Flow-Flow 4: New Layouts, Scrollable Lightbox and Important Facebook Changes

Just a quick update on the release of a new WordPress version and its features. We also have some important information about Facebook platform changes and their influence on Flow-Flow. Please check details below.

First, we want to inform you that we have changed our approach to feature releases. Now we would rather do many small updates than one big major update. This way we can make many features available earlier for you. So, here is our current roadmap:

• (released) New “Wall” layout that looks like classic posts feed or list. Can be responsive to container size or have fixed width/height. View demo
  
• (released) New lightbox feature: posts feed with infinite scroll. This recognizable social media pattern will raise your visitors engagement and in combination with other design options opens multiple interesting ways to present your content. View demo (directions: click any post to open lightbox and scroll down).
  
• (released) “Carousel” layout. The highly-demanded layout that will allow you to add social stream as page section rather than creating a separate page
• Admin tour for new plugin users
• Support tab in the admin page
• Many optimizations and polyfills

First three features are already released and rest will follow them later during next months. For the future we have plans to add analytics feature, e-commerce integration, and new live editor. We will release detailed blog posts on occasion.

Important info about Facebook integrations

UPDATE 26 March 2019: Currently with latest plugin version you can embed posts of any FB page with token that you can obtain using method #1. We migrated to new FB app today so you need to regenerate token under AUTH tab in plugin settings to get fresh one from our new app.

As you may know, on August 1st 2018 Facebook company restricted access to its public API and will review apps that want to get access to public data. The access is granted only to a limited number of media publishers. It was done due to new privacy policy and security reasons.

According to new Facebook policy there is little chance every app can access all public pages content via API. This means that in future it is not guaranteed that users of our plugin will be able to stream all public pages. Starting from August 1, 2018 there is a possibility that it will be allowed to stream only pages you administer. Currently with latest version that is not the case and you can stream any page still using method #1. If you want to stream page you own and not use our shared app, please create own app following method #2.

To be prepared for future possible changes we have already submitted our Facebook app for review and are now awaiting for the results. In case Facebook restrictions come into force and our submission will be approved you will be able to use method #1 to stream pages that you administer. Otherwise we implement support for multiple Page tokens that you can manually add through admin dashboard to be able to stream pages. For now plugin works without changes and any additional actions.