Facebook Like Social Widget
This plugin lets you place a Facebook Like button on your WordPress blog as a widget and/or using shortcode.
Description:
To use the widget just drag it to a sidebar and choose one of three button styles. You can also choose to show faces, faces will then be shown when using the standard button style. It is also possible to choose between the captions “Like” and “Recommend” and choose between a light and a dark color scheme.
From version 1.3 on you can enter your own title to be displayed above the widget. It is now also possible to use the XFBML version of the Facebook Like button.
Using shortcode:
From version 1.4 on you can add a Facebook Like button to your page or post using shortcode. The simplest version is [like/] which will add a button using the standard colors and the permalink of the page or post. To use the XFBML mode instead of the default frame you add the attribute method=”XFBML” to the short code. It could look like [like method=”XFBML”/]
To further customize the button you can use the following attributes:
- caption: valid options are “like” and “recommend” (like is default)
- color: valid options are “light” and “dark” (light is default)
- url: Any valid url will do
Some examples of correct usage of this shortcode are:
[like/]
[like method=”XFBML”/]
[like caption=”recommend”/]
[like color=”dark”/]
[like method=”XFBML” url=”http://www.wordpress.org”/]
Using the XFBML mode:
Depending on your setup, you may need to load the Javascript SDK to be able to use the XFBML mode in the widget and shortcode. Please refer to Javascript SDK on Facebook for more information.
Installation:
Upload the Facebook Like Social Widget plugin to your blog, activate it and drag the widget to your sidebar. See description on shortcode usage.
Changelog:
1.4
- Added shortcode function.
1.3
- Added option to enter and display a custom widget title.
- Added choice between frame and XFBML versions.
1.2
- Added choice between “Like” and “Recommend” captions
- Added choice between light and dark color scheme.
1.1
- Fixed height issue when showing faces.
1.0
- First version with button style selection and option to show faces
Download this plugin at the WordPress Plugin Directory
Feel free to leave any comments, questions, requests or recommendations on this page.
Hey,
You ROCK!! Thanks for adding those features I suggested yesterday. I am using your plugin on my girlfriend’s blog (see above) and v1.3 is working great with two very minor issues I wanted to bring to your attention:
1) would be nice to have just a tiny bit more “white space” between the custom title and the “like: button
2) when using xfbml version, the comment dialoug is wider than the widget area. You can scroll sideways, but it would be awesome if ther was a way to get the entire thing to be narrower so it would all appear within the widget area. Is this something that you can do within the plugin, or do people have to ewdit their CSS etc.? If could be done within the plugin that would be awesome.
Also, some people may not know (I didn’t) that you need to add the Javascript SDK code in your section and set up a FB app for your blog in order for the xfbml version to work correctly. you may wish to add some instructions about this in your install procedure instructions.
Your plugin is great, aand I really appreciate your quick update to it.
Take care.
Jarrett Gorin
Santa Barbara California
Hi Jarret,
You’re welcome, glad to read you appreciate the plugin.
To answer your questions;
1) This white space can/must be adjusted through the css of the template. The title uses the style elements of the template, including any margins set for the title elements.
2) I’ve noticed that the XFBML version has a minimum width of approx. 225px. This means the widget area needs to be at least 225px wide to accommodate the plugin. Sadly it is not possible for the XFBML version to scale it’s width like the iframe version.
I will expand the readme to clarify the requirements of the XFBML version in the next release.
Hi
I like this plugin so much, it helps me see and know if who are the people visiting my site.
Question: how many faces can this facebook like plugin display on my home page? What I see in my website now are five faces but I already have 22 likes, I was expecting more faces to be displayed.
Thanks a lot.
Hi ienreb,
Good to see it’s appreciated.
To answer your question; it seems it will only display faces of the user’s Facebook friends that clicked the like button. So the amount of faces shown will likely be less than the number of likes.
Thank you for developing this plugin. Can the like be converted to a send?
You’re welcome, I can add the option to add a send button next to the Like button, a “standalone” send button is included in my Social Sharing Toolkit plugin.
Thanks you! I’m going to teat both plugins.
Sorry, that should have said “i’m going to test both plugins”
Thank you for developing this plug in. Is it possible to have a few sentences already in the FB Comments dialog box when a person clicks on the like button? This would be like the “Text to include in Tweet” field within the Tweet Page Social widget but for Facebook.
My situation is that I would like to have a Like button within the central widget area of the home page. The web site is for a conference and the like button is intended to make sharing a specific message about the conference as easily as possible. the site is not yet public but I can email a link to you.
Thank you for your attention to my request.
My apologies, I now have a better understanding of how the plugin works. Issue resolved.
Super thing!
Just one question, will it be possible, in the future, to indicate which picture will be posted on the facebookpage of the people who like it.
or can i trick it by putting an image in a specific folder ?
Best,
Jonathan
Hi Jonathan,
Seems I’ll have to include this in the faq for the next version as I’m getting this question quite a lot!
You can fix this by using OpenGraph tags on your web site.
The OpenGraph tag for images looks like:
See the Facebook page here on this subject for more information and you can look in the WordPress plugin directory here to search for a suitable plugin to use OpenGraph tags in your WordPress website.
Thanks for the advice, will look into it although i’m not much of a techy, while you’re working on the new version, could you make an alignment option so you can position the text/layout ?
thanks and keep up the good work !!
Hi Jonathan,
I will look into it. But it will really depend on the features that Facebook enables in the button as my plugin is merely an easy implementation of their code.
Perfect! I love it. Very simple, does the job.
Thank you.
Sandy
Hi Sandy,
Thank you!
when using XFBML with the widget if other widgets follow the FB Widget then the popup hides behind other widgets. if this is fixable now please let me know via e-mail. i am fairly knowledgeable with php/java i would prefer a little help in fixing this as I prefer XFBML over iframe but must use iframe until i can find a fix.
Other than than great plugin.
Also if you wish to communicate with me i am available via e-mail which is added in the private section or Google-talk/jabber IM with the same e-mail.
I am trying to adjust the position and size of the plugin in my child theme using style.css. Unfortunately, no luck so far. I have tried to adjust with .connect_widget but it did not change anything. Any suggestions what to add to the style sheet to make changes (size of font and position on the page)
thanks. maria
easy to use and does whot i want.
even i encountered a problem:
i liked my own page just for testing, then remove the like at facebook… it shows my like anyway. i think thats a problem with facebook (iframe)
just want to say thanks
greetings from berlin!
joschi
Hi,
I love your widget! I just installed it a couple of days ago and loved that you can also see the faces of the people who liked my page. However, now the faces have disappeared and I can’t seem to get them to show up again. I am still in the standard layout and have the box checked to show faces. Do you know what might have happened? Thank you!!
For some reason, your awesome FB Like button widget has disappeared from both of the sites I installed it on. Any idea why that happened?
hi,
thanks for a great widget!
my site is RTL and the like btn is showing outside of the sidebar… can i align the widget to the right?
or maybe there is another way…
thanks
Yaniv
HI there,
I installed your widget which works great but how can I change the words from a dark colour to a lighter colour so the words can be read?
Check my site to see.
Phil
Hi there, did you ever add the send button to this plugin?