Facebook has today announced the introduction of an animation library for FBJS (FBJS is a ?layer? on top of Javascript that allows developers to more easily build Facebook applications) and all other social networks. The animation library has been made open-source so that developers can effectively use it on any of Facebook?s competitors sites.
Technology blogger
Dr. Cleveland Gibbon says that current Facebook applications built on FBJS are simple and therefore not engaging Facebook users. This may explain why Facebook recently
announced plans to introduce tools that allow users to easily ?un-clutter? their profiles from Facebook applications that are easily accumulated and then become ?overwhelming? to remove.
Gibbon comments, ?Currently Facebook developers write simple applications, however these apps are pretty limited in the way they can interact with their users. From Facebook?s perspective it would be nice to create betters applications, that feel more interactive, and users will use. This is why Facebook introduced FBJS, because it makes it easier to write AJAX - that is, more interactive applications for the site.?
The announcement, made today on the
Facebook Developers Blog says that the downfall to FBJS (which was introduced in September 2007) was that most 3rd party libraries were incompatible; thusly making ?application animation? difficult.
Gibbon concurs, ? The older apps developers didn?t embrace it (FBJS) , because it didn't integrate with the current way they animate images. So, they (Facebook) had to write their own animation library, so that developers who use FBJS can animate images in much the same way. Now with FBJS and a means to animate images, developers can write more interactive apps for Facebook - ones the Facebook users like me and you will enjoy more.?
The animation library spent several months being used internally before being made public. Developers wanting to use FBJS external to Facebook are able to do so through Facebook?s
open source portal.
The code for the FBJS Animation has been released under a modified
BSD licence.