2

What I want to do:

I am trying to make a simple program that posts 5-10 statuses, at a time, on a page's wall. The post to the page will have to be done under the name of the page.

I've read tons of badly written Facebook Developers documentation and I'm reaching the point of confusion where I don't even know what questions to ask. So her I am.

My code so far:

I manually got the Page Access token manually, by this method:

  1. Go to https://developers.facebook.com/tools/explorer
  2. At the GET request form, down there, fill in me/accounts
  3. You'll get a Javascript representation of your basic user data. Find the page you want.
  4. Note the access_token and id fields, we're going to use them in the code below.

Thus, after getting the page Access token manually (And the ID of the page, of course)

import com.restfb.DefaultFacebookClient;
import com.restfb.FacebookClient;
import com.restfb.Parameter;
import com.restfb.exception.FacebookException;
import com.restfb.types.FacebookType;
import com.restfb.types.Page;
import com.restfb.types.User;

/**
 *
 * @author dsfounis
 */
public class FacebookConnector {

    /* Variables */
    private final String pageAccessToken = "GOT_THIS_FROM_THE_METHOD_ABOVE";
    private final String pageID = "THIS_TOO";
    private FacebookClient fbClient;
    private User myuser = null;    //Store references to myr user and page
    private Page mypage = null;    //for later use. In this question's context, these
                                   //references are useless.
    private int counter = 0;

    public FacebookConnector() {
        try {

            fbClient = new DefaultFacebookClient(pageAccessToken);
            myuser = fbClient.fetchObject("me", User.class);
            mypage = fbClient.fetchObject(pageID, Page.class);
            counter = 0;
        } catch (FacebookException ex) {     //So that you can see what went wrong
            ex.printStackTrace(System.err);  //in case you did anything incorrectly
        }
    }

    public void makeTestPost() {
        fbClient.publish(pageID + "/feed", FacebookType.class, Parameter.with("message", Integer.toString(counter) + ": Hello, facebook World!"));
        counter++;
    }

}

The problem:

The code above works. The thing is, it works temporarily. The page access token that I get has an expiration time of one hour, and I need to manually go through the process of obtaining it, every time that I run the program. What is the point of automating a process if I keep some aspects of it manual?

So I have to ask you: Can I do the process above programmatically, and obtain a fresh page access token at program launch?

Can I, maybe, use a better API to do something as simple as just post a couple of things on a Page's wall, every day?

My application is a console one, and I would like to stay away from implementing needless Logins, even though if you tell me that it is needed, it's going to be a bother I'll have to go through.

As a note: I've got the application registered in Facebook Developers, albeit only as a basic app. To get more permissions, I need to show proof of Facebook Login implementation, and as I say in the title, it's something I'll have to avoid.

Dimitris Sfounis
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1 Answers1

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There is no automatic process to obtain an access token. If there was, it will defeat the whole purpose of the OAuth flow. For pet projects and tests it's okay to use the Graph API Explorer but for public applications involving users it is mandatory that the user manually selects the login dialog.

Under your current scenario you can extend the user token using the method mentioned here https://developers.facebook.com/docs/roadmap/completed-changes/offline-access-removal/

Scenario 5: Page Access Tokens

When a user grants an app the manage_pages permission, the app is able to obtain page access tokens for pages that the user administers by querying the [User ID]/accounts Graph API endpoint. With the migration enabled, when using a short-lived user access token to query this endpoint, the page access tokens obtained are short-lived as well.

Exchange the short-lived user access token for a long-lived access token using the endpoint and steps explained earlier. 

https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token?             
    client_id=APP_ID&
    client_secret=APP_SECRET&
    grant_type=fb_exchange_token&
    fb_exchange_token=EXISTING_ACCESS_TOKEN

By using a long-lived user access token, querying the [User ID]/accounts endpoint will now provide page access tokens that do not expire for pages that a user manages. This will also apply when querying with a non-expiring user access token obtained through the deprecated offline_access permission.

A simple program used only by the owner of the application does not need approval from Facebook.

e.g. https://www.facebook.com/phwdbot

phwd
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