external data provider

[WeBBy]

I find the documentation for vb 5 to be absolutely horrible.

All I am trying to do is post some latest threads on a non-vbb page (was easy in Vbb 3.x) and after spending half the day playing with the external data provider, I think I am going to just give up and write my own script to pull data directly from the database.

There is absolutely no documentation on using the external data provider in either js or rss mode. wtf

I can access it using a direct link in a browser, but otherwise, there is no documentation on how to integrate it into a non-vb pagew (except saying that you can) or any documentation on formating the output, what parameters can be used, etc. :down:

Does anyone know of a mod or some sort of realitsic documentation?

Thanx

[Replicant]

Processing RSS output isn't really a VB documentation problem. There are a lot of code examples on how to process the RSS feeds from simple to complex implementations. Search Google for "Process RSS data" and you will get alot of hits and many different ways to accomplish what you are trying to do. Here's just one link from the search that explains it pretty well.

http://btk.tillnagel.com/tutorials/rss-feeds-processing.html

[WeBBy]

Unfortunately, I need a tutorial not just for dummies but for a complete idiot!!!

I cannot seem to get past step 1 because:
1. Half the links in the tutorial are 404
2. What-where is processing.xml?

If I use thier example as test.xml

import processing.xml.*;

// Load RSS feed
String url = "http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/topstories";
XMLElement rss = new XMLElement(this, url);
// Get title of each element
XMLElement[] titleXMLElements = rss.getChildren("channel/item/title");
for (int i = 0; i < titleXMLElements.length; i++) {
String title = titleXMLElements[i].getContent();
println(i + ": " + title);
}


I get nothing - cannot even look at page source (right click)

Sorry I am such a dumb sh-t