Microsoft today has released an update to its Software Development Kit (SDK) for the most popular social networking site, Facebook. With Microsoft SDK for Facebook Platform 3.0, developers can build rich Facebook applications using Silverlight, WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC and Windows Forms. The SDK contains samples, controls, templates, and help documentation for implementing a simple Facebook Connect functionality, to a fully functional desktop, mobile or a web application. According to a Microsoft spokesperson: "the goal is to enable .NET developers to quickly and easily leverage the various features of the Facebook Platform.".
With this release, Microsoft’s plan was to get their SDK listed as the official Facebook client library for .NET, and this is precisely what has happened. Facebook has announced their official support for Microsoft Facebook SDK 3.0. With this announcement, Microsoft SDK for Facebook Platform now becomes part of the high profile Facebook client libraries. Facebook already supports libraries for Javascript, PHP, iPhone, Force.com and Adobe ActionScript 3.0.
Video Demo of some of the apps built by Microsoft Facebook APIs
Highlights of Microsoft Facebook SDK 3.0:
The main features of Facebook SDK 3.0 are:
- Provide better doc and samples
- Provide support for Silverlight
- Provide support for ASP.NET MVC
- Provide improved support for WPF
- Provide improved support for FBML (FBML Server Controls)
- Provide a login control that can be used to replace the BasePage and/or MasterPage for Canvas Development
- Improve out of the box support for Extended Permission Prompts
- Refactor core source to improve maintainability and design
- Fix known bugs
Facebook SDK 3.0 Core Assemblies
The core assemblies of Facebook SDK 3.0 includes:
- Facebook.dll: This is the main assembly that will be used by all applications. This has all the logic to handle communication with the Facebook application. This assembly also has specific support of XAML applications (Silverlight and WPF) to enhance the Facebook platform to make databinding and data caching easier.
- Facebook.Silverlight.dll: This is the Silverlight version of the main assembly that will be used by all Silverlight applications. This has all the logic to handle communication with the Facebook application. This assembly also has specific support of XAML applications to enhance the Facebook platform to make databinding and data caching easier. The REST API in this assembly is Asynchronous only.
- Facebook.Web.dll: This assembly should be used by Canvas applications. The main functionality supported in this assembly is to encapsulate the handshake between the Facebook application and a canvas application (both FBML and IFrame)
- Facebook.Web.Mvc.dll: Provide a support building canvas applications using ASP.NET MVC. Separated from Facebook.Web.dll to avoid all developers from needing to install the MVC bits.
- Facebook.Winforms.dll: This assembly provides support for writing Facebook applications using Winform technology. This provides a Component that wraps the API to make it easier to use from Winforms. This also contains some user controls to help display Facebook data easily.
Download Facebook Developers Toolkit for .NET