facebook-group-updater.rb

#!/usr/bin/ruby
#
# Facebook allows you to specify an RSS feed to poll to get new 'notes' for personal
# profiles, but no similar mechanism to feed a feed in as a group's "news" (possibly
# because of the awful data model around groups...)
#
# This is a quick mechanize script to update the 'news' box for a group you are an
# admin of. It's very basic, but works, and could be developed with an RSS reader
# or as an activerecord callback to send a new blog entry/news story to facebook, or...
#
# Obviously feel free to do what you like with it, but if you do use or further develop
# it, please let me know.
#
# James Stewart - james@jystewart.net - http://jystewart.net/process/

require 'rubygems'
require 'mechanize'
require 'logger'

group_id = 31757944403
agent = WWW::Mechanize.new { |a| a.log = Logger.new("mech.log") }
agent.user_agent = 'Street Action Facebook Populator'

page = agent.get("http://www.facebook.com/")
login_form = page.form_with(:name => "menubar_login")
login_form.field_with(:name => "email").value = "#EMAIL"
login_form.field_with(:name => "pass").value = "#PASSWORD"
logged_in_page = agent.submit(login_form)

edit_group_page = agent.get("http://www.facebook.com/groups/edit.php?gid=#{group_id}")
edit_form = edit_group_page.form_with(:name => 'group_info_form')
edit_form.field_with(:name => 'sec_blurb').value = 'Testing automatic news updates'
submitted = agent.submit(edit_form)