The Facebook Like Button Plugin for WordPress

April 22, 2010 by meandean

Facebook rocked the internet yesterday with 5 new plugins, one of which is an API for the Facebook Like Button. After reading about it and playing a bit with the Facebook’s Like Button generator, I decided what’s needed is a WordPress plugin that allows folks to easily configure the look-and-feel of the Facebook Like Button, and then automatically add it the beginning and/or the end of their posts.

Update 26-Apr-10

FYI, I just released versionÂ 0.1 of the The Facebook Activity Widget Plugin for WordPress – yet another useful (and different) WordPress plugin for displaying Facebook Social plugins on your website.

Update 25-Apr-10

Version 0.4 just got released – it now has a preview feature built into the administrator panel … and I’m starting to get translation .po & .mo files from abroad (thanks!-). It’s also now being distributed via the WordPress Plugin Repository.

Update 24-Apr-10

Version 0.2 is released as of Saturday, April 24, 2010 7:14 Eastern Standard Time.

Also after some excellent email and FB message feedback from some early adopters, you can now also decide whether or not you want the FaceBook Like Button to appear on the top and/or bottom of individual pages, individual posts and/or your front page.

Installation & Use

I also wanted to keep it simple, so here’s how it works — using the standard WordPress plugin installation process:

Upload the ‘fblikebutton.zip’ file to the `/wp-content/plugins/` directory using wget, curl of ftp.
‘unzip’ the ‘fblikebutton.zip’ which will create the folder to the directory `/wp-content/plugins/fblikebutton`
Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
Configure the plugin through ‘FBLikeButton’ submenu in the the ‘Settings’ section of the WordPress admin menu.
Modify the fields to choice and save.

Here’s a screen shot below of the administrator screen (you’ll want to click on it to see it full size):

Here’s how the FaceBook Like button appears on the bottom of this post:

This being being version 0.1, you can bet your sweet bippee there’s more to come. Still, I wanted to get this out to the WordPress community as fast as possible.

A bit more about the FaceBook Like Button

What’s nice about the Facebook Like button is that no login to your site is required. Even if youâ€™ve never visited HealYourChurchWebsite.com before, they can get social context starting with their very first visit.

If you’re logged into FaceBook, then you can see which of your friends like a site — without the site knowing anything about you. Pretty neat, huh?

Download It

Also, I’m currently in the process of setting getting established with the WordPress SVNÂ and everything else that goes with publishing an official WordPress plugin.

Until then, click here to download the latest fblikebutton, from the WordPress Plugin repository keeping in mind it is version 0.1 0.2 – so expect more to come!