Chapter 1, Getting Started with Flash and Facebook: This chapter deals with downloading the Facebook ActionScript 3 SDK, registering a new Application on Facebook.com, getting your Flash Builder development environment set up, and getting ready to start working with the Facebook APIs.

Chapter 2, Authenticating with Facebook: Our application can't do much unless it's first authenticated with Facebook, so this chapter covers logging in, logging out, and tapping into existing Facebook sessions, for both Flash Player and AIR-based projects.

Chapter 3, Working with Facebook Permissions: Even authenticated, our application can't do much without the correct permissions, so this chapter covers processes, tactics, and strategies for working with and requesting those Extended Permissions for Facebook users.

Chapter 4, Reading and Writing Data with the Graph API: A generalized introduction to working with the core Graph API, including retrieving specific objects, multiple objects, and object connections; searching for data, limiting and paging results; and an introduction to creating and managing data with the Graph API.

Chapter 5, Loading Data with FQL: FQL is the SQL-like syntax for retrieving data from Facebook, and with it we can retrieve far more specific data than we can with the Graph API, including data that is unavailable via the Graph API.

Chapter 6, Facebook News Feeds and Status Updates: In this chapter, we look at loading Facebook News and Profile Feeds, creating new Status updates and Links, and adding custom actions to links to help promote your Facebook application.

Chapter 7, Comments and "Like this": Following on from the previous chapter, we look at loading, creating, and deleting Comments for Graph API objects, and the same for 'Likes', with both Graph API objects and web URLs.

Chapter 8, Working with Photos, Albums, and Tags: In this chapter, we'll load Photos from the Graph API—both photos of the current user, and photos from the current user. We display these images and overlay Facebook tagging information, and use the Flash Player to upload new images on the user's behalf.

Chapter 9, Working with Groups and Events: In this chapter, we retrieve Facebook Group and Event information, locate them on a Map, create new Events, and respond to Event invitations on the user's behalf.

Chapter 10, Checkins with Facebook Places: In this chapter, we download and integrate the Google Maps components and use them to plot Checkins and Facebook Places. We work with the Geolocation capabilities of HTML5, and use them to search for nearby Facebook Places and create new Checkins.

Chapter 11, Bridging the Flash and Application Gap: Finally, we'll look to improve the integration between your application and Facebook—imitate the Facebook.com website interface, use native dialogs to bypass the need for Extended Permissions, and develop a new class to simplify the authentication and permissions management for our application.

This cookbook is targeted towards those with at least a basic understanding of the Flash Builder IDE and the Flex framework. No prior knowledge of the Facebook APIs is assumed or required. If you want to start building Flash Facebook apps quickly and effectively this is the book for you.

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: "Our user interface should include two Button components—login_btn and logout_btn."

A block of code is set as follows:

function tryRequest():void
{
var data:Object = new Object();
data.message = "Hello world!";
Facebook.postData("/me/feed", onPostStatusCallback, data);
}

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

<s:Button buttonMode="true"
click="requestThePermissions()"
enabled="false" height="32" id="request_btn"
label="Request Permissions" width="100%" />

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

SELECT x
FROM page
WHERE page_id = 19292868552

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "We should update the user interface to initially disable the Request Permissions and Post status message buttons".

Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book—what you liked or may have disliked. Reader feedback is important for us to develop titles that you really get the most out of.

To send us general feedback, simply send an e-mail to <[email protected]>, and mention the book title via the subject of your message.

If there is a book that you need and would like to see us publish, please send us a note in the SUGGEST A TITLE form on www.packtpub.com or e-mail <[email protected]>.

If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide on www.packtpub.com/authors.

Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.

You can download the example code files for all Packt books you have purchased from your account at http://www.PacktPub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.PacktPub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.