RSS autodiscovery

[58sniper]

This mod will trigger autodiscovery in news aggregators that support autodiscovery (most do).

In AdminCP, in the headinclude, find (usually about 3-4 lines from the top):
<meta name="description" content="$vboptions[description]" />
add the following below:

<link title="$vboptions[bbtitle] RSS Feed" href="$vboptions[bburl]/external.php?type=php" type="application/rss+xml" rel="alternate" />

That's it. Simple.

Let me know if you have any questions.

[pjdaley]

i may sound rude to some, or wierd to others... but what exactly does this do?

[MrNase]

Most news aggregators like FeedDemon (http://bradsoft.com/feeddemon/index.asp) have a feature that allows you to just insert the url to the website and the software detects the url to the xml file on it self and you don't need to find out where exactly the newsfeed is.

This little code snippet (its a template mod for vbulletintemplates.com) tells the software where the newsfeed is. It's really handy.

Here's a practical demonstration:

Imagin vbulletin.com has this 'hack' installed. Now you install FeedDemon and you only need to enter www.vbulletin.com/forum and FeedDemon automatically finds out where the newsfeed is. :)

[SnowBot]

This isnt a hack, its a template Mod. A nice one but still a template mod.

[58sniper]

Most news aggregators like FeedDemon (http://bradsoft.com/feeddemon/index.asp) have a feature that allows you to just insert the url to the website and the software detects the url to the xml file on it self and you don't need to find out where exactly the newsfeed is.

This little code snippet (its a template mod for vbulletintemplates.com) tells the software where the newsfeed is. It's really handy.

Here's a practical demonstration:

Imagin vbulletin.com has this 'hack' installed. Now you install FeedDemon and you only need to enter www.vbulletin.com/forum and FeedDemon automatically finds out where the newsfeed is. :)

Also, some news aggregators, like News Crawler, watch IE. If you open a site with this hack installed in IE, News Crawler automatically discovers the RSS feed.

I agree, I probably should post this at vbulletintemplates.com....

Demo - turn on your news reader before visiting http://www.efhs84.com/

[MrNase]

I think it should be standard in 3.0.4 :)

[ChessMess]

I think it should be standard in 3.0.4 :)
Feedster doesn't seem to recognize the demo you gave:

http://feedster.com/feedfinder.php?action=find&blogurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.efhs84.com%2F

[ChessMess]

Feedster doesn't seem to recognize the demo you gave:

http://feedster.com/feedfinder.php?action=find&blogurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.efhs84.com%2F
Also, how well does this work in conjunction with this mod:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=65832&page=1&pp=15

[vB 3.0.1] - RSS Output Mod & Icon

[58sniper]

Feedster doesn't seem to recognize the demo you gave:

http://feedster.com/feedfinder.php?action=find&blogurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.efhs84.com%2F

That's because Feedster is looking for /rss.xml, which doesn't exist. I have no idea how it's coming up with THAT file name. The source code of my demo is correct.

[ChessMess]

How does it integrate with the mod I mentioned above? Since each page has its own discovery now, can your mod be modified to work with that mod?

[58sniper]

Hmmmm..... let me look into that. My mod just gives the generic external.php link. I'm sure it can be modified. Gimme some time...

Also - please click INSTALL if you guys use this.

[58sniper]

I'm going to continue this mod in the thread over at vbulletintemplates.com. Check it out at http://www.vbulletintemplates.com/mods/showthread.php?t=6996

The mod now includes a conditional, as well as some other info.

[buro9]

For the record, I use a very similar technique to activate Firefox Live Bookmarks

I'm only posting this so that anyone who wants a hack to enable Live Bookmarks will realise that this achieves that too :)

[michaelab]

For the record, I use a very similar technique to activate Firefox Live Bookmarks
I've been trying to do that and can't get it to work. The RSS icon appears on the status bar and clicking it adds the live bookmark (with the correct URL) but all I get in FireFox under the bookmark is "Live bookmark feed failed to load."

I'm on vB 3.0.1 - do I need to upgrade to 3.0.3 for this to work?

btw, I have live bookmark feeds working on other sites (eg BBC News).

Any ideas??

Michael.

[buro9]

I've been trying to do that and can't get it to work. The RSS icon appears on the status bar and clicking it adds the live bookmark (with the correct URL) but all I get in FireFox under the bookmark is "Live bookmark feed failed to load."

I'm on vB 3.0.1 - do I need to upgrade to 3.0.3 for this to work?

btw, I have live bookmark feeds working on other sites (eg BBC News).

Any ideas??

Michael.

In the headinclude template put the following, obviously modifying the URL for your forum, and the name of the forum too:



<link href="http://www.bowlie.com/forum/external.php?type=rss2" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Bowlie - Latest Posts">
<if condition="$foruminfo[forumid] != ''">
<link href="http://www.bowlie.com/forum/external.php?type=rss2&amp;forumids=$foruminfo[forumid]" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Bowlie - Latest Posts in $foruminfo[title]">
</if>


You need full URLs, not relative.

RSS2 is prefered.

I have made it so that two feeds are available, a global one... and a per-forum one. Global feed of all latest posts is on every page, and the forum specific feed is on any page that can provide forum info (such as forumdiaply.php or showthread.php ;)).

That should work, does on mine :)

[buro9]

I'm also going to work on a Calendar RSS feed if no-one else does.

And a proper version of "Latest posts" that provides the last posts content in the RSS rather than the first post of the thread.

Oh, and in external.php, I've changed the query just below "// query last 15 threads from visible / chosen forums" to order by thread.lastpost and NOT thread.dateline. As this way the threads in the RSS match perfectly the threads in the "Get Latest" page on the forum.

[58sniper]

In the headinclude template put the following, obviously modifying the URL for your forum, and the name of the forum too:



<link href="http://www.bowlie.com/forum/external.php?type=rss2" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Bowlie - Latest Posts">
<if condition="$foruminfo[forumid] != ''">
<link href="http://www.bowlie.com/forum/external.php?type=rss2&amp;forumids=$foruminfo[forumid]" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Bowlie - Latest Posts in $foruminfo[title]">
</if>


You need full URLs, not relative.

RSS2 is prefered.

I have made it so that two feeds are available, a global one... and a per-forum one. Global feed of all latest posts is on every page, and the forum specific feed is on any page that can provide forum info (such as forumdiaply.php or showthread.php ;)).

That should work, does on mine :)

Nice work. This would be a more generic version of the above that shouldn't require editing. Plug and play.


<if condition="$vboptions[externalrss]">
<link href="$vboptions[bburl]/external.php?type=rss2" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="$vboptions[bbtitle] - Latest Posts" />
<if condition="$foruminfo[forumid] != ''">
<link href="$vboptions[bburl]/external.php?type=rss2&amp;forumids=$foruminfo[forumid]" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="$vboptions[bbtitle] - Latest Posts in $foruminfo[title]" />
</if>
</if>

[KW802]

Nice work. This would be a more generic version of the above that shouldn't require editing. Plug and play.


<if condition="$vboptions[externalrss]">
<link href="$vboptions[bburl]/external.php?type=rss2" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="$vboptions[bbtitle] - Latest Posts">
<if condition="$foruminfo[forumid] != ''">
<link href="$vboptions[bburl]/external.php?type=rss2&amp;forumids=$foruminfo[forumid]" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="$vboptions[bbtitle] - Latest Posts in $foruminfo[title]">
</if>
</if>
:cool: Thanks! I just updated mine to have the forums change. I stuck mine in a else conditional though.
<if condition="$vboptions[externalrss]">
<if condition="$foruminfo[forumid] != ''">
<link href="$vboptions[bburl]/external.php?type=rss2&forumids=$foruminfo[forumid]" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="$vboptions[bbtitle] - Latest Posts in $foruminfo[title]">
<else/>
<link href="$vboptions[bburl]/external.php?type=rss2" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="$vboptions[bbtitle] - Latest Posts">
</if>
</if>

I seem to remember coming across an external.php hack somewhere that will accomodate sub-forums so I'm searching for that now. BTW: Thanks to you I'm now playing around with Opera as part of my standard testing. :p

[michaelab]

Thanks guys. Upgrading to vB 3.0.3 fixed the problem. Must have been something funky in the way RSS was being generated in 3.0.1.

Michael.

[ShiningArcanine]

I wrote my own version of this:

<if condition="$vboptions[externalrss]">
<link href="$vboptions[bburl]/external.php?type=rss2" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="<phrase 1="$vboptions[hometitle]">$vbphrase[x_dash_latest_posts]</phrase>" />
<if condition="$foruminfo[forumid]">
<link href="$vboptions[bburl]/external.php?type=rss2&amp;forumids=$foruminfo[forumid]" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="<phrase 1="$vboptions[hometitle]" 2="$foruminfo[title]">$vbphrase[x_dash_latest_posts_in_y]</phrase>" />
</if>
</if>

It uses the phrase system and the settings in vBulletin options. Anyone who wants to use this without modifying it would want to create two custom phrases. One would be named: x_dash_latest_posts and have this content:

{1} - Latest Posts

The other would be named x_dash_latest_posts_in_y and have this content:

{1} - Latest Posts in {2}

I hope that helps someone

[58sniper]

:cool: Thanks! I just updated mine to have the forums change. I stuck mine in a else conditional though.
<if condition="$vboptions[externalrss]">
<if condition="$foruminfo[forumid] != ''">
<link href="$vboptions[bburl]/external.php?type=rss2&forumids=$foruminfo[forumid]" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="$vboptions[bbtitle] - Latest Posts in $foruminfo[title]">
<else/>
<link href="$vboptions[bburl]/external.php?type=rss2" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="$vboptions[bbtitle] - Latest Posts">
</if>
</if>

I seem to remember coming across an external.php hack somewhere that will accomodate sub-forums so I'm searching for that now. BTW: Thanks to you I'm now playing around with Opera as part of my standard testing. :p

Cool! One thing I just corrected in mine was the correct XHTML closing slash. So, your example would be this:

<if condition="$vboptions[externalrss]">
<if condition="$foruminfo[forumid] != ''">
<link href="$vboptions[bburl]/external.php?type=rss2&forumids=$foruminfo[forumid]" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="$vboptions[bbtitle] - Latest Posts in $foruminfo[title]" />
<else/>
<link href="$vboptions[bburl]/external.php?type=rss2" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="$vboptions[bbtitle] - Latest Posts" />
</if>
</if>

[58sniper]

Just a follow up note:

By the way, KW802 posted a modified external.php file that adds some feature and standards compliance. Check it out at

FPS_EXTERNAL.PHP -- New options added & RSS compliant version of external.php (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=69834)

It's a nice addition to this hack.

[BigCheeze]

Hey thanks... I just enabled RSS on my site, and installed this, and Firefox likes it :D

[ataraxia]

I'm also going to work on a Calendar RSS feed if no-one else does. Did anything ever come of this?

An RSS feed for the Calendar would be very useful!

[buro9]

Did anything ever come of this?

An RSS feed for the Calendar would be very useful!
No, afraid not.

I usually come up with great ideas when I'm on the bench... and then before I get anywhere with them I'm thrown on a client site far from home.

So nope... didn't start this one.

[kingwoodtalk]

The calendar feed is a great idea. Wish there was some way I could help but am "original coding challenged". Hope something comes of this.