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!

[MorrisMcD]

Originally Posted by westpointer

There was a problem with feeds in an earlier version. I wonder if this is a hangover from that. If possible, can you go into phpmyadmin and manually delete the feed? It is in the table histtd_rss.

Those settings look good.

On forum home, did you in general prefer the bullet look over the table rows look?

I will delete that from the db directly.. Thanks... I reenabled that one and it didnt come back, but the rest are fine, so its probably just that one.

And I like the table rows on the cmps module and the abouttoday home page, but yes.. I personally like the bullet look better on the todays events on the forum home.. If something can be done, cool.. If not, thats cool too Just an inquiry

[jjj0923]

is it possible with this to post the retrieved rss information in a specific forum?

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by jjj0923

is it possible with this to post the retrieved rss information in a specific forum?

Not right now. I plan to do that as part of the next release in a week or two.

[photongbic]

I installed AboutToday v1.3 and use it for the RSS feeds feature (I have turned off Events). It worked fine initially but I have been getting database errors...

Database error in vBulletin 3.5.3:
Invalid SQL:
UPDATE histtd_rss
MySQL Error : Lost connection to MySQL server during query
Error Number : 2013
Script : http://blah-blah/forums/abouttoday.php?do=rss&id=6
Referrer : http://blah-blah/forums/abouttoday.php
Classname : vb_database

Any thoughts?

[GrendelKhan{TSU]

wow. this looks awesome and just what I need.
gotta finish a couple updates then I'm definitely gunna try this out.

but first the most important question for me:

--> is this fully phrased??

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by photongbic

I installed AboutToday v1.3 and use it for the RSS feeds feature (I have turned off Events). It worked fine initially but I have been getting database errors...

Database error in vBulletin 3.5.3:
Invalid SQL:
UPDATE histtd_rss
MySQL Error : Lost connection to MySQL server during query
Error Number : 2013
Script : http://blah-blah/forums/abouttoday.php?do=rss&id=6
Referrer : http://blah-blah/forums/abouttoday.php
Classname : vb_database

Any thoughts?

Normally, that can of error is unrelated to the program. Instead, your server hiccupped.

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by GrendelKhan{TSU

wow. this looks awesome and just what I need.
gotta finish a couple updates then I'm definitely gunna try this out.

but first the most important question for me:

--> is this fully phrased??

Yes, I'm pretty sure anything you would want phrased is phrased.

[photongbic]

Quote:
Originally Posted by photongbic
I installed AboutToday v1.3 and use it for the RSS feeds feature (I have turned off Events). It worked fine initially but I have been getting database errors...

Database error in vBulletin 3.5.3:
Invalid SQL:
UPDATE histtd_rss
MySQL Error : Lost connection to MySQL server during query
Error Number : 2013
Script : http://blah-blah/forums/abouttoday.php?do=rss&id=6
Referrer : http://blah-blah/forums/abouttoday.php
Classname : vb_database

Any thoughts?

Originally Posted by westpointer

Normally, that can of error is unrelated to the program. Instead, your server hiccupped.

Yeah but it only happens when a user tries to access the RSS feeds or cron tries to update them.
???

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by photongbic

Yeah but it only happens when a user tries to access the RSS feeds or cron tries to update them.
???

hmmm .... I dunno! If you PM me your site info with an admin login for vbulletin, I'll see what I can find.

[Bukusami]

HI,
Just installed as per install.txt and had to uninstall/install the product.xml a few times ot catch this error, ended up with print screena s it is only there for a second.

Is this error going to cause a issue? i havnt gone any further yet as a previous hack allready took up a day so i wanna go slow on this one.

Attachment 44402