I have been using this hack for a long time now to display the latest news on my forum. So far the news bot has made some 136,000+ posts. The hack works perfectly as advertised but:

I get a bit tired of having this bot as top poster, having all the time new posts problems [moded the search.php so it won't show the forum section where the bot posts in New Posts but than the new posts stats won't correspond to the new posts search page] and having a new thread and new post for each news as this falsifies a lot of forum stats, having to follow forum, thread and topic links instead of having an easy to read page, etc...

Anyway this gives me a new idea about this hack:
I came across this some time ago: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...&page=1&pp=100 [How to create your own vBulletin-powered page] and started toying with the idea of seperating the article bot from the forum soft itself and using this kind of integration to put it back into the forum:
- have article bot "post" into it's own table with a similar structure to the post table;
- create a custom made page and link it to a forum

If haven't started work on this yet and wanted to first ask if there is someone out there who has already been working on a similar idea...

@ MadMan, had a closer look at the code: Although I haven't really looked much at vBull v3.5 yet I think this hack might work with it since it is mainly stand alone. I only checked the structure of the tables which has remained the same. The hack calls a few global vBull variables which, if they have changed, could cause problems. Maybe give it a try on a test board...

I'm a little confused about how to set how frequently the bot posts. I have 1 bot with multiple news feeds. In the feeds settings I set the "Post Interval" setting to 30,40,50 and 60 for different feeds. The cronjob runs every 5 hours. But the bot doesn't post ever 30,40,50 or 60 minutes. Nor does it post every 5 hours. How do I get it to check for new articles every hour and posts them if there are more?

Right now it's only posting 1 time per day.

I did that too, but it didn't resolve the following error:

-------------------------------------------------
Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to parse RSS file. (syntax error at line 1, column 0) in /articlebot/rss_fetch.inc on line 238

Warning: array_reverse(): The argument should be an array in /articlebot/articlebot.php on line 137

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /articlebot/articlebot.php on line 141
-------------------------------------------------

That error occurs both with Google and Yahoo feeds. Interestingly, it worked a couple of times with Yahoo, but no more!

Any ideas? Is this simply a problem with the RSS format? Google and Yahoo use RSS 2.0 and that should be supported by this hack, right?

Thanks!

Are you sure the cron is set up correctly? For some reason I could never get the cron to work in combination with this hack, it never executed at all. It started working perfectly when I used vB's Scheduled Tasks Manager and instructed it to call the articlebots.php script once an hour.

Pretty sure the cron is working because when I click to run it now, it doesn't error out.

Is there any way to get the bot post to show only after the first post on each page?

Folks-

I'm trying to install this mod (my first), and I got all the way to step seven, then got very confused.

I went to the cpanel on my site, found "chron jobs" but none of the choices i can make there seem to the instruction.

There is a box that asks"Please enter an email address where the cron output will be sent:"
One that asks "Command to run: "
and a bunch of menus that ask minute, hour, day, weekday & month

where do I put the path?

--don

M8, you do that in your AdminCP, see the picts below:

AdminCP -> Scheduled Tasks -> Add New Scheduled Task and then fill out in accordance with my second pict.

Thank you-

I got that done, but now get to the instruction:\

I'm on a shared server, does that path start at my partition (the part I can see) or do I have to start at the server name?

--don

All I am getting are advertisements so far, even though in the XML feed I can see the articles relevant to what I would want posted

I installed this, followed everything the way it said to, and yet there is no option to the left of my admin cp.

There isnt an article bot settings box

any help?

Forget about that, I guess i didnt refresh..

however now i have a new problem

i set up everything through all the steps put the include for articlebotphp in my index

and put the correct path to server in the articlebot.php

but when i go and try to execute articlebot.php i get a blank screen

also it isn't posting any threads or rss feeds

If it results in a blank page when you go to http://www.yoursite.com/forum/articlebot/articlebot.php then that's good, it's working. Perhaps it could be the XML scripts that you are receiving (ie. the news source)?

For me all I have been getting are advertisements.

It just took sometime to grab it, I guess my only complaint now is that the threads that are being posted are only like a couple of sentences... instead of full articles

is anyone else experiencing that as well?

Yep, everyone. That's the way RSS feeds are designed to work--they give a few-sentence description and a link to the full article.

--don

Is there any way to use regex to replace the link that is inside <link> </link> This link is being posted in the threads, but it is not the link to the full article. The link posts like this "http://www.thesite.com/short.php?id=12543" I want to replace it so it puts a link to "http://www.thesite.com/full.php?id=12543" I tried to do a regex for description in the admincp but it didnt work. Seems that it wont work for things embedded in a link tag. Any way to get it to work?

I believe the entire logic of this script is absolutely wrong. Firstly, there is no code in articlebot.php which would cause it to loop for the specified interval time. Setting an interval appears to be useless, articlebot will grab the first item in the RSS and then wait until the cronjob fires it again to grab the second item, the interval setting is completely bypassed. The way I imagined functionality was as follows:

Say you have a RSS feed with 10 items that haven't been added to your forums. At whatever time you designated the cronjob to fire, the first item from the RSS is added to the forums. Because I have set the interval to 2 minutes, the next item is added 2 minutes later, etc. until after 20 minutes, all 10 items have been added to the forums, and execution stops. When my cronjob fires articlebot.php the next time it will check for any new items, and input them 1 at a time taking a 2 minute rest between items.

I believe this was the intention of the script, but there is no coding in articlebot.php to facilitate this. I am currently attempting to incorporate the correct interval structure into articlebot.php, however, it may prove to be difficult as I am having a hard time understanding the layout of this code as it appears to be completely linear without any reference to certain functions.

I will keep you guys updated.

I haven't noticed most of what you mentioned, but I have noticed that it will grab a post in the "middle" of a feed as a new article.

The 3 biggest problems with this script as I see it are -

1, It doesn't correctly parse images in feeds to (img) vB code tags. I know the layout can't always match the original, but still displaying them would be nice.

2, It doesn't correctly parse <enclosure> tags into (url) vB code tags. This is most often used for Podcasts.

3, There is zero support for it. I've asked 7 questions in this thread and none have been answered. I'd even be willing to pay a few bucks for the script if support questions would get answered. Welcome to vB hacks I guess. :)

Hi NxTek,
Does the interval system work for you, such as you specify an interval, and it will churn away posting a new message for each item based on the interval time? It is not possible from looking at the code... I wonder if I have a bad articlebot.php?

PS: If your intervals do work, was there a step in the setup you had to perform, and what are your settings/rss feed. I am very interested to see how I can make mine perform correctly. Furthermore, have you been able to make it work via Scheduled Tasks? I can only use it with cronjobs.

The interval system itself works (I.E., the cronjob), but it doesn't always get articles in order.

Hi NxTek, the cronjob isn't suppose to be what controls intervals.. The cronjob is suppose to fire the main .php file, then the interval is suppose to control how often articles are grabbed during execution, it doesn't work at all. I guess im going to have to resort to setting up a 10 minute cronjob to grab headlines, it will work, but i'd prefer something easier..

Ok this modification officially is horrible, it doesn't work as intended, and it doesn't handle special characters worth anything! I'm removing it right away!

so what did you intend it to do?

i love this hack it works perfectly with 3.0.7 that have more than 50 hacks!

how do I uninstall?

I have this installed on VB3.0.7, buta m upgrading my site to use VB3.5RC3...

Will this hack work, or is there a better RSS programs that has similar features for VB35RC3?

Thanks in advance -
INterFX

i would like to use it on my vb 3.5 board as well... is there any similar hack or any port of this?

I am being sent the following Cron Job error whenever it tries to run.
But the path to my forums is correct and working.

i installed this last night and ended up removing it this morning... my members hated that it filled up the new post feature( i had 5-6 request by the time i woke up asking to remove it). If there is a way to not have it show up there, and not add to the total post count count of the forum it would be great

Hi all -

I installed Articlebot a few days ago, and it's working great. Mods I've done include:

- changing the posting template to show a clean link
- stripping out the postbot's user ID in new post searches

If someone wants a demo of what this thing is supposed to do, check out this link: *EDIT - LINK REMOVED*

Within the admincp, I can selectively move threads from my news forum to a discussion forum if they have > zero replies.

Here's what I need: What I want is help creating a script that will automatically do this every hour or so. Has anyone created an auto-move script before, or I should I start parsing through how the admincp component works? Thanks for any assistance one can provide...

- Alex

EDIT: Got it working. It moves threads with replies over to a discussion forum, and it also strips out threads with ADV: in the title as trash and puts them into a Trash forum, hidden from the public, for later review and deletion.

I have installed articlebot hack in my 3.0.8 version. But I have upgaded vbulletin to 3.5.0. Please help me how I can setup articlebot again now

Not sure if Articlebot will be updated for 3.5.0. Here's a well-regarded RSS hack for 3.5.0: click here...

has anyone found a better RSS feed solution for 3.5?

I have toyed with the Inferno system but would prefer Article Bot if possible

1 question.

How to uninstall this hack if i don't need it in future?

No automated uninstall, but it isn't rocket science either. Look at the install.php file, and you can see the 3 tables created (articlebot, articlebot_rss, articlebot_rss_cache), along with a new column in the thread table. If you want to make it inactive, just don't call the cronjob anymore. If you want to remove everything completely (whether or not it is doing anything), just drop the 3 tables, remove the column from the thread table, and remove the template mods you made.

Personally, this is one of my favorite hacks; it is working so well on my board and is one of the reasons I haven't yet jumped to 3.5.0. I've added a few add-on mods that make it more useful on a board:

- strip out any RSS news items that come through with ADV: in the title to a trash forum (this kill pretty much all the ads that come through on the feeds I use)
- auto-move any threads with 1 or more replies from the news forum to a discussion forum every hour.

Thanks,

Velocd, can you add a file to do an automated uninstall?

How do we add rel=nofollow to


I tried

but it mess with the feed url.

Hi Byron - I don't think you can add it with only a template change; it needs to be added as vbulletin parses the bbcode into html. Here's a link for the mod in 3.0.X that can do it for all URL's:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...threadid=74703

What I'd do is just add another clause to the if statement checking for >50 posts, and make it (user > 50 posts) & user != my posting bot user ID, or not in my posting bot user''s group ID).

You can mess with the if clauses to aim the nofollow parameter to as few or as many users/groups as you'd like.