The curious world of social media !

[Holiday Ray]

I didn't want to 'gatecrash' another Topic about facebook currently bounding along nicely, here on the forum, or introduce 'thread creep' into it, so I thought I'd start another, just to make an observation about ' The curious world of social media' ! namely facebook.

I'm in the process of adding content and stuff to my new website which went live almost a couple of weeks ago now and I have a Facebook 'favicon' thingy (widget) at the top of each page. It was put there by the site developer and I thought - 'Why not' it might somehow induce visitors to think that the site is liked by lots of people (I've not yet been dragged into the Facebook world and don't have an account !)

So when I suddenly noticed this evening that the Favicon 'score' had jumped up to 4, it brought a wry smile to my face.

Not being a facebooky person, I'm assuming that 4 people like me (sorry I mean the website ) on facebook. If I've even got that basic concept wrong then I'm going to be sooo sooo embarrassed

The funny thing is, if I never do actually create a FB account, there might end up being lots of people out there that like me - whoops, sorry there I go again - I mean like 'my website' and I (or it) may never know who those people are.

Does this mean that my website could end up with more 'friends' than me

[Windy]

Hi Ray

LOL. First off it ain't a favicon - that's something else entirely - a favicon is a mini image that gets associated with your website in people's browser bar. It would normally be at

http://www.valmargite.com/favicon.ico

It looks like your webdeveloper may have added one but it ain't working. I get an error message about an image error if I try to look at that file.

Anyway moving on .... The Like button just means that if I am logged into Facebook I can like your page. You don't need to have your own Facebook account for me to be able to do this.

When I did this (using Firefox) the Facebook Like widget tried to show me a dialog box asking me to add a comment to my Like but there isn't enough space allowed for me to do this. Eventually the widget seemed to give up. This is important because unless I can add a comment it won't appear on my timeline for my FB friends to see (and that is the real point of getting people to Like your page)

I unliked and reliked and was able to key "test" into the bit of the dialog box I can see, the like then DID show on my timeline with a nice link to your web site.

Most of the above applies to the Google + button too except the Google programmers managed to get the comments box to appear OVER the other things on your site so it works properly.

Hope this helps

[Holiday Ray]

Hi Ray

LOL. First off it ain't a favicon - that's something else entirely - a favicon is a mini image that gets associated with your website in people's browser bar. It would normally be at

http://www.valmargite.com/favicon.ico

It looks like your webdeveloper may have added one but it ain't working. I get an error message about an image error if I try to look at that file.

Right - so it's basically a little button link on yer fav's bar, thanks for clarifying that. I guess I do need to use the emoticon then
I'll ask the develop about that one !

You don't need to have your own Facebook account for me to be able to do this.

Yep - That much I did know Windy !

This is important because unless I can add a comment it won't appear on my timeline for my FB friends to see (and that is the real point of getting people to Like your page)

Yes - quite !

I unliked and reliked and was able to key "test" into the bit of the dialog box I can see, the like then DID show on my timeline with a nice link to your web site.

That's Very kind of you Windy, seeing as I can't reciprocate at the mo, thank you.

With regards to the problem with the text box on the fb widget, is this a programming problem then do you think Windy. I was thinking maybe it was a 'bug thing' with the widget.
The only code I can find for it in the 'widget area' is this

<div class="fb-like" data-href="http://www.valmargite.com/" data-send="false" data-layout="button_count" data-width="450" data-show-faces="false" data-font="lucida grande"></div>

So, is this something that my developer (or I) can fix, or is it the programming that's the prob. It is obviously quite important, in terms of 'spreading the visiblity' of the site, for peeps to be able to 'like' the site and for it to appear in their 'timeline'.

Many thanks Windy

[Windy]

I think it's a problem with the way the FB widget works, which is different to the Google + 1 widget. The FB widget seems to need the space to expand the text box whereas the +1 widget opens up above the surrounding area if that makes sense.

[Holiday Ray]

Yes, makes perfect sense Windy. Although I can't 'see' what you mean without accessing a fb a/c I understand what you're saying.

Presumably there's nothing that can be done about this then !

Again, without actually being able to see the box open up, I'm wondering if changing the position of the widget on the page might make any difference ?

[gam]

Presumably there's nothing that can be done about this then !

Talk to your developer. He/she can fix it.

[Windy]

.. only by either giving more space to the widget so it can expand or by moving it somewhere where there is already more space, which is a pity as they look OK as they are now.

It looks to me as though it is a limitation of the widget rather than something Ray's developer can correct.

It is interesting to compare the implementations of the FB Like and Google + buttons.

One of them is a nicely deigned flexible implementation that does not force design compromise...

I have a similar issue now on my own web site:oops: , so wonder if this is maybe something hat has changed as I am sure it didn't use to be like that on my own page

I can see from my page that by enlarging the page container the problem would probably go away. I really don't want to unbalance my page just because Google haven't programmed something well though.

[gam]

It looks to me as though it is a limitation of the widget rather than something Ray's developer can correct.

You may be right, but it is wrapped it up in multiple div containers and tables all with associated css. I've just had a quick try to see if I could adjust it using Firebug and got a small improvement, though it is all so wrapped up in other style elements it is hard to see what is what. I would hope that the developer would be able to give it more time and get a better result.

[Windy]

Having played with my own page at

http://www.lakedistrictholidaylodges.co.uk/

where I seem to have the same problem the only way I can get the like box's comment dialog to display properly is to add a load of otherwise useless emapty space at the bottom of my footer which looks awful.

I really don't want to do this just because the FB widget is behaving in an odd way. It doesn't make sense to me that the widget needs the expanded space to work properly when it is so obvious that the +1 alternative works in a much more elegant way y being positioned OVER the other elements.

No point in trying to complain to FB I suppose

I wish I hadn't noticed it now

[Holiday Ray]

Thanks for the input guys, I emailed the developer earlier, so I'll see what response I receive when they're back in the office Monday.

I'll let you know the outcome -thanks

[Windy]

Ray - if you get a positive answer I'll be very interested to hear what it is!!

[Holiday Ray]

So far, they've come up with a good answer for every questions I've posed and have been more than helpful.

It would be nice to get to the bottom of this one - we'll see !

[Windy]

OK - back to the drawing board

http://www.cabanasbeachhut.com/

The FB like widget presents the comments box properly over the rest of the content. AAAGHHHHHH!

Anyone got any ideas why it doesn't work that way on Ray's site and mine???


Logically it must be a CSS issue then?

[gam]

where I seem to have the same problem the only way I can get the like box's comment dialog to display properly is to add a load of otherwise useless emapty space at the bottom of my footer which looks awful.

Logically it must be a CSS issue then?

I get frustrated when I can't work out what is going wrong and have spent 20 minutes or so playing around with the css on your site. Unfortunately, the contents of the flyout appear to be within an iframe so you can't apply css directly. I can improve it but not without altering your page layout slightly.

Taking a different tack I had a look at the facebook developers resource:

When I click the Like button, the popup window (or "flyout") doesn't show. Why?

If the Like button is placed near the edge of an HTML element with the overflow property set to hidden, the flyout may be clipped or completely hidden when the button is clicked. This can be remedied by setting setting the overflow property to a value other than hidden, such as visible, scroll, or auto.

I've had a quick search through your html to see if I can find the offending element but with no luck. However, this avenue looks promising to me e.g. the button is held within a div which is within another div which has an overflow:hidden set.

HTH

[Windy]

Gam

Yes that helps

Changing "overflow: hidden;" to "overflow: visible;" in the footer area of my style sheet sorted it (and also sorted another related issue at the same time)

Thank you for taking the time to help there! I imagine that the same issue must be affecting Ray's site then.

I probably ought to apologise to FB for suggesting that it was their fault (although I am intrigued as to how the +1 widget manages to avoid the problem so I do still think the Google widget is a better implementation of the idea)