Automatically uploading images to Facebook

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Uploading photos to Facebook

 

This method uses a free web service called Wappwolf to automatically upload photos to a Facebook album from cloud storage on Dropbox, Google Drive or Box. All three cloud storage services have between 2GB and 5GB of free storage and have premium paid options for more storage. Wappwolf can also be used to upload the photos to other photo sharing sites such as Flickr and Picasa/Google+.

 

IFTTT ("if this then that", website: ifttt.com) is an alternative web based automation service that works in a similar way to Wappwolf.

 

The way it works is Hotfolder Prints creates a layout and image size suitable for web display and copies this a folder in your DropBox, Google Drive or Box cloud storage. WappWolf or IFTTT then automatically uploads the image to an album on your Facebook page. If you have an internet connection available during the event the photos will be automatically uploaded to Facebook within a few seconds. If you don't have an internet connection during the event the photos will be automatically uploaded to Facebook the next time the computer is connected to the internet.

 

Step 1: Sign up for and install Dropbox, Google Drive or Box

If you don't already have an account with Dropbox, Google Drive or Box you need to sign up for a free account and to install the synchronization software on your computer:

Dropbox 2GB free storage, http://www.dropbox.com

Google Drive 5GB free storage, https://drive.google.com

Box 5GB free storage, https://www.box.com

 

Step 2: Create Wappwolf automation

Go to the Wappwolf wbsite (www.wappwolf.com) and click on the link for the cloud storage service you are using and then click on "Try now"" or "Login / Sign Up". Then click on the "Connect" button, login to the cloud service and follow the instructions to allow Wappwolf to access the files. When your web browser displays the WappWolf "Your Automations" page click on the "Create a new automation" button. Then create or select the folder you wish to use as your upload folder (e.g. create a folder named Photobooth) and then press "Next". When the "Choose an action" page is displayed scroll down to the "Pictures" section and select "Upload it to Facebook". Enter a comment and the name of the album for the photos. Finally click on "Add action" and if requested log in to Facebook to give Wappwolf permission to upload photos.

 

Step 3: Test the Wappwolf automation

Test the Wappwolf automation by copying a small JPEG file to the cloud storage folder you selected in step 2. After a few seconds the photo should appear in the Facebook album you specified in step 2. If it hasn't appeared after a few minutes you can check the status by going to the Wappwolf website and displaying the "Your Automations" page. If a green 0 is displayed it means the action hasn't been processed yet. If a red 1 is displayed it means there has been an error and you should receive an email message with details. The most common errors are not being able to login to Facebook or the image is too large to upload. If a green 1 is displayed it means the action has been processed and you should see the photo in your Facebook album. Next go to your Facebook page and edit the album to give it a suitable comment and to change the access permissions if required. Then delete the test image.

 

Step 4: Set up Hotfolder Prints

The photos can be copied to the upload folder on your PC using the "Copy JPEG to output folder" option e.g.

 

facebook
 

If no internet connection is available during the event the photos will automatically be uploaded when an internet connection is available.

In the screenshot above a copy of the JPEG layout is also saved to the "slideshow" subfolder where it could be displayed using slideshow running in Breeze Viewer.

 
You could also email the user a copy of the photo and a link to the gallery using email settings like the ones below. Users can enter their email address using the touchscreen keyboard option in our photo booth software and Hotfolder Prints will send an email with the photo attached together with a link to the Facebook album.
 

facebook_email

The URL for the Facebook album can be copied from the album page on your Facebook account. Alternatively you could simply provide a link to your main Facebook page and let the user select the album to display.

 

Automating the process for multiple events

If you regularly run events on different nights you can automate the settings by using date based tokens as shown below:

facebook_automate

The folder being monitored for new images is set to C:\Photobooth\%Y-%m-%D and will automatically monitor a folder using today's date in the form YYY-MM_DD. The %Y token is replaced by the year, e.g. 2012, %m is replaced by the month, e.g. 06 for June, and %D is replaced by the day of the month e.g. 21. If you use similar settings for the download folder in the photobooth software the downloader folder will automatically be updated to use today's date.

 

The folder where the JPEG copy of the output is copied to is set to C:\Users\Chris\Dropbox\Photos\%Y-%m-%D and will also be automatically updated to use today's date.

 

Unfortunately it isn't possible to use date based tokens in WappWolf action and so you will need to create a new WappWolf action for each event. This is simple to do via the WappWolf website: http://wappwolf.com

 
 

Uploading photos to a user's Facebook account

 

Users can upload their photo to their personal Facebook account by entering their personal photo uploading email address using the touchscreen keyboard option in our photo booth software. Users can lookup their personal photo uploading email address by going to https://m.facebook.com/upload.php. The email address is randomly assigned by Facebook and will be something like hxo239karpun@m.facebook.com. The photo will be automatically added to the user's "Mobile Uploads" album.

 

A caption can be added to the image using the subject line e.g. to add the title "John and Sue's Wedding" and the date the subject would be "John and Sue's Wedding %d" (the token %d is replaced by the date in the form YYYYMMDD).