Question

How can I specify the time for my action to be presented in present or past?
I’ve tried –

$facebook -> api('/me/myapp:read', 'POST', array('expires_in' => '180', 'start_time' => date('c'), 'access_token' => $this -> session -> userdata('ftoken'), 'object' => base_url() . $data['link']));

but that doesn’t work – so what am I not getting?

Explanation
:read is actually just the action in my facebook app. The post is happening and the “read” action is getting logged, the problem is that it is always presented in “past” as in

Jakob read dadada on http://mysite.com

and not in present

Jakob is reading dadad on http://mysite.com

My question is how I can have facebook present the status as is reading for 3 minutes after the action has been submitted (hence the 'expires_in' => '180' which is 180 seconds equal to three minutes)

Answer 1

If your start time is now, the easiest way is to specify “expires_in” as a POST variable. This is an optional parameter and will denote the duration (in seconds) for which your action should remain in the present tense.

From the documentation:

expires_in (integer)

The number of seconds before this action is considered “old”. From the
time the action until expires_in seconds have elapsed, the action is
considered “present tense”, and afterwards, it is considered “past
tense”.

expires_in is a shortcut for specifying end_time when it’s
more convenient to provide a delta in seconds between when an action
started and when it ends. For example, when a user starts watching a
movie, when you post a watch action, expires_in should be the length
of the movie in seconds.