Introducing Facebook New Graph API Explorer Features

If you are an ardent follower of Facebook like me, you might be aware of the new graph API introduced by Facebook on the month of July. If you are not aware, this is for your information that they made their exciting announcement about the New graph API version v2.4 on the 8th of July 2015.

Facebook introduced this as their fifth version of API release right from the period when they committed to versioning their APIs and SDKs from the year 2014. Like the previous versions, this new version of Facebook API will provide better control for developers towards opting for new features. Similarly, they also announced the updated Android and iOS SDKs during the same period (i.e) last month to work with Graph API V2.4.

Key features in the new version:

When Facebook New Graph API was introduced, Facebook clearly stated the following points as key updates in this new version V2.4, when comparing the same with the earlier versions of API:

• Improvement in marketing API
• Easy access to timeline posts
• For faster and better performance the number of default fields are reduced
• Extra categories for page videos
• New insights for page videos

Now, let us get into some details about Facebook Graph API Explorer features, which was introduced by Facebook recently:

What actually is Graph API Explorer?

This is actually a simple interface for authorizing, for making Application Program Interface demands and also for easily debugging responses. Facebook has added that this in their most popular Facebook developer tools last April and the company requested their developer community to establish their feedbacks, so that it will be helpful for making improvements.

Reply for Feedback:

After getting feedbacks from their developers, Facebook has now announced many new updates and it is stated that improvements are made in the following three important areas:

• Simplified interface
• History/favorites
• Code generation

These changes are introduced with the hope that they will be helpful for developers to easily bring together their applications with the Facebook Graph API. Now, let us get into some details about these improvements made in Facebook social graph API:

Simplified interface:

With a view to make the process of interaction with their tools easy, Facebook has stated that they have simplified the two most frequently used features in the Facebook Graph API Explorer interface.

• Earlier, path, version selector and HTTP request methods were separate, but now, they are brought together as a sole component.

• Earlier, the Token Debugger was separate from the Access Token Section. But, this time they are brought together. This advancement will save a lot of time for you, being a developer when you are engaged in the process of debugging tokens because they need not have to switch between browser tabs

History/favorites:

If you are a developer, you can now interact and can replay requests with the help of favorites/history.

• History is something that brings back details from recent method calls from your app admin and from your developer devices, such that you aren directly play them on the Facebook Developers API.
• Favorites is another tool that will help you in bookmarking or saving frequently made demands or crucial demands as per your requirement.

Code generation:

When developers were asked about their feedback, most of them suggested code generation as an important feature in Facebook New Graph API Explorer. Now, solution for the same is provided by Facebook. With this feature, you can just click on the 'get code' button, such that you can copy the same and can paste your demand on any of the following formats:

• cURL
• PHP SDK
• Javascript SDK
• iOS SDK
• Android SDK

To conclude, when you are developing apps with Facebook, it is important that you should have this Facebook app upgrade tool. Even, Facebook is looking for further feedbacks on Facebook New Graph API Explorer and you can share your thoughts with us in this regard.