[Kirk Y]

I butchered something together for just such a task a few weeks back - it's not perfect, but it does work.

Go here and download vBExternal, it says it's for 3.5.0 Beta 1 - but don't worry, it doesn't make any modifications to your forum, it doesn't even have any Plugins. Upload those files to your server. https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=83005

Open up the vBExternal.php file and follow on...

Find:

// ---------------------------------------------------
	// FUNCTION: output_UsersOnline
	// DETAIL:   Outputs All Users Online In The Forum
	// ---------------------------------------------------

Add before:

	// ---------------------------------------------------
	// FUNCTION: output_Thread
	// DETAIL:   Outputs the first post from the specified thread
	// ---------------------------------------------------

	function output_Thread($t = "",$a=""){
	global $db, $Data, $vbulletin;

	// Define Forum To Pull From
	$Thread = ($t)? intval($t): '';

		if(!$Thread){
		RunError("No specified thread to pull from.");
		}

	// Load Template
	$Template = LoadTemplate("_thread.html");
	
	// Collect Data
	$NewestNews = $db->query("
			select t.*,p.pagetext
			from ".TABLE_PREFIX."thread t
			left join ".TABLE_PREFIX."post p on(p.postid=t.firstpostid)
			where t.threadid = $Thread
			");


	$parser =& new vB_BbCodeParser($vbulletin, fetch_tag_list());

		while($News = $db->fetch_array($NewestNews)){
		$Data .= ParseTemplate($Template,
							array(
								'threadid'     => $News['threadid'],
								'threadname'   => $News['title'],
								'postuserid'   => $News['postuserid'],
								'postusername' => $News['postusername'],
								'post'         => $parser->do_parse(substr($News['pagetext'], 0, strrpos(substr($News['pagetext'], 0, $a), ' ')) . construct_phrase($vbphrase['read_more_news'], $vbulletin->options['bburl'], $sql['threadid'], $session['sessionurl'])),
								'comments'     => vb_number_format($News['replycount']),
							)	
			);
		}
	doOutput();
	}

Then you need to create a new HTML document in the vBExternal folder, name it _thread.html and fill it with the following contents:

{post}...
<br /><span class="readmore" style="float:right;"><a href='{url}/showthread.php?t={threadid}' class="readmore" style='text-decoration:none;'><strong>[Read More]</strong></a></span>

Then wherever you want to display the first post of a thread, use this:

<?php
output_Thread(2504,1500);
?>

2504 is the ThreadID and 1500 is the Amount of Characters to Display.
Don't forget to CHDIR the file you're placing the code in.