How to get blogs in new posts search
 

Many people are concerned over the lack of integration of the blog system with the main forum software. I see many posts asking "how do I get my blogs to show up in new posts?"

Basically you need to utilise the blog RSS feed and get it to post a blog as a post.

This is how to do it.

From your admincp - RSS Feed Manager
Add a new RSS Feed
Feed enabled: Yes
URL of feed: http://www.yoursite.com/blogs/feed.rss
Check every: 30 mins
Feeds to fetch: 0
Username: choose or make a new one - blog bot or something
Forum: chose an existing one or make a new forum and select options as you see fit, or see below.
Allow Smilies: yes
Display Signature: no
convert html to bb code: yes


Title template: {rss:title}
Body template:

In the next sections, pick what you want but also make sure you do the following
Thread action delay 1
Close thread after delay: yes

Making a new forum
When making a new forum for your blog posts, chose the setting your want for other users, but make sure of the following:

Act as forum: yes
Index New Posts in Search Engine: yes
Forum is open: yes

You can chose whether the forum is hidden or visible, but make sure the username you specified above is in a group that can post to this forum.

Permissions

I didn't want others to post so they have no post permissions. To get to the blog, they click on the link in the post and get taken there directly. To be able to see the posts they must have.

Can View Forum: yes
Can View Thread Content: yes
Can View Others' Threads: yes
Can Search Forums: yes


A working version is at www.midlandsweather.org.uk
My blog forum (so that you can see an example of the posts made is at www.midlandsweather.org.uk/mwf-blog


Please click ***install*** if you use this.

reserved for future use

great mod! when the 3.7.0 goes gold i'll install this for sure ... ;)

just to let you know its not exclusive to 3.7 it also works on 3.6.8

Awesome! I have been looking for something to alert members of a new blog.
Thank you.

This is a mere workaround, it won't solve the problem

This is an excellent add on, if I can get it to work. Number one complaint at my site, others not know of a blog post :)

May be I'm taking your instruction too literally :)

This is what I have in my "Body Template"

and this for the "Title Template" {rss:title}

I'm still learning.... so pardon me for my ignorance :)

I get the following when I do a preview: XML Error: Empty document at Line 2

I hope you can help :)

Your blog RSS url or "URL of FEED", in your case, should be http://yourwebsite.com/forums/blog_external.php

BINGO!!!! Thank you, works!!! :)

installed, working perfect.

Doesn't this defeat the purpose of the blog? Why not just have a forum as a "blog" then? What would be the need to install the blog?

Not at all. Blogs work differently to the forums, but there is no way to tell users that an addition has been made to the blog (or comments) without them checking the blog page every time. This brings it to their attention by integrating it into the new posts search, its just like telling them there is a new blog!

When I set the time to close thread it does not work.

In other words , when I follow your 0.25 delay it resets itself to 0 every time.

The settings ONLY allow for whole numbers of one hour or more, not fractions of an hour.

Is there anyway to add the username of the original blogger? (currently, all fo the posts in the blog forum are posted by News Bot (and i understand why). Once you open the post, however, it would be nice to know who wrote the original text. Thanks.

No problem. You need to add {rss:dc:creator} to the body template (wherever you want it put)

as an example

Thank you, added that to my site. Working fantastic!!!! :) :) :)

added this to my site but just wondering is it now duplicating as I'm posting the blog content on my forum?

Mally

Absolutely. We do need real integration. But at least this is a way to alert members of new blogs.

Yes we do. Simply showing new blog posts in the "new posts" search would be perfectly fine.

I understand now and like this feature now that I thought about it more.

Now, is there a way to make it so the post shows only a preview of the blog and then a link that says click here to read more?

I hope that Scythe succeeds with this:

Doesn't seem to be working for me unless I manually run the scheduled job.....

In your cheduled task mamanger is your RSS robot running?

*
*
*
0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50
active: yes

Yes, those are the settings in place. I find I have to go into the RSS Feed Manager, reset the last time checked and then manually run the scheduled task.

thats sounds like an issue with the RSS vb side of things. Might be best to get that checked out with vb

This is a good workaround, but we definitely need some sort of plugin that integrates the blog into the new posts without the use of an RSS feed. These posts from the rss feeds will unnecessarily accumulate. Anybody working on a real plugin?

@icest0rm - Sorry to hijack the thread, but I've made a basic product to show recent blogs/comments in search screens over here. The results are not as integrated as this modification but may be enough for some. I've also linked back to this thread in that add-ons description.

i just tried this nice feature ... :D it seems to runs correctly but when i do a preview of my feeds i've got this ...

also i've a question: when it create the thread with the feed it puts ALL the text of my 'new entry' so my question is: can i decrease the number of the words of my entries, so the feed only create a preview?

If someone already has a blog made and adds to it should this show? I am trying this out and everything looks okay but am getting no preview of feed when testing it.

Figured it out, forgot to set blogs to be viewable by unregistered members.

Great stuff! Works perfectly (3.7.4)

Wait a second, it shows the full post without letting you know who made the post or actually taking you to the blogpost itself :S?

Isnt there possible to get the robot to post a redirect (if you allow it to use html)?

What is it problem when this came up?
Nytt blogg inlägg XML-fel: not well-formed (invalid token) på rad 483

nice

but how it will work on vbadvanced
what module i have to add so it can show it on my vbadvanced

It comes into vbadvanced automatically on the recent threads module. No further work is needed.

Has anyone been able to get this to work on vbulletin 3.8? I really liked this set up, since it would make a new post, and then members could go to the blog. I am not good with rss and this just quit working out of the blue........any help would be greatly appreciated.

Works fine with 3.8.0. Instructions are exactly the same. As its picking up RSS it should be fairly future proof to be honest.

shoot, it just isn't working on my site........wierd.

Okay, i have it working somewhat. Right now, i have the setting set how they are described in the instructions, but it is only updating posts that i post in my blog. It ISN'T placing other blogs into the forums.

What am i missing?

Title: Insane Blogs

URL of Feed: http://www.mysite.com/forums/blog_external.php

User Name: DugDug (this is my site bot)

Title Template: {rss:title}

Body Template: {rss:content:encoded}
Click here to be taken to {rss:dc:creator}s Blog...
Insanemustangs

Thread Action Delay: 1

Close Thread After Delay: Yes

These are my settings, and i don't have an actual blog forum set up, i have them going to a very busy forum. Do i need to make a blog forum for this to work corretly? If so, i still don't understand how come the bot isn't posting other users blogs....?