Upcoming Facebook Changes to Boxes and the Box Tab that Will Impact Your Custom Fan Pages
Facebook is planning a series of changes and improvements that will be rolled out over the next couple of months.
The most important of these changes for those of us with customized fan pages is that there won’t be any more boxes.
That’s right. No boxes! There won’t be a boxes tab, any applications that depend on boxes will need to be added, and we won’t have custom profile boxes in our sidebars.
These changes will negate the article I wrote about creating a custom facebook fan page in which I recommended that the Boxes tab be used for customization. I created a series of Static FBML boxes on my Boxes tab to make a custom page that was the default for new visitors.
As soon as Facebook implements the changes that removes boxes and the Boxes tab, the above page will no longer exist.
The best solution is to use Static FBML to create a custom tab and then create a layout in html.
I created a new tab and default welcome page to my fan site and named the tab (Anti) Social Development.
The applications tab is going to have less space and we will have 510px to work with. Even if you are already using a custom tab rather than the boxes tab, you will want to check the size and make any necessary reductions.
The plus side to this is that I wanted to create a custom tab rather than use the boxes tab and the upcoming facebook changes forced me to do so. Of course, the downside is that if I didn’t make the new tab my customizations would no longer be available.
These changes are scheduled for the end of this year or the beginning of next so there is some time to make the changes.
This does not, however, resolve the issue of other applications that use boxes or customizations I have made that use Static FBML in boxes in the sidebar. These do not warrant their own tab and some of the information has been included on the tab that I made but I will lose a level of personalization to my fan page. Hopefully Facebook will provide a replacement application for this.
This will also affect the Custom Profile box that I have on my profile page that I created to link to my fan page. Like I said, there won’t be ANY boxes used in applications. I don’t know how I can recreate this functionality but, again, am hopeful that Facebook will provide some sort of replacement.
I have not removed the Boxes tab or the sidebar boxes on the wall because I wanted to have them there as examples for this article and to compare and contrast the new tab vs the Boxes tab. I may remove them but since I have already made the new page it is fine with me if they disappear when Facebook makes their updates.
Well, it’s not fine with me but it’s one of those things that I have no control over. I’m just glad that Facebook provided advanced notification – that isn’t something they’ve been known to do.
I really am not sure what will happen to boxes such as favorite pages, the LinkedIn application, notes, etc. I suppose for them to work they will have to become tabs. But how many tabs does a page want to have? After 5 or 6 they don’t fit across the screen and can only be accessed with the dropdown arrow. I suppose we will just have to wait and see what happens.
If you need assistance converting your pages, please contact me as I provide a facebook fan page service.
For more in depth reading about these changes, please visit the following sites.
photo credit: drp
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18 Responses to “Upcoming Facebook Changes to Boxes and the Box Tab that Will Impact Your Custom Fan Pages”
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November 16, 2009 at 1:02 am
This is why I subscribe to your blog to learn about developments like this, considering I’d followed your earlier advice and created such FBML on those boxes…
Ari Herzog´s last blog ..12 Million People Tweet 27.3 Million Times
November 16, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Hi Ari,
I had no idea 6 months ago that this would happen. Now I feel like 6 months from now there will be no more tabs and everything will be boxes ;-)
I’m glad Facebook gave us advanced notification.
November 16, 2009 at 4:24 pm
THANK YOU for posting this. I had scanned through the upcoming changes but somehow didn’t get that this would eliminate the Boxes tab! I’m glad we have a little time to get things set up now, thanks to your warning! From now on I will just need to tweak some html on a custom tab I guess. Thanks again SO much for sharing with us! I’ll be sending people to read this too!
Karen
Karen Clark´s last blog ..Why Blog?
November 16, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Hi Karen – You’re welcome. :-) I had to read a couple of articles and the comments before it really sunk in that boxes – all instances of boxes – would be gone. A lot of application developers are going to need to make changes too or their applications are going to be broken.
I’m glad this helps.
November 16, 2009 at 10:01 pm
All I can say is, I’m glad I don’t have a fan page anymore. :)
vered | blogger for hire´s last blog ..Restaurant Salads Scare Me
November 17, 2009 at 6:48 am
Hi Vered – Or not have one that’s customized. ;-)
November 26, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Hi Kim,
Can I put the Facebook fan page widget in my blog’s side bar if I follow the above instructions and create a new tab…?
November 27, 2009 at 7:49 am
Hi Yohan – I don’t really understand the question. You can add the fan page widget to your blog regardless. These instructions are unrelated.
December 21, 2009 at 8:01 pm
thanks for posting this, I have been wracking my brain for over an hour trying to follow instructions to set up fan page with custom profile box, and other tricks. Biggest issue I need help with is that I started to create a fanpage, didn’t publish it yet, tried to upload photos, nothing happened so I refreshed the page to try again then the page disappeared. So then I tried again again the page disappeared. Somehow I landed on a page listing all my unpublished pages ( I had about 4!). To save my life I can not determine how to get back to the page I want to publish and delete the others. Please have mercy and advise if you are able!
December 21, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Hi Jeannie – Facebook has been buggy all afternoon and is super slow right now. If I were you, I would leave it until tomorrow and see what happens.
To delete a page, go to that page, click on Edit Page and there will be a delete link at the top where it says Back to Pages, View Page and Delete.
December 21, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Kim,
Love your post here. I wasn’t aware that facebook was making these changes. While were on the subject…How in the world do you change the tab names for the Static FBML items?
Adam Garcia´s last blog ..Adam in the Hospital
December 21, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Hi Adam,
When you go to edit Static FBML you give the FBML section you are working on a name. That will be the name of the tab.
December 24, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Great write-up Kim, thank you for sharing.
December 24, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Hi Therese – Thanks! I hope it helps.
December 26, 2009 at 2:05 pm
yeah , well that’s not really fair because now i can’t gett my videos & links & notes on the side anymore for the box tabs.. i just read this now , and it’s too late. ? not fair…
December 27, 2009 at 7:40 am
Hi Loreen – That content will have to be in a tab. It’s annoying but I keep telling myself that Facebook is free.
March 4, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Hi Kim,
Great Blog. Do you happen to know WHEN facebook will be implementing the reduction of the fan page tabs to 510? I’ve been reading that this is coming, but I’ve not seen a date for it to go live.
Susan
March 4, 2010 at 10:45 pm
Hi Susan – I checked the developer’s roadmap a couple of days ago and it still says Early 2010 – there is no other date on it. It is still on the list of things they plan to do though.
http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Developer_Roadmap