Question

I would like to develop an application that simply reads some information from a public facebook page’s wall (such as http://www.facebook.com/cocacola).

My questions are:

1. Do I need user account to do so? (http://graph.facebook.com/cocacola/feed requires authentication although facebook ui does not)
2. Do I have to create a facebook application to use graph api? (this canvas thing for example, my app won’t run on facebook but on other computers. it will just be responsible for getting some data)
3. Is there any way to authenticate my application without displaying all that login screen and stuff? (what if I am developing an embedded software where there is no screen.)

Best regards

Answer 1

1. Yes, although the requirement for the access token on /feed is fairly new.
2. In order to get an access token, yes, you have to create a Facebook app.
3. You can authenticate once, via a browser, getting an offline_access token and then simply store and retrieve that access token for later use. Be aware though, that this token will expire when you change your password or if your account is disabled. But you do need a browser to authenticate, and you have to authenticate as a user.

Check here for more ideas on how to get started.