jwFacebook Comments Plugin

With the Facebook Connect API there comes a new and more viral method to let users comment on your Joomla website. Enter the Facebook Comments system!

This is a simple Plugin written to append to the end of the article view in Joomla. All you need to supply is the API Key for your app, the path to xd_receiver (which I have supplied), and the location of the CSS file you would like to use to style it up a little!

Installs in a few minutes, and can save you a ton of bandwidth, SQL processing power and give your site the ability to go viral so much easily!

Updates:

5th March 2009 - An update for IE7 compatibility relating to the object has been added. This fix will append the required Facebook doctype into your existing template at runtime. No modifications are required to install the plugin.

If you are upgrading, please overwrite your jwfbcomment.php in /plugins/content/ with the one in the install_plugin.zip file.

20th March 2009 - Updated to take into account allowed Categories and Sections (this is a little flaky). And also added support for turning off jwFacebook Comments on a page by page basis.

Turn off Facebook Comments = {jwfbcomments-off}

23rd June 2009 - Updated the allowed categories and sections code and updated the logic behind it. Runs far more efficiently and more robustly than the previous version.


BUG FOUND: There is a known bug where a different domain name i.e (www.jwarlock.com vs jwarlock.com) will load different page comments. I recommend using a set domain (i.e htaccess redirect www. to .)

Report

bylintang on October 24, 2009
great job for this plugin, but not work in blog layout
Owner's reply

updates are coming to allow you to use the plugin with any layout, and with a little jQuery or Mootools you should be able to prevent the plugin from overcrowding your layouts.

See the jwarlock.com implementation I have done with help of jQuery and a lightbox effect.

bypabloapico on October 2, 2009
Thanks for your contribution.
The extension is perfect except for not being able to be shown in blog_items. It only appears in article default layout and i need it in category-blog layout.
I wouldn't mind to donate but the plugin is suposed to be fired whenever a full article is shown.. and that should include blog items!
I played around with this extension and think this is a really great one, especially for marketing reasons, because comments appear also on the Facebook Profile, which in return attracts more users.

However, there is one important limitation which prevents me (and probably others) to use it: The width the comment field can't be adjusted. This can mess up the whole template in case a colum is to narrow.
Owner's reply

Hi,

Thanks for the review :)
The width of the comment field is controllable via the CSS file you can attach to the plugin. (Keep in mind the URL to the CSS file is supposed to be absolute too).

The CSS file will allow you to change the colors of any targettable element in the iframe output which is being piped back from the facebook FMBL engine.

For example. Adding the following rule to the CSS file which you attach to the comments window would add a red 1 pixel border around the textarea control.

div.composer div.UIContentBox div div div input.DOMControl_placeholder{border:1px solid red;}

byRogant on July 1, 2009
Great Job,
but I could dont have configure
Owner's reply

Hi Rogant,

The configuration at the moment is only available in the plugin's settings page. If you have downloaded the latest version then that version will allow better control of Category and Sections whitelisting.

Thanks for the review :)

bycurrojim on June 9, 2009
Can't adapt to my web.
The style. css fails, there is no way to adapt.
The option to activate the sections and categories dont run well, ever all is activated.

I do not know if the problem is not compatibility of my web.

Good job
bynoartclub on March 9, 2009
good plugin but not use for urls in other languages
Owner's reply

hi noartclub,
Could you please email me with an example of what URLs you are experiencing problems with?
I'll see if there is something I can do with it.

bydharam on March 2, 2009
Thanks Adam, I have decided to signup for this forum because I want to tell you "Superb job"
Owner's reply

Thanks dharam,
It is good to see another member here, and more flattering to know you joined because of this extension.

byn1gh7r4v3n on February 28, 2009
Hi, Very nice! but maybe you can tell people that they have to add - xmlns:fb="http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml" - in the html tag of their template. I discoverd that without this tag the plugin doesnt work in internet explorer (i use ie7) And i still need to figure out how to make the commentarea look different with a css file, but i will surely find that out too. Tnx a lot!
Owner's reply

Hi,

Thanks for pointing this one out. The IE doctype is most certainly important, and I am working on a fix for that one that I will hope to have ready sometime in the next 48 hours.

The CSS file is available at (http://www.jwarlock.com/media/wall.css) and it has a breakdown of 95% of the CSS rules you can apply styles to.

I hope that helps out some.

byCodestream on February 27, 2009
This is a great plugin. Got it working pretty quickly after handling the basic settings on facebook. Having more control over which Joomla sections/categories the plugin is active in would be a great next step.
Super Job Adam!
Owner's reply

I will be updating this in a few days, as well as releasing a few more Facebook related modules.

byogormask on February 26, 2009
When the FB Connect comment "widget" came out the other night I spent an hour trying to install it to my website. It did work but this would have saved a lot of time and energy. I am glad someone has done the work for everyone. I can't comment as to this working but it looks good on the site demo.

Do you have any insight as to getting the full Facebook API working on a Joomla! site? No one has done this yet.

Thanks for the good work so far!