The simple concept behind WP-FB AutoConnect is to offer an easy-to-use widget that lets readers login to your blog with either their Facebook account or local Wordpress credentials. Although many "Facebook Connect" plugins do exist, most of them are either overly complex and difficult to customize, or fail to provide a seamless experience for new visitors. I wrote this plugin to provide what the others didn't:
- Full support for both Wordpress and Buddypress.
- No user interaction is required - the login process is transparent to new and returning users alike.
- Existing users who connect with FB retain the same local user accounts as before (matched via e-mail).
- New visitors will be given new user accounts, which can be retained even if you remove the plugin.
- Facebook profile pictures can be used as avatars.
- No contact with the Facebook API after the login completes - so no slow pageloads.
- No 3rd party services: your site talks directly to Facebook, through an app created and owned by you.
- Won't bloat your database with duplicate user accounts, extra fields, or unnecessary complications.
- Custom logging options can notify you whenever someone connects with Facebook.
- A powerful set of hooks and filters allow developers to easily tailor the login process to their personal needs: redirect to a custom page, fill xProfile data with information from Facebook, setup permissions based on social connections, and more.
- Fully HTML/CSS valid.
- Download the latest version from here, unzip it, and upload the extracted files to your plugins directory.
- Login to your Wordpress admin panel and activate the plugin.
- Navigate to Settings -> WP-FB AutoConn.
- Follow the steps shown in the admin panel to create & register your Facebook app.
- If you're using BuddyPress, a Facebook button will now automatically appear in its built-in login widget. Otherwise, navigate to Appearance->Widgets and add the WP-FB AutoConnect widget to your sidebar.
That's it - users should now be able to use the widget to login to your blog with their Facebook accounts.
For more information on exactly how this plugin's login process works and how it can be customized, see the
homepage.