Facebook-style Statuses, or facebook_status (not to be mistaken with fbstatus, and abbreviated FBSS), is a module which provides each user with a microblog where they can write what they're doing, how they feel, or anything they want. With permission, users can also post messages on other users' profiles. This helps build a community and make your users feel more connected to your website.

This documentation is for the 2.x branch of Facebook-style Statuses. The example site demonstrates how this module can be used to imitate Facebook or Twitter.

Learn about this module's:

• Blocks
• Pages
• Views
• Module Integration
• Tags submodule
• API and theme functions
• Troubleshooting and FAQ

Blocks

One block is provided by default:

Facebook-style Statuses

Shows the current user's status with the update form, with two exceptions: Legacy Mode can change which user is shown, and there is also a setting in the block configuration to have the block show only a single user's status (and update form where appropriate). This last option can be used on single-user blog sites, for example, or to make site announcements. In addition, an automatically updated list of the latest statuses can be included in this block if the Views module is installed.

Other blocks are available if you have Views installed.

Note: You may experience adverse effects if you try to show the status update form more than once per page. This is because of the way Drupal core handles multiple copies of the same form on one page. A bug in Panels can cause the status update form to process twice when the form is in a Panel on user profiles, but it only renders once, so you shouldn't experience any problems.

Pages

• Edit and delete pages are provided for users with permission to edit and delete statuses.
• Conversation pages are generated when users exchange status messages and the Views module is installed.
• There is a page for each status at /statuses/SID where SID is the Status ID.
• A page at the relative URL "share-status" contains a status update form which can be pre-filled with the "s" parameter in the URL, like /share-status?s=test. Read more about the share-status page here.
• An Open API is available for third parties with permission to access status update timelines (like on Twitter). This can be found at "statuses/openapi."
• Other pages listing status updates are available with the Views module installed.

Module Integration

Facebook-style Statuses integrates with a large number of modules. Many of these modules also integrate with other modules, creating a wide range of possibilities for what you can accomplish with Facebook-style Statuses.

Also check out the modules that extend FBSS.

You can also use this small module to migrate your data from the Guestbook module to FBSS. It's easy; just enable the module and your data will be automatically converted (more information about it on this FBSS issue node).

Profile

Users' statuses (and, if allowed, the status update form) appear on their (core) profiles.

Views

Views integration allows site administrators to make lists of status updates. Examples include User Status History, Friends' Statuses, or All Status Updates. More on Views integration here.

Activity

Activity integration allows status updates to appear in a Facebook-style "mini-feed" of users' activity on your website. Works with both the 1.x and 2.x branches.

Triggers

Integration with the (core) trigger module is available so that various actions can be performed when statuses are updated. However, no default actions are specifically available through the default user interface. In order to access actions which you want to occur on status updates, use the triggerunlock module to expose all actions to the interface.

Rules

Integration with the Rules module allows complex, pre-determined actions to occur when a user submits or deletes a status. Rules is basically a more powerful version of the core Trigger module. You can use rules to have FBSS integrate with even more other modules.

Relationship Modules

Views integration results in easy integration with the main modules that allow users to express relationships with each other: User Relationships, FriendList (*), and Flag Friend.

Flag

The Flag module allows you to add features like Facebook's "Like" or a "Report" option. A "Like" flag is included by default, as well as a "Follow" flag that allows Twitter-style follow/follower action. Flag also integrates with Views, but there are no default FBSS views that use Flags.

Taxonomy

The Facebook-style Statuses Tags submodule allows using #hashtags to categorize posts. Tags are automatically added to a designated vocabulary.

Twitter

Facebook-style Statuses integrates with the Twitter module in two ways. First, if a "Special User" is set in the Facebook-style Statuses block, then statuses by that user can be automatically posted to the Twitter account. Second, each individual user can set a Twitter account in their Drupal user account settings to use to post their statuses to Twitter. If the individual user has chosen an account to use, a checkbox will appear on the status update form allowing the status to be posted to Twitter.

Userpoints

Userpoints awards users points for doing certain actions on a site. These points can be used like money in E-Commerce or just for fun (for example, to show rankings). With FBSS, users can earn points for posting statuses.

Pathauto

Pathauto automatically aliases pages on your website as soon as they are created. This allows you to provide alternative URLs for individual status pages.

Author Pane

The Author Pane module provides block/theme functions that developers can use to display information about a user. This allows you to add users' statuses to the author pane on forum posts built by the Advanced Forum module, among other things.

Input Filters

You can choose an input format to run on statuses when they are displayed. This allows integration with modules like wordfilter or inline.

Popups API

The Popups API module allows links to be opened in modal dialogs so that the whole page doesn't have to be refreshed. FBSS allows the edit and delete links for statuses to be handled in this way; submitting the form will refresh the page with AJAX for a smooth experience for your users.

Views Bulk Operations

The Views Bulk Operations module allows executing processes upon multiple statuses at a time, using the Views module as its interface and Rule Sets for the processes. For example, you could use VBO to set up a page that would allow you to delete several statuses at once.

Application Toolbar

The Application Toolbar (Appbar) module provides a toolbar at the bottom of each page that alerts users of actions on the site that are relevant to them. FBSS provides several alerts for the Appbar.

CTools/Panels

FBSS provides a CTools content type that allows placing users' streams (including the status update form) into a Panel. Panels and CTools facilitate building complex layouts without writing any code.

SMS Framework

Integration with the SMS Framework module allows users to send texts to your site beginning with "s: " which will be saved as statuses.

Devel

The Devel module provides several useful utilities to website developers. Integration with Devel (specifically, the Devel Generate sub-module) allows rapid creation or deletion of large numbers of random statuses for effective testing.

Heartbeat

Like the Activity module, Heartbeat provides a stream of users' recent activity on your site, including status postings.

Mollom

The Mollom module is designed to stop spam on your site with minimal work by administrators. Integration with Mollom can help stop spam status updates.

Mentions

The Mentions module provides an alternative to the #hashtag and @mention functionality provided by the Facebook-style Statuses Tags submodule. It works by using an input filter, which means it can be used on nodes and comments as well as statuses.