Facebook connect/oath for a newbie

I am currently starting to research a p开发者_C百科roject that wants to use Facebook instead of a log in system.

the brief needs to be able to allow users to have their own customisation settings in a user panel, and also be able to connect with facebook friends within the context of the site.

Am I barking up the wrong tree?

Also, how much of the elements we pull from facebook can be styles our way. My designers is starting concepts before I get to that point of development and I don't want to waste their time designing layouts that can not be achieved.

Facebook allows you to pull a wealth of information. The user has to OK the permission for you app to access his/her Facebook profile, but you can get friends lists and their thumbnail pictures too!

Take a look here for a start: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/

Its a bit of work, but worth it. You can pull straight data and store it on your server. According to Facebook, you can only keep the data for 24 hours or so (If I remember correctly) so you will need to "refresh" the data every day or so.