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!

[Kyderoy]

Originally Posted by westpointer

You are using the formatted feed. Try this instead: http://feeds.feedburner.com/NoteFromTheBook

Thanks that worked great.

I have a few other feeds that are doing the same thing, how do I figure out the correct format?

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by ubblite

Nice extension, Westpointer.

However, I'm having one problem:

If I set "Number of RSS events to display on "Today's Events"" to 0, it still displays 1 event, which is strange and then when I click on "About Today" it only shows that same one event, even though the "Number of RSS events to display on the main AboutToday page" is set to 4, so something weird is going on. :ermm:

I've confirmed this as a BUG! I'm on the road today, and about to sign off, but I'll try to send a fix late tonight or early tomorrow.

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by Kyderoy

Thanks that worked great.

I have a few other feeds that are doing the same thing, how do I figure out the correct format?

Really the only way to figure out if it is the correct format is to put the URL in your browser and see what you get. You should get something that looks like the attached image. If instead, it looks more like a regular web page, that isn't what you want.

[CyberRanger]

Version 1.2 Gold posted! I really, really like this update.

(grrr ... just read my update email notice ... I hate how primative that feature is! Sorry for the messed up looking email.)

Be sure to do "Force RSS Update" after if you are upgrading! That will give you the newest look!

[chairman miaow]

Done the uprgade - works superbly ! Big thumbs up to ya :up: :up: :banana:

[bashy]

Hi

Done the update thanks

How do i do this
"Be sure to do "Force RSS Update" after if you are upgrading! That will give you the newest look!"

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by bashy

Hi

Done the update thanks

How do i do this
"Be sure to do "Force RSS Update" after if you are upgrading! That will give you the newest look!"

First, from the admincp, make sure that the usergroup you are in has permissions to force an update:



Then, go to your abouttoday.php page. You should see an option to "Force RSS Update".

[bashy]

Great m8, sorted now thanks

[OrangeFlea]

Is there a way to display the feeds on the Forumdisplay area of a board? Each of the forums we have on the board revolves around a distinct and separate topic, and we would like for the news to correspond with the appropriate forum on our board.

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by OrangeFlea

Is there a way to display the feeds on the Forumdisplay area of a board? Each of the forums we have on the board revolves around a distinct and separate topic, and we would like for the news to correspond with the appropriate forum on our board.

Not really by design. You do have three variable ($myfeeds, $myfeeds2, and $myfeeds3) that you can assign feeds to. You could then hack your forumdisplay templates to show these variables based on the forum id.

I think I'll make an option in the next release to assign a feed to a specific forum(s).