Now that you've installed Ringside Social Application Server, you may want to try out some demonstrative applications. First, you'll need to log in. If you selected the "Launch" option in the installer, there should be a link labeled "Go To Login Page". Otherwise you should be able to log in on the left navigation bar, or click the "Login" link at the top right.
For the purposes of this trail, login as joe@goringside.net with the password 'ringside'. This account has been preloaded as part of the installation.
What is Footprints?
Footprints is a demo application made available by facebook. It's purpose is to show how to use some of the basic functionality provided by Facebook's API and FBML tag library.
Ringside Social Application Server supports the entire Facebook API, and all of the FBML tags used by the Footprints application. The Ringside Social Application Server installation comes pre-configured with the Footprints application added for joe@goringside.net (the user you have logged in as). To see it in action, click on the 'Footprints' link in the navigation bar on the left.
You should now be looking at the 'Footprints' application, with a simple form to step on one of your friends. Go ahead and choose a friend and click the 'Step' button. The application should say that you've stepped on the friend you've selected. Click the 'Step on you' link.
These two actions you have just taken exercised several of the API calls and utilized some FBML tags as well. At this point, you may want to explore the source code for this example, which can be found at [ringside]/apps/ringside/htdocs/fbfootprints.
Menu Items
Profile
Now that you've tried a sample application, you might be wondering what some of the other menu items are, and what they do. First, click the 'Profile' link at the top. This is your profile (as sample user "Joe Robinson"). This is where you can share basic information about yourself. To edit any of the information that is displayed, click the 'Edit' link at the top, just to the right of the 'Profile' link.
If you clicked on the 'Step on you' link as directed in the last step, you'll notice that the footprints area of your profile displays the step information from the application. This is the result of the API call setProfileFBML that is part of the footprints application.
Developer
The developer application is accessed via the 'Developer' link at the top of the page. This application allows developers to create and configure applications they develop to run on the Ringside platform. To learn the basics of how to use it, please go through the Hello World Trail Map.
Friends
Clicking on the 'Friends' link at the top will show all of your friends. Clicking on any of their names will show their profile. There is a tab labeled 'Add Friend' that enables you to increase the number of contacts in your network. Click on it, and type in 'Robinson' for friend name, then click 'Add Friend'. You'll notice that this currently behaves as a search function, and thus shows all users with the name 'Robinson'. Note that in this alpha release of the Ringside Social Application Server, invitations are not supported.
