We thought it might be nice to show all of you out there how to get started, step by step, with creating your very first Facebook application. This first tutorial will show you how to register the project with Facebook, and obtain the important API keys to access the Facebook system.

The first step in the process is obtaining a Developer account. Simply go to http://developers.facebook.com to upgrade your account to a Developer.

Once you have Developer Access, you can follow the Developer link on your left tool bar to enter the main console. You should see a big button on your left “Set Up New Application”. You guessed it, click it!

On the next screen you should see a box to enter the Application Name. Pick anything you want. Spaces are allowed. Make sure you also read the TOS and check the agree box.

Now you are going to want to click on the text that says Optional Fields. This will drop down more options. They are self explanatory for the most part.

Contact and Support email fields: Simply put your email address.

Callback URL: This is the URL of the website where your application resides. This is your sever, not the Facebook servers. In our example, we hosted the application on the main www.meezik.com server.

Canvas Page URL: The Canvas Page URL is where your application will be hosted on the Facebook servers. This must be unique, and must not contain any spaces, or the word “Face”. All Face application names are reserved by Facebook in case they want to expand on their system.

IP Addresses of Servers Making Requests: This is where you would put the IP address of the server hosting your application. Facebook limits all requests to the IPs in this field. If you plan on hosting your application across multiple servers for Images, Database, PHP files, etc - you would enter all the addresses in this box. Facebook does this for security purposes. Make sure that these are correct! If you use a Dynamic IP, you might want to find some dedicated server or hosting company to serve your pages.

Can Your Application be Added On Facebook?: This should be set to Yes.

The next set of options comes under the heading of “Install Options”. For this section, make sure that the check box named Users is selected, and All Pages is selected.

The last step in the Settings is the “Integration Points”. The only option you need to be concerned about at this time is the Side Nav URL. Make sure this is the same address as your Canvas URL.

Once all the settings are filled out, hit Submit. This should bring up the main application page. On this page, you will see 2 very important pieces of information. The API key and the Secret key. These are required once you start the actual development of your application.

That’s it for the first part of this tutorial. If you have any questions, just leave a comment, and someone will be sure to help you out! Keep looking for the second part where we will discuss the the actual coding of the application using the Facebook APIs and PHP!