Project Description
A .NET client library for the Facebook API that allows developers to create Facebook Applications in C# and VB.NET with support for ASP.NET and ASP.NET MVC.

Introduction

What is this?

This project is an open source client for the Facebook API written for the Microsoft .NET Framework. Using this project will greatly facilitate the development of 3rd party Facebook applications for developers and development shops already familiar with the Microsoft .NET technology stack.

Why?

At the time of this writing, there are currently no actively maintained projects (that I am aware of) that provide this functionality.

Design Philosophy

There are several primary goals we hope to accomplish with this project.

1. Timely Updates

The biggest reason other similar projects have fallen short was simply due to issues with keeping up with Facebook's rapid pace of platform updates. Obviously, Facebook's PHP API will always have the upper hand in this regard since it is maintained directly by Facebook, and as such, keeping pace will always be a challenge for other projects. We aim to alleviate this through the use of a generator - about 65% of the code in this project is generated from existing Facebook API documentation. Our generator reads the API schema and documentation and generates corresponding API client code accordingly. To deal with the frequent inconsistencies and variations in use throughout the platform, we've also engineered a proprietary configuration that allows us to explicitly specify the way certain areas of the client are generated.

2. Ease of Use and Documentation

We've designed the API client to be as easy to integrate as possible. That said, we will be putting as much effort as went into designing and writing the code into providing up to date documentation, including code samples, for the entire API client.

3. Cross-Platform Compatibility

We recognize that cost is a significant factor for making decisions as to which technology stack to use when developing an application. As such, we are planning this project to maintain compatibility with the current, active release of Mono, so developers will have the option of using the .NET stack on an operating system other than Windows.

Note: We don't expect to have true Mono compatibility until at least our beta release.

4. Additional Value

While maintaining an up-to-date client is our first priority, we also want to give developers a reason to use this project other than allowing them to use .NET. As such, we will be adding additional (but optional to use) features like built-in SocialCash Headliners integration, user data caching, fql query caching, and general abstraction over the more painful to use elements of the Facebook API.

When can I use it?

Now! Check out our current release!

Can I see it in action?

Demonstrations of the API client's execution of Facebook API methods can be viewed at our .NET Facebook API client App.
A limited selection of methods have working demonstrations right now - we're still working on the rest of them!

Documentation

• Current Feature List
• Getting Started
• Client Framework Concepts
  • Batching
  • Web Applications
  • Feed Publishing
• Authentication and Extended Permissions
• API Client Reference
• Downloads

Support

Please log and vote for bugs/features in the Issue Tracker. If you have questions, feel free to ask in the Discussions tab.

Find us on IRC: irc.freenode.net #dotnetfbapi

Follow the devs on Twitter!

http://twitter.com/DanielSchaffer
http://twitter.com/anthonypdawson

Help us clean up the Facebook API!

Vote for our bugs!


This project is maintained by the superbly awesome dudes and dudettes at SocialCash.
SocialCash provides a suite of tools that allows Facebook application developers to grow and monetize their applications.