How to share a link on Facebook Messenger from other apps?

Question

From Facebook Developer Documentation, I see that I can share image, animated image, even audio clips from other app to Facebook Messenger. But I can see no way to share a link. Neither does when I try to look what kind of share does the FBSDKMessengerShare offer.

How can I share a link using Facebook Messenger?

Answer 1

Seems that it can't be done with FBSDKMessengerShare, but with FBSDKShareKit it's possible. (I'm using Xcode 8.3, Swift 3.1, Cocoapods with FacebookShare 0.2.0)

More info available at https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/ios

There are two methods:

1. Using FBSDKMessageDialog: "The Message Dialog switches to the native Messenger for iOS app, then returns control to your app after a post is published."

   @IBAction func messengerButtonAction(_ sender: UIButton) {
   
       let linkContent = FBSDKShareLinkContent()
       linkContent.contentURL = URL(string: "https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/someValidAppURL...")
   
       let dialog = FBSDKMessageDialog()
       dialog.shareContent = linkContent
       dialog.shouldFailOnDataError = true
   
       if dialog.canShow() {
           dialog.show()
       }
   }
   

2. Using FBSDKSendButton: "The Send button lets people privately send photos, videos and links to their friends and contacts using the Facebook Messenger. The Send button will call a Message dialog."

   This creates a share button that is displayed in a specified view. The button will be automatically disabled if the Messenger app is not installed on the device.

   override func viewDidLoad() {
   
       let linkContent = FBSDKShareLinkContent()
       linkContent.contentURL = URL(string: "https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/someValidAppURL...")
   
       let button = FBSDKSendButton()        
       button.shareContent = linkContent      
       if button.isEnabled { 
          self.view.addSubview(button) 
       }
   }