Categories
Facebook Tab manager WordPress

Re-purpose a WordPress Post or Page with Facebook Tab Manager

I designed Facebook Tab Manager to let you create and update content for your Facebook business page using WordPress, but it’s also possible to re-purpose an existing blog post or page and display it within Facebook.

You do this by adding the query parameter ?fb=tab to the end of the URL, for example:

http://www.carrcommunications.com/2011/05/re-purpose-a-wordpress-post-or-page-with-facebook-tab-manager/?fb=tab&resize=1

This causes the content to be displayed in the fbtab template, using the default styles (Facebook fonts etc.). You would then plug this URL into the Facebook Developers utility the same way you would with any other Facebook Tab Manager post.

I used the resize parameter to make the iFrame for the tab content resize for content taller than 800 pixels to avoid the display of a vertical scroll bar. Note that this doesn’t do anything to avoid problems with content that is wider than the 540 pixels Facebook provides for tab content. So if your existing page or post includes a 550-pixel wide image, it’s not going to fit neatly into the iFrame.

The optional query parameters you can use are:

  • resize=1 (invoke the resizing JavaScript)
  • new=1 (links should open in a new window)
  • head=1 (execute wp_head)
  • footer=1 (execute wp_footer)
  • minfilters=1 (added in version 2.7.2, turns off all but essential filters on the_content)

Note that you could also use that last parameter in conjunction with a Facebook Tab Manager post as an alternative to selectively turning off filters on the_content. Useful if you’re trying to get rid of the output of plugins like Sociable that add icons and links to the end of each post.

Example:

http://www.carrcommunications.com/fbtab/test-6/?minfilters=1

Leave a Reply