FaceBook feed dialog share options

Question

Some Background Info

As of Mar/Feb 2014, the Facebook sharer.php way of sharing content no longer accepts custom parameters. See response from a Facebook engineer.

It used to allow multiple parameters in this form:

http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?s=100
    &p[url]={url}
    &p[images][0]={img}
    &p[title]={title}
    &p[summary]={desc}

So you could override the title, image and description that facebook would scrape from the page, but it seems these are now ignored.

Instead, Facebook now favours the opengraph tags on the page.

So why is this a problem?

This is my scenario: I have a gallery page with multitple images. I have a lightbox that loads an image when clicked, and when the lightbox is shown, I also show share icons for all the major social networks, including facebook.

The facebook sharer url is built up using the above format, so I pass in the specific image together with the image caption. These values are now ignored.

Feed Dialog To The Rescue?

The Feed dialog method of sharing is now the preferred method, and it supports passing in custom images and captions. It works perfectly in my above gallery scenario. But it has a limitation: it does not allow you to share the content on a page you manage like the sharer.php does:

sharer.php share options

So my question is...

How can I get the Feed Dialog to work like the sharer.php and give the end-user the option to share to a group, friend's timeline or a page he/she manages?

You said that you were able to share friends timeline with sharer — Sahil Mittal
I still have no idea what you are saying. if you look at the above screenshot from the sharer, you will see the option to "share on a friend's timeline" — vinnie
The Feed dialog does not offer that option – only the to parameter, but with that you would have to build your own UI to have the user chose the target prior to calling the Feed dialog. // The whole thing would be much easier, if you actually had individual URLs for each of your pictures – that way, you could provide individual OG meta information under each URL easily. — CBroe

Sahil Mittal Sahil Mittal · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-30T18:33:55

But it has a limitation: it does not allow you to share the content on a page you manage like the sharer.php does

It incorrect statement. You can post anywhere using the Feed Dialog! You can use the to parameter and give it the concerned id where you want to share the feed.

For example

PS Facebook has introduces Graph API v2 today, and introduced new Share Dialogs over Feed Dialogs. I'm not share if that's to your significance but you can have a look.

FaceBook feed dialog share options

1 Answers