Tips for Creating JavaScript Apps on Facebook

Facebook is currently one of the most popular websites. Almost everyone interested in social networking is using this website to connect to old friends around the world or to create new contacts in their chosen industry. The popularity of this website is not just based on its ability to update others with your status.

Many people are using the website because of the additional small applications. These applications can be used for productivity, interact with other people or simply to have fun with various games. These applications were created by developers to earn, gain reputation or simply to help others.

The applications that can be implemented in the developers chosen programming language but JavaScript will always be there. This will be used through some restrictions created by the website.

If you're planning to create a Facebook application, remember these things:

• No autoload of JavaScript - I first notice that this rule might have been broken by Zynga (Mafia Wars, Farmville etc) but the data are actually loaded in Facebook and user action are still required before anything else will happen in the application.

• Use IE standards for CSS loading - This might sound a bit odd for JavaScript and Ajax based developers but Facebook is just playing it safe when it comes to accessibility. If you want your application to be used by most people, adapt the application with IE-based CSS. IE is still the most popular browser so majority of possible users will use IE to access the application.

• Use FBJS - Facebook JavaScript doesn't have any significant difference compared to regular JavaScript. This is implemented by Facebook as this is their way to protect their users from being attacked by an application. This practice is also used to monitor your activities in the application to prevent activities against their policies.

• Shorter requests - Probably the biggest challenge developers will face when creating an application for Facebook is the shorter timeout. Aside from shorter requests, these have to be accessed through Facebook proxies. This simply means developers have to create a powerful application with optimized coding or else data fetching will not be possible.

Customizing Facebook Pages with FBML

Developers can also create a unique page in Facebook through FBML or Facebook Markup Language. This is used in fan pages and this can be extended by adding interactive functions.

FBML can help developers create a page with additional interaction for users such as personalized information page or even another application. However, it has to stick to the rules that was previously implemented. The best thing about it is that developers can easily create a box and implement HTML-based interaction for users.

Creating application and pages for Facebook is very easy as long as the rules on the social website is followed. There could be limitations created by the restrictions but they functions are more than enough to aid developers in building an efficient application in Facebook. This very popular social networking site is a great platform for every JavaScript and Ajax based developer.