

• By using the AppID, make a request to following address

  note: The loggedin user must be manage his own pages through dialog box.

   https://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id=746040337858519&display=popup&next=http://www.facebook.com

• It displays popup, select which page you want to manage it

  

• Then you make a request to get an 60 days token

     GET /oauth/access_token?
          grant_type=fb_exchange_token&
          client_id={app-id}&
          client_secret={app-secret}&
          fb_exchange_token={short-lived-token}

  • Example link:

     https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token?client_id=749040378850589&client_secret=650d69481ea9deded7bddfc02816c2fb&grant_type=fb_exchange_token&fb_exchange_token=CAAKlnDxRGdcBAPFw25K59XoAF6ZBm3FpNAZABqI6mQYAudH8XCnt4ZCB0gN7vR3pahx25gu1jp9jARwfIqReUdBYfnPL8QNhso1neCfyQeRR0t4AElurhVhRo6o1bI1AFOGedb4JVDDZCCRDfBafZC6jEsqWZCdhrKTrzhpZCrBwqNkkRTNJ1RXStCnmIVfB0UZD

  Response should like this

    access_token=CAAKlnDxRGdcBAI4gH2wJaFwjeeqEn3m0v1vGRlT8sP6cUKKwGp5oTokKrR8NerUw4PRSbxQltvZB6bFZBCbeEu1l0VYeraYxMZB81y24AiEapoaw7URZBe4Pz6WGL1ZCfdA1ZC8ThTK112TRvbQv7EyuJdItXH1bKtcIy2lrIV8t4Lt7lZCEgiZA&expires=5162446

• Require koala gem into Gemfile

   gem 'koala'

• By using the access token, we pick facebook graph object from koala

     #Picking the graph api object from kaola gem
     @graph = Koala::Facebook::API.new(@access_token)

• In koala gem ,we have methods to manage posts in facebook. so below snippet is for wall post

     #put_wall_post is method to post an article to the pages
      post_info = @graph.put_wall_post(post_title, {
      name: link_name, description: post_description, picture: image_url, link: page_link
    })

• At first, we have an twitter account to manage the tweets. for signup an account https://twitter.com/signup

• Ruby twitter gem to manage twitter accounts, require in Gemfile

   gem 'twitter'

• Managing the twitter accounts using OAuth based protocol, we need a privilliges to access twitter account, so for that we have to create an twitter app using twitter developers site

  Creating Twitter App

    https://apps.twitter.com/app/new
  

• Displaying the apps

  https://apps.twitter.com/
  

• Select an API Keys tab in home page of app, generate a new access token

• Configure twitter client

    @client = Twitter::REST::Client.new do |config|
      config.consumer_key        = "YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY"
      config.consumer_secret     = "YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET"
      config.access_token        = "YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN"
      config.access_token_secret = "YOUR_ACCESS_SECRET"
    end

• Using client object, post a tweet like this

    @client.update('First tweet')

  note: Twitter accept the tweet less than 140 characters, twitter need write permissioned access token for posting the tweet. for more about Twitter methods

• We spend a lot of time on posting to facebook, We think to design an sample app to make it easier facebook integrations with rails.

   git clone https://github.com/rdurgarao/facebook-twitter-posts-in-rails-example.git

It started on rails 3000 port

rails server

• Facebook wall Post

  • It displays a form with facebook fields as shown

  • Place an access token in the input field, else configure it in facebook controller initializer block -> app -> controllers -> facebook_controller -> initialize block

     def initialize
          #specify access_token here
          @access_token = 'X'
     end

  • Post your article by clicking on post button

  • After succesfull posting an article, you get success response, else exception thrown by facebook or koala gem , More about exceptions

  • Finally, the posted article in the facebook.

  

• Twitter tweet

  • Configure Twitter client in app -> controllers -> twitter_controller.rb -> initiliaze method config params

      @client = Twitter::REST::Client.new do |config|
            config.consumer_key = "ZKMBsV5ETf1erkMYdywTg"
            config.consumer_secret = "TsA0p3PWLcxc7CVmNBHJbhsOaeKs13BygsONgDQeM"
            config.access_token = "1835423847-psdbfLDsvjvBsApR3t0WvRI28C7QgStgeFabaHi"
            config.access_token_secret = "66aqNIqsFTlgDKRTdh0ZHrSKrplQKdjKMBodcsXzkGASU"
      end

  • Restart the server, if its already running

  • Make a request to localhost:3000

  • Placed a tweet in text area and click on tweet button

    

  • It displays success response or else exception message

  • Tweeted message is like this

    

• Facebook App verification

  • If you need to verify facebook application, follow these steps to get verified

  • Confirm your application is verified or not, with green circle in App Dashboard page, looks like

    

  • Enable the verification of Facebook App using follow steps

    • Check App status

    

    • Add your contact email to get verified

    

    • Now, Enable the app

    

    • Finally App is verified