including vbulletin info on page off server (NOT eva2000s hack!!!)

Came across this:

http://msmoo.simplenet.com/sorbo/andro.htm

They basically have a small pull of "hot topics" from a board somewhere else. This is a great little idea for linking with people and i guess works like moreover.com sort of thing.

How to do it? Can't use normal php as for one the linking people may not have php and secondly can't use server links /usr/bin etc.

So how can we do it? Is it possible for vbulletin to, through cron say every 5 mins make a small html page with the top 10 popular threads on it. Then make a little javascript program that calls this. We can then give people the javascript call, they add 1 line of text to their website and there appear our hot topics on their site.

What do you think?

Why not create a script that is hosted on your server and allow your new affiliates. To link directly to it.. Kind of a remote hosting kind of thing. I know quite a few sites that do this including Moreover, ISyndicate, SitePoint (Tip of the Day feed).

Yeah that is exactly what i mean. But how do i get the tip of the day feed type thing you have to be dynamically updated with "hot topics" from vbulletin?

Also, excuse my ignorance!, how do i make a tip of the day feed in the first place?

thanks

The way I see it is this:

Create a PHP script that creates a javascript as its output. Call the file activetopics.js. You would then run this script from the command line at periodic intervals via CRON.

The end user would then include this Javascript in their page and load it off your server. It may not be real-time but if you do it every 15 minutes then you would still give them fairly up-to-date information that would be useful.

Hello everyone,

I agree! This would be fantastic!

Yup, i got the idea of what to do just now working out how to do it :)

15 minutes would be fine, just now off to see what the javascript needs to be and how to make the php file (and be able to restrict forums that get included etc..)

When you finish this can you post the code? I am just learning how to work with java scripts and would totally mess it up if I tried at this piont.

well i know no javascript yet. I am learning php to get the first bit done and then see what i need to do the javascript bit.

Has anyone figured this out yet? I'm not a programmer at all. If someone could get it, I'd be forever grateful! :_

Thanks!

hehe et moi. I am learning the php now to make the first bit. I read somewhere of a program that will make the javascript thing for you, i think it was an ad in the latest issue of the newsletter from sitepoint but not sure? one of the other webmaster places otherwise. This may be useful but i think it cost about $100 which is a bit much for what sounds like quite a simple hack.

[ashy]

I struggled looking for answers to this for ages but managed to find the "syndicate" hack on this site which gave me what I needed ie last 10 (and also last 50) headlines that is on a non-vb page - and on a different server.

If I remember rightly the syndicate hack returned HTML but I wanted it to write a .JS file so easy to include on another page - in fact easy to include on anyones site like moreover.

I run the php to generate my news.js every 15 minutes by CRON - or let my news gatherers run it direct from their browser after posting a news story.

Please see http://www.southport.gb.com - main home page with last 10 news stories (single selected forumid for news only). Also option to display last 50 on its own page.

Apologies if this duplicates other posts but I found it hard to get exactly what I wanted. If anyone wants a full copy of my implementation I will post here.

Credits to all whose bits I took!

[Dark_Wizard]

This sounds interesting...please post it!

[ashy]

This is all based upon the following hack.

VBSyndicate Hack V1
Dave Campbell www.cpfc.org September 2001

I dont write PHP so hack of a hack - only showing here as a working example that his given our site a great boost in popularity by ever changing content ie news headlines on our front page.

My activenews.php is as follows...

<?
require("/home/southpor/public_html/forums/admin/config.php");
//
$num_active = 10;
$num_chars = 50;

$db=mysql_connect($servername,$dbusername,$dbpassw ord);
mysql_select_db($dbname);

$fp = fopen("/home/southpor/www/news/latestnews.js", "w");
@flock($fp, 2);

// select the forums you want to pull the topics from

$querylatest="SELECT * FROM thread WHERE forumid='27' ORDER BY dateline
DESC LIMIT $num_active";

$resultlatest = mysql_query($querylatest,$db);

while ($latest_array = mysql_fetch_array($resultlatest)) {

// Get Forum Infomation
$query_forum = "select * from forum where forumid='$latest_array[forumid]'";
$result_forum = mysql_query($query_forum,$db);
$forum_info_array = mysql_fetch_array($result_forum);

// split the date up a bit
$datestr1 = substr($latest_array["dateline"],0,10);
$datetime = substr($latest_array["dateline"],11,8);

$querythread="SELECT * FROM post WHERE threadid='$latest_array[threadid]' ORDER BY dateline ASC LIMIT 1";

$result_thread_text= mysql_query($querythread,$db);

$result_thread_array = mysql_fetch_array($result_thread_text);

$newstitle = $latest_array["title"];
$newsposter = $latest_array["postusername"];
$newsposterid = $result_thread_array["userid"];
$newstext = substr(strip_tags($result_thread_array["pagetext"]),0,$num_chars);
$newsthreadid = $latest_array["threadid"];
$newscomments = $latest_array["replycount"];
$threadforumid = $latest_array["forumid"];
$threadforum = $forum_info_array["title"];
$threadiconid = $latest_array["iconid"];
$newsdate = date("D j M", $latest_array["dateline"]);
$newstitle = ereg_replace("'", "", $newstitle);

// echo commentary to browser
print ("<b>$newstitle</b><br>");

fputs($fp, "document.write(\"<font face='Verdana, arial, helvetica' size='2' color='#FF0000'><a href='http://www.southportforums.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=$newsthreadid'>$newstitle</a></font><font face='Verdana, arial, helvetica' size='1'> $newsdate $newsposter<br></font>\");\n");
}

@fclose($fp);

print ("<br><b><u>News Headlines Have been updated - Thank You</u></b><br><br>");

include ("news50.php");
?>

I have this set to run as CRON job every 15 minutes - though news reporters can call the script from their browser as well. The news50.php is the same except generates up to 50 headlines in a diff JS file.

The javascript is included on your own page by standard <script src="............" </script>

As you can see it generates latestnews.js that I simply include on whatever page I need - or other sites can use as well. Example as before at www.southport.gb.com

As said - this is other peoples hack - I am only showing here as my working example - something I was looking for myself earlier!