Platform Updates: Operation Developer Love

Since last Wednesday's post, we announced all the events in april we will be attending.

Defaulting new apps to sandbox mode

Starting today, all newly created apps will be in "sandbox mode" by default. This hides your app for people not listed as admins, developers or testers, so you can build your app without worrying about other people accessing it. When you are ready to take your app live, sandbox mode can be toggled off in the basic settings area of the App Dashboard.

Image requirements for the new News Feed

We are rolling out the new design for News Feed, which is optimized for sharing high-resolution images of Open Graph, feed, and share stories on web and mobile. To prepare for a broader roll-out of the new design, images must be at least 200x200 pixels for desktop web and ideally, 600x600 pixels or greater for the best experience across devices.

Images may not appear in the new design if they are smaller than 200x200 pixels, and rectangular photos may be cropped.

Image requirements include:
* 4 Megapixel limit
* 5MB limit
* direct links to the image only
* only JPG, PNG, GIF, or BMP file formats

We strongly encourage you to make sure your images meet these requirements, so that the rollout does not negatively impact your app.

April 2013 breaking changes

As announced in January, the following change has gone into effect permanently for everyone starting today:

Removing ability to POST to USER_ID/questions

As it's no longer possible for users to create questions, we will remove this functionality from the Graph API. POSTs to USER_ID/questions will fail.

July 2013 breaking changes (90-day notice)

The following changes can be enabled/disabled using the "July 2013 Breaking Changes" migration until July 10th when they will go into effect permanently for everyone:

Social plugins will require an absolute URL in the 'href' parameter

Social plugins, such as the Like Box and Like Button, will require an absolute URL in the 'href' parameter.

Page 'category' field name change

We are renaming the 'category' field to 'category_lists' for Pages Graph API

Stream table will throw exception with invalid filter_key

Query stream_filter table for a set of valid stream filters. The stream table will throw an exception if called with an invalid 'filter_key' option.

Removing 'publish_checkins' permissions

Publishing a Checkin object is deprecated in favor of creating an Open Graph story with a location attached. You can also create a Post with a location attached using the 'publish_action' permission.

FQL Checkin table 'page_id' change

We are renaming 'page_id' to 'target_id' for the Checkin table.

Removing 'version' field for Groups

We introduced 'version' field to indicate whether the group was created prior to launch of the current groups product in October 2010. We are removing this field as all Groups on Facebook are now the same version. This impacts both Group Graph API and Group FQL Table.

Photos will no longer return larger sizes than the uploaded version

'images' field in photos and photo_src table will no longer return image sizes larger than the original uploaded version of the photo.

Cannot create multiple create actions for the same Open Graph object

We are no longer allowing multiple create actions for the same Open Graph object, as documented here.

Deprecating 'comments' field from 'stream' FQL table

We are deprecating the 'comments' field from 'stream' FQL table. Please select the 'comment_info' column to fetch the 'can_comment' and 'comment_count' fields (formerly called 'can_post' and 'count'), and use the comment table directly to retrieve the list of comments.

Removing 'xid', 'reply_xid', 'username' and 'comments' from 'comment' FQL table

We are removing the fields on the FQL 'comment' table that were used exclusively for legacy Comments Plugins -- 'xid', 'reply_xid', 'username' and 'comments'. We now treat comments the same across plugins and within Facebook. Please query for comment replies left on the plugin the same way as you would for other comments.

Removing 'count' from 'comments' Graph API connection

We are removing the undocumented 'count' field on the 'comments' connection in the Graph API. Please request '{id}/comments?summary=true' explicitly if you would like the summary field which contains the count (now called 'total_count')

The following changes will go into effect on July 10, 2013:

Mobile App Install Ads change

We are updating the Creative Spec parameter 'app_platform_type' to 'mobile_store'. The possible values for mobile_store are now "itunes", "itunes_ipad", and "google_play".

Conversion spec and tracking pixel ID changes

We are deprecating the use of 'tracking_pixel_id' when specifying the desire to track a conversion pixel in an ad. You should instead specify the pixel in the newly launched tracking_specs field.
We are also deprecating the use of conversion specs in bid types that are not optimized for actions (e.g. CPM, CPC, and oCPM when no bid value is placed on actions). You should instead use tracking_specs to track conversions for these bid types.

Custom Audiences change

We have changed the targeting spec parameter 'excluded_user_adclusters' to be 'excluded_custom_audiences'. Additionally, the endpoint to create and retrieve your custom audiences is now: https://graph.facebook.com/(act_adaccountid)/customaudiences.

Accessing link stats change

App access tokens will be required for accessing the link_stat FQL table. App access tokens will also be required for retrieving data from Graph API endpoint for link stats, ie: http://graph.facebook.com/?id=http://example.com.

Graph API search changes

App access tokens will be required for all search Graph API calls except Places and Pages. Search for application will no longer be supported.

Open Graph apps using custom actions for fitness, books, movies, and TV

As announced in March, any apps that previously used custom actions to represent this type of sharing will need to move to common actions by July 10, 2013.

Removing 'page_friends_of_fans' metric

We are removing the metric: 'page_friends_of_fans' from the Insights Dashboard and the Insights API.

Removing the ability to "Select All" or "Pre-Select" for Requests

As part of our efforts to improve user sentiment, we have updated our platform policy so that apps may not offer a select all option or pre-select multiple recipients to receive requests. Other Request dialog functionality will remain the same.