MB Notifications for Facebook

NOTE WELL!! The new version of the Facebook API disables several friends-related requests, so features using those in my app (friends lists, requests, birthdays, online and lost friends) DON'T WORK anymore.

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Tutorial: http://mikebannion.altervista.org/tutorial.html

Let's face it, when it comes to Android, whether you like the official Facebook application or not it has one major flaw: no notifications! And this is even more true when you don't use any app for Facebook at all but just the browser, and yet want to keep updated. I frankly hate this: why would you have to check for updates yourself when you could get automatically notified whenever a notification from your Facebook account arrives, just as iPhone users do?

I decided to solve this issue for my own convenience, and so this is where this app chimes in: a lightweight and fast application to get notifications from Facebook, what you decide, at the interval you decide and reported as you decide. Nothing else, just as plain and simple as effective! Choose between general notifications, private messages, friend requests, events, birthdays, pokes, online friends and lost friendships and decide how to view the notifications:

* directly in the app, with the ability to like/comment/share/reshare/RSVP;
* open it in the official Facebook app;
* open it in FriendCaster (Free or Pro) if installed;
* open it in Seesmic, if installed;
* open it in Facebook Stream for Android, if installed;
* open it in the browser (full view, Touch or WAP version);
* or just open any other app you have installed (just opening the main activity of app, no custom behaviour)

The service can be started automatically at boot if you want, and a 1x1 widget is provided as well to explicitly request new notifications should you want to. 1x1, 2x1 and 4x1 widgets are also available to show counters of unread notifications. (NOTE: the widgets will NOT work if you move the app to SD). Notifications can be received in the notifications bar and as popup dialogs (by also unlocking and/or waking the screen, if necessary). Details on all the required permissions are at the end of this page.

Other features include: newsfeed, walls, pages, groups, checkin, photo/video upload and much more!

IMPORTANT: the app only gets NEW and UNREAD notifications, meaning it won't download, for example, all the notifications you already saw before launching the app or between refreshes.


Icon set realized by Elisa!
Thanks to Matthew for the Gingerbread status bar icons!
Spanish translation realized by Luis López Moreno (lulomo18@gmail.com; www.llmgraphics.com)
Danish translation realized by Rasmus
German translation realized by Carsten Schläger (fsmcas@gmail.com; http://carstiboy.blogsport.eu)
Dutch translation realized by Elroy Tirbeni (Specially for his love: Annelies)
Portuguese translation realized by Marcio Andrade (marciozomb13 - marcioaribeiro@hotmail.com.br)
Turkish translation realized by HuS (He falls in love with Gözde Pull to refresh implemented thanks to this library: https://github.com/johannilsson/android-pulltorefresh


This application is not affiliated with Facebook. Facebook is a registered trademark of Facebook, Inc.


PERMISSIONS EXPLAINED:

* android.permission.INTERNET: to get notifications from Facebook;
* android.permission.VIBRATE: for the optional vibrate functionality in notifications;
* android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE: to avoid making unneeded requests if the network is unavailable;
* android.permission.DISABLE_KEYGUARD: to unlock the lockscreen, if requested for popup notifications;
* android.permission.WAKE_LOCK: to wake the screen, if requested for popup notifications;
* android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE: to save pictures associated with notifications in the SD cache (the internal cache alone may be emptied arbitrarily and as such force the app to download the picture again, wasting bandwidth)

Recent changes:
v1.17.0:
* Moved to new version of the API (which disables all friends related features, blame Facebook for that, nothing we can do about it...);
* Added icon to open the menu, for phones that don't have a button for that;

v1.16.1:
* Fixed display of post comments in dark theme;
* Added a "check permissions" menu to verify all Facebook permissions are ok;