AboutToday - Bring RSS Feeds and Daily Events to Your Site!

What is AboutToday?

AboutToday provides a central place to bring daily items of interest to your forum visitors. It includes two main components: an RSS Reader System and Local Events database System.

Please NOTE: This mod has been modified for vb ver 3.6.4. It should work on vb ver 3.5.4 and 3.6.x.

1. An RSS Reader system where the admin can enter RSS feeds that will then be displayed on the page. RSS feeds can be set to AUTOMATICALLY create threads or be set so that users can easily create a thread from a feed.. Feeds can be read via fopen or cURL.
   
   
   
   
   
   The RSS Feeds are fully intergrated with vbAdvanced and could actually be placed anywhere you want!!
   
2. A database system that can hold unlimited categories of "AboutToday" events. For example, you could have a history category (like a Today in History) with sub-categories for different eras in history. Or, you could have a daily joke or software tip of the day, etc.
   
   The "Add Event" feature is intended to help you if you want for example - Sports: Today in History. With the vb calendar, you cannot have categories and you are restricted with how far back the dates can go.
   
   
   
   
   So with the "Add Event" feature, you could have a category tree like:
   • Hockey
     • Professional
     • College
     • High School
   • Football
     • American Football
     • The Rest of the World (Soccer)
   • Baseball
   
   with the normal calendar feature, you cannot have categories. And with "Add Event" you can have any date. So, if you want an event like "Jan 1, 132 B.C. - the first ball was invented", you can do that. But, that isn't possible in the normal calendar. Also, the events in "Add Event" are fully searchable.

Installation

Copy the following files to your server in the forums directory:

abouttoday.php
includes/class.csv.php
includes/class_abouttoday.php
includes/cron/cron_abouttoday.php
includes/xml/bitfield_abouttoday.xml
includes/xml/cpnav_abouttoday.xml
admincp/abouttodayadmin.php

From the admincp, import the product file product-abouttoday.xml (Manage Products - Add/Import Product).

REFRESH your admincp window. You should now see a listing in the left column of the admincp for "AboutToday".

Getting Started

NOTE - if this is a new install, a Yahoo RSS Feed and CNN Entertainment Feed have been automatically added to give you a feel for how the product looks.

If you plan to use the RSS Feeds:

1. From the admincp, select AboutToday - RSS Feeds. Add an RSS Feed.
2. From the admincp, select Usergroups - Usergroup Manager. Add permissions so the Administrator group can use the product.
3. From your forum directory, bring up the file abouttoday.php.
4. If you want the feeds to AUTOMATICALLY create threads, go to admincp - abouttoday - settings. There you must set the userid of the account to use to create the thread. Then, edit the RSS Feed with the forumid of where the threads for that feed should be created!

If you plan to create your own "today in history" type of database:

1. From the admincp, select AboutToday - Categories. Add a category.
2. From your forum directory, bring up the file abouttoday.php. "Add" your first event to the category you have created!

Version Status
I've tested this product extensively but ... use this totally at your own risk!

Credits
I learned a lot about how to code this and used a lot of the code from what Ron1n did with ecDownloads. What I've learned from his code while helping to support ecDownloads has been invaluable.

Sites Using this Product
Visit www.armchairgeneral.com to see this product in action.

Click Install!
Please Click Install if you are using this product. Thanks!

[teedizz]

Originally Posted by teedizz

** Hey Cyberranger, i was wondering if this was possible. Right now when I create a thread from the feed in a specific forum, I see inside the thread it has a short description & a link that will re-direct users to the outside feed site. My question is how can I make it to when someone goes to create a thread from a feed, that the link in the feed in automatically posted inbetween [*frame]link from the feed goes here[*/frame]? **

bump

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by teedizz

bump

Please don't do that; it simply clogs up the thread.

Right now, you can't easily do that. But Paul M helped me with a coding issue that I didn't understand. Next week, I should be cranking out a revision that will make that possible.

[friendly]

This is possibly one of the best mods I've used. Thanks again!

[msidnam]

This may have been answered before but is their a way to get it to display on the right side of the forums instead of the bottom?

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by CodeRed

CyberRanger you got mail... well a PM more like it. hehe

Im interested in hiring you to make a couple of minor tweaks that are specific to our forum...

Thanks

For CodeRed and others! Here is an example page that shows how one could use the $myfeedsdetail variable to create a custom news page.

In the admincp -> AboutToday -> Settings, set "Allow $myfeedsdetail to display?" to "Yes".

Now, under AboutToday -> RSS Feeds, edit the feed you are interested in displaying, setting "Include this Feed in $myfeedsdetail variable?" to "Yes".

Place the attached testme.php file in your forums directory. Done!

(CodeRed - in your situation, I turned off "Use RSS image?" for the feed you wanted. I think it looks better that way. You may want to try that too)

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by msidnam

This may have been answered before but is their a way to get it to display on the right side of the forums instead of the bottom?

Here is a detailed example I did for showing the feeds under the navbar. You would use the same logic expect you'd want the myfeeds variable set to 1 (so the items are listed in a single column) and then place $myfeeds in your right hand column.

**********************************************

I'm going to make some of the feed summaries show on one forum under the navbar. I think that would be a good example to help everyone realize some of what they can do with this mod.

The end result is going to be this. I've selected two feeds to show at the top of the Main Forum using the $myfeeds variable:



On other forums, we'd won't see the feeds:



Here are the steps:

1. In admincp->abouttoday->settings, change the "How many rows across for $myfeeds variable?" to two.
   
   
   
2. For the two RSS Feeds you want to display, in admincp->abouttoday->RSS Feeds, set "Include this Feed in $myfeeds variable?" to "Yes"
   
   
   
3. The final step is to place the $myfeeds variable in the navbar template. We'll place it all the way at the bottom of the template with a conditional to only appear on the main forum (id of 2)
   
   

Done!

ALSO - if you don't want the feeds at the bottom set admicn -> AboutToday -> Settings, "Display RSS Feeds in "Today's Events"?" to "No".

[CodeRed]

Originally Posted by CyberRanger

For CodeRed and others! Here is an example page that shows how one could use the $myfeedsdetail variable to create a custom news page.

In the admincp -> AboutToday -> Settings, set "Allow $myfeedsdetail to display?" to "Yes".

Now, under AboutToday -> RSS Feeds, edit the feed you are interested in displaying, setting "Include this Feed in $myfeedsdetail variable?" to "Yes".

Place the attached testme.php file in your forums directory. Done!

(CodeRed - in your situation, I turned off "Use RSS image?" for the feed you wanted. I think it looks better that way. You may want to try that too)

thanks a ton for the info CR.... unfortunately its not quite working for me...

im guessing the reason may be that im still using VB 3.5.1... ugh.

Thanks a ton for your help regardless and I hope to get updated soon and give it another try...

EDIT: the testme.php page loads entirely with the correct header, footer, title etc its just that its not displaying the $myfeedsdetail information

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by CodeRed

EDIT: the testme.php page loads entirely with the correct header, footer, title etc its just that its not displaying the $myfeedsdetail information

PM me a vb admin login and password for your site and I'll check it out. Probably just need a little tweak.

[CodeRed]

you got mail

[CodeRed]

thanks a ton for your help... it works great now!!!!