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!

[CyberRanger]

Thx! I can't check it out right now but I will within the next 24 hours.

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by klaush

Usergroup-ID 2


Can View AboutToday? YES
Can Add Events to AboutToday? NO
Can Edit Own Entries? NO
Can Edit ALL Events? NO
Can View Disabled AboutToday? NO
Include link to image button on editor? NO
Can load events from a delimited file? (Use with CAUTION!) NO
Can View RSS Feeds? YES
Can force all RSS Feeds to update? YES

Thanks for your fast reply!

My testing shows that a user with those permissions cannot add a new event. Are you sure the user can?

BTW - I normally would only give "Can force all RSS Feeds to Update" to admins.

[bashy]

Hi

Just got this error when trying to setup a RSS feed, I aint done 1 since the
move to a new host, could this be the reson, if so what do i need to do please?

Database error in vBulletin 3.5.3:

Invalid SQL:
INSERT INTO histtd_rss(`name`, `desc`, `title`, `url`, `updatetime`, `maxlengthevent`, `todaynumber`, `mainnumber`, `enabled`, `useimage`, `directlink`, `displaytodayevents`, `myfeeds`, `myfeeds2`, `myfeeds3`) VALUES('Sky News Headlines', '', '', 'http://www.sky.com/skynews/rss/article/0,,30000-1-100,00.xml', '60', '', '2', '4', '0', '1', '0', '1', '1'), '0'), '0');

MySQL Error  : You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ''0'), '0')' at line 1 Error Number : 1064
Date         : Wednesday, April 12th 2006 @ 11:41:01 AM
Script       : http://www.bashys-place.com/forums/admincp/abouttodayadmin.php
Referrer     : http://www.bashys-place.com/forums/admincp/abouttodayadmin.php?do=rss

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by bashy

Hi

Just got this error when trying to setup a RSS feed, I aint done 1 since the
move to a new host, could this be the reson, if so what do i need to do please?

Database error in vBulletin 3.5.3:

Invalid SQL:
INSERT INTO histtd_rss(`name`, `desc`, `title`, `url`, `updatetime`, `maxlengthevent`, `todaynumber`, `mainnumber`, `enabled`, `useimage`, `directlink`, `displaytodayevents`, `myfeeds`, `myfeeds2`, `myfeeds3`) VALUES('Sky News Headlines', '', '', 'http://www.sky.com/skynews/rss/article/0,,30000-1-100,00.xml', '60', '', '2', '4', '0', '1', '0', '1', '1'), '0'), '0');

MySQL Error  : You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ''0'), '0')' at line 1 Error Number : 1064
Date         : Wednesday, April 12th 2006 @ 11:41:01 AM
Script       : http://www.bashys-place.com/forums/admincp/abouttodayadmin.php
Referrer     : http://www.bashys-place.com/forums/admincp/abouttodayadmin.php?do=rss

I think this was a problem in an earlier version. Can you please reload the newest version?

[bashy]

Cheers m8, updated and works fine now, thanks

[bashy]

Did any databases ever come to light for this hack,
i.e. on this day in history and the like?

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by bashy

Did any databases ever come to light for this hack,
i.e. on this day in history and the like?

I don't think so. That is sort of the idea behind the local events (day in history) portion of this program. It lets you build your own database (with the help of who ever you give access.)

[bashy]

Thats a big shame, its gonna take forever and a year to get it half full and thats with help lol

[Krose]

thanx a lot for a very nice hack! *clicked install*

[CarpHunter]

Installed it and like it very much INSTALLED

I encountered one little error though.

Database error in vBulletin 3.5.4:

Invalid SQL:
ALTER TABLE `histtd_rss` ADD INDEX `name` ( `name` );

Also found the error in the XML.

At line 180 its says:

	$db->query_write("ALTER TABLE `histtd_rss` ADD INDEX `name` ( `name` )");

Change this to:

	$db->query_write("ALTER TABLE `" . TABLE_PREFIX . "histtd_rss` ADD INDEX `name` ( `name` )");

This should fix the error.