in the Facebook API documentation for requests it says that you can send app requests to friends but it's in the game section! now my question is whether it is allowed for non-game apps to use the send request dialog or not?
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There is in fact a current hole in the Facebook API regarding web invites to non-game canvas apps. The Facebook API changelog from v 2.2 to v 2.3 states that the apprequests function that opens the Request Dialog is now only limited to games, and that non-game apps should use App Invites. However, App Invites work only in iOS and Android. So currently, there is no way for users to invite friends to a non-game canvas app via the web, except by using the Send Dialog which is a lousy user experience and really shouldn't be used for that. I have filed a bug report with Facebook and they have acknowledged it is a valid bug. Let's hope they fix it soon.
Augusto
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No, it's not possible (or at least legally) to use the app request feature for non-canvas apps that are outside the Facebook domain. For example, https://apps.facebook.com/angrybirds is a canvas app which is inside the Facebook domain and can use this feature as well as send notifications to other people on Facebook.
Even though, you can still send invitations to friends and they will see them on https://www.facebook.com/games/activity on the tab ìnvites, but they will not receive any notification.
There's still possible to make a canvas app that only redirects to the page you want, but that's against Facebook policies.
This is an extract from the latter:
Don’t build an app whose primary purpose is to redirect people off of Facebook.
The closest solution is to send email through the Send dialog feature but that's not intended to invite friends in the way you want.
You can find more references on this other thread.
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As per the Facebook documentation:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/apps/faq#invite_to_app
"If your app has a Canvas presence but is not a game, you should just render the Requests Dialog. Access to the Invitable Friends API is not required in order to let people invite their friends to use your app."
This is pretty hard to find since most of the documentation pertains to games or mobile apps. This is the only reference to Inviting friends to non-game canvas app I could find.
Since the Invitable Friends API is only available for games, what this tells you is to just use the generic Requests Dialog WITHOUT using the Invitable Friends API.
Augusto Samamé Barrientos
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