Add Facebook Native Login to your Ionic App

Facebook Authentication

There are different ways to integrate Facebook authentication into your Ionic app. However, only the way covered in this post uses the native approach which uses Facebook app to perform the login instead of opening a popup requesting users to enter their credentials to login to facebook before granting access to your app.

What does this mean? If you choose to integrate other libraries (some of them mentioned below), your users will end up having an awful user experience as they will be prompted to enter their facebook username and password each time your app requests authorization from facebook.

Using the native approach we cover in this post, if users have the Facebook app installed on their devices, the authorization flow will be unobtrusive without requiring users to perform unnecessary extra steps.

This comparison illustrates the difference mentioned above:

The Javascript approach

The Native approach

Facebook authentication using Javascript approach

There are many different libraries you can use to add Facebook javascript login to your app, I will mention just some of them:

• CordovaOauth is an AngularJS Apache Cordova Oauth library. The purpose of this library is to quickly and easily obtain an access token from various web services to use their APIs. Read more on the official Cordova Oauth documentation.
• OpenFB is a micro-library that lets you integrate your JavaScript applications with Facebook. It works for both browser-based and Cordova/PhoneGap apps. Read more on the official OpenFB documentation.
• Facebook SDK for JavaScript with AngularJS. You can interact with the facebook javascript sdk using angular. This is useful both for websites and Ionic apps as Ionic is built with AngularJS. Check “Facebook Javascript SDK integration with AngularJS” to get more information.

Facebook authentication using the native approach

We have already covered all the alternatives, now let’s focus on the one I believe is the best for your projects.

Hands on!

Remember ... you will need:

• An Ionic app where you will integrate this login. You can either use a blank app, or an existing one.
• FB API v2.4 but you may be able to make it work with 2.3 and 2.2.
• Register your Facebook app with Facebook and have an APP_ID. (Don’t panic, we will help you with this.)
• The Apache Cordova Facebook Plugin to interact with the device native API's

This is how it will look like

iOS

Android

Step 1: Register your Facebook app

• Go to your Facebook app dashboard
• Click the settings option on the left menu

For iOS

• Add platform iOS

• Set your Bundle ID. (You can find your ID in your config.xml file on the root of your project under the tag widget).

  <widget id="com.ionic-facebook-integration.app" version="0.0.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/ns/widgets" xmlns:cdv="http://cordova.apache.org/ns/1.0">

• Check Single Sign On

  

For Android

• Add platform android

• Set your Google Play Package Name. You can find your name in your platforms/android/AndroidManifest.xml file.

  <manifest android:hardwareAccelerated="true" android:versionCode="1" android:versionName="0.0.1" package="com.ionic_facebook_integration.app" xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

• Check Single Sign On
• Set the Class Name to com.facebook.LoginActivity

• Generate your own Key Hash.

  

Generate your own Key Hash

As you can read here to run samples apps quickly, you can generate key hashes for your development environments. Add these to your Facebook developer profile for the sample apps. Keytool, for generating the key hashes, is included with the Java SE Development Kit (JDK) that you installed as part of setting up your development environment. OpenSSL is available for download from OpenSSL.

On OS X, run:
keytool -exportcert -alias androiddebugkey -keystore ~/.android/debug.keystore | openssl sha1 -binary | openssl base64

On Windows, use:
keytool -exportcert -alias androiddebugkey -keystore %HOMEPATH%\.android\debug.keystore | openssl sha1 -binary | openssl base64

This generates a 28 character string.
You can add multiple key hashes if you develop with multiple machines.
You can now compile and run all of the samples - including those that use Facebook Authentication.

You can see this page if you are looking to generate a release key hash.

Step 2: Install required cordova plugins to interact with Facebook native SDK

• Open a terminal window and clone this repository on your computer:

  $ git clone https://github.com/Wizcorp/phonegap-facebook-plugin.git

• Using your terminal window, go to your Ionic app folder
• If you want to build your app for iOS execute: ionic platform add ios
• If you want to build your app for Android execute: ionic platform add android
• Execute the following command on the terminal changing the variables with your own values:
  • The path you cloned the plugin to earlier
  • Replace APP_ID and APP_NAME variables with your Facebook app values

  $ cordova -d plugin add /path_to_cloned/phonegap-facebook-plugin --variable APP_ID="123456789"--variable APP_NAME="myApplication"

Step 3: Adding Login/Logout functionality

Now we will go straight to the code so open your Ionic app with your preferred code editor. Personally I use and recommend atom.

Login

The best way to show you how to add Login functionality is with a real example of the code, here you can see an AngularJS controller that handles the facebook authentication for your app.

.controller('WelcomeCtrl', function($scope, $state, $q, UserService, $ionicLoading) {
  // This is the success callback from the login method
  var fbLoginSuccess = function(response) {
    if (!response.authResponse){
      fbLoginError("Cannot find the authResponse");
      return;
    }

    var authResponse = response.authResponse;

    getFacebookProfileInfo(authResponse)
    .then(function(profileInfo) {
      // For the purpose of this example I will store user data on local storage
      UserService.setUser({
        authResponse: authResponse,
				userID: profileInfo.id,
				name: profileInfo.name,
				email: profileInfo.email,
        picture : "http://graph.facebook.com/" + authResponse.userID + "/picture?type=large"
      });
      $ionicLoading.hide();
      $state.go('app.home');
    }, function(fail){
      // Fail get profile info
      console.log('profile info fail', fail);
    });
  };

  // This is the fail callback from the login method
  var fbLoginError = function(error){
    console.log('fbLoginError', error);
    $ionicLoading.hide();
  };

  // This method is to get the user profile info from the facebook api
  var getFacebookProfileInfo = function (authResponse) {
    var info = $q.defer();

    facebookConnectPlugin.api('/me?fields=email,name&access_token=' + authResponse.accessToken, null,
      function (response) {
				console.log(response);
        info.resolve(response);
      },
      function (response) {
				console.log(response);
        info.reject(response);
      }
    );
    return info.promise;
  };

  //This method is executed when the user press the "Login with facebook" button
  $scope.facebookSignIn = function() {
    facebookConnectPlugin.getLoginStatus(function(success){
      if(success.status === 'connected'){
        // The user is logged in and has authenticated your app, and response.authResponse supplies
        // the user's ID, a valid access token, a signed request, and the time the access token
        // and signed request each expire
        console.log('getLoginStatus', success.status);

    		// Check if we have our user saved
    		var user = UserService.getUser('facebook');

    		if(!user.userID){
					getFacebookProfileInfo(success.authResponse)
					.then(function(profileInfo) {
						// For the purpose of this example I will store user data on local storage
						UserService.setUser({
							authResponse: success.authResponse,
							userID: profileInfo.id,
							name: profileInfo.name,
							email: profileInfo.email,
							picture : "http://graph.facebook.com/" + success.authResponse.userID + "/picture?type=large"
						});

						$state.go('app.home');
					}, function(fail){
						// Fail get profile info
						console.log('profile info fail', fail);
					});
				}else{
					$state.go('app.home');
				}
      } else {
        // If (success.status === 'not_authorized') the user is logged in to Facebook,
				// but has not authenticated your app
        // Else the person is not logged into Facebook,
				// so we're not sure if they are logged into this app or not.

				console.log('getLoginStatus', success.status);

				$ionicLoading.show({
          template: 'Logging in...'
        });

				// Ask the permissions you need. You can learn more about
				// FB permissions here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/facebook-login/permissions/v2.4
        facebookConnectPlugin.login(['email', 'public_profile'], fbLoginSuccess, fbLoginError);
      }
    });
  };
})

Then in your html you should add a “Login with Facebook” button

<a class="facebook-sign-in button button-block" ng-click="facebookSignIn()">Login with Facebook</a>

Logout

The following controller contains all the necessary code for the facebook sign out:

.controller('HomeCtrl', function($scope, UserService, $ionicActionSheet, $state, $ionicLoading){
	$scope.user = UserService.getUser();

	$scope.showLogOutMenu = function() {
		var hideSheet = $ionicActionSheet.show({
			destructiveText: 'Logout',
			titleText: 'Are you sure you want to logout? This app is awsome so I recommend you to stay.',
			cancelText: 'Cancel',
			cancel: function() {},
			buttonClicked: function(index) {
				return true;
			},
			destructiveButtonClicked: function(){
				$ionicLoading.show({
				  template: 'Logging out...'
				});

        // Facebook logout
        facebookConnectPlugin.logout(function(){
          $ionicLoading.hide();
          $state.go('welcome');
        },
        function(fail){
          $ionicLoading.hide();
        });
			}
		});
	};
})

Then in your html you should add a “Log out” button

<a class="button button-assertive button-block button-outline" ng-click="showLogOutMenu()">Log Out</a>

Services

You also will need some services to store and get your user’s data. For the purpose of this example I will store user data on the device local storage but you should save it on a database.

angular.module('services', [])
.service('UserService', function() {
  // For the purpose of this example I will store user data on ionic local storage but you should save it on a database
  var setUser = function(user_data) {
    window.localStorage.starter_facebook_user = JSON.stringify(user_data);
  };

  var getUser = function(){
    return JSON.parse(window.localStorage.starter_facebook_user || '{}');
  };

  return {
    getUser: getUser,
    setUser: setUser
  };
});

Notes

For XCode issues with iOS9 read this thread.

If you want to build the project for iOS9 and you are getting some errors on xcode, try adding the following code to your platforms/ios/facebook-login/facebook-login-Info.plist file.

<key>LSApplicationQueriesSchemes</key>
<array>
	<string>fbauth</string>
</array>
<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
	<key>NSAllowsArbitraryLoads</key>
	<true/>
</dict>

Next Steps

After having the authentication working you can focus on:

• Learn how to build a complete Ionic app step by step
• The routing and adding access control to certain pages within your app
• Store users and tokens in your own database
• Using analytics tools to track users and what they do in your app
• Integrate other authentication methods so your users have more options to choose from.
• Prettifying your app using a theme or your design skills, taking advantage of the many possibilities that Ionic and Sass provide
• Integrate and make use of other Facebook API endpoints to give more powers to your app.