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I'm new to programming Facebook apps but I think I have the general idea down. I'm creating an app that allows users to sign up and select friends to automatically send a birthday message on their birthdays. I know how to grab users and their birthdays, but how do I go about going through my database everyday, grabbing the birthdays and friends, and posting to their walls? I imagine it would take a cron job of sorts but how do I get around the permissions this way? Also, I want to post from the app, not my user account. Do I need to create a user account just for the app?

Thanks all.

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1 Answer 1

You need the extended permissions offline_access and publish_stream to do what you are proposing.

Also research Facebook Platform Policies regarding prohibited actions such as filling the user message parameter, and how Facebook monitors user feedback to automatically ban applications that receive too many hides, blocks, spam reports, etc. Apps that abuse publish_stream and offline_access get shut down very quickly.

You do not need a user account just for the app.

And yes you need a way to run your program on a schedule if you don't want to have to remember to run it yourself every day. a cron job, a Windows Scheduled Task, or other scheduler will be required.

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We don't have offline_access permission anymore, then how can I send a post after the token has expired? There is a way to do that? –  Gustavo Straube Oct 12 '12 at 15:44
all you need is publish_stream and then use your app's access token (not a user access token) –  Pat James Oct 12 '12 at 15:47

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