This must be a gripe for anyone working on the platform: The workflow is just awful. My Gripe/Solution list for frustrated folks learning the ropes:

• “I just want to make a custom profile Tab, why is this so hard?”
  • Use the (seemingly) little-known Static FBML App from Facebook. Use basic FBML and HTML, on a tab.
• “My CSS won’t show up on my app/page/tab when I refresh it!”
  • Facebook caches all externally referenced CSS files. When you change the file and save it, make sure the link increments by one:
    style.css?v=1.0
    changes to
    style.css?v=1.1.
    They use version numbers to tell if they need to re-cache.
• “I can’t set up a local dev environment!”
  • You’re right. Test HTML locally, use the Dashboard for smaller API calls, but for testing larger pieces of the app you’ll need to push code to Facebook before you can really see how it works. They do sometimes take up to 5 minutes to propagate changes, however, so make some visual cue that you have a new version up so you’re not guessing if it’s the bug fix, or the bugged version.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 10:07 am and is filed under Facebook, Social. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.