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!

[G_Man]

Originally Posted by BitMite

Exactly, I'm eagerly awaiting the next release :classic:
Thanks for the follow up.

Ditto!!

I just don't believe that I missed this all this time!

One of the finest hacks/mods I've seen yet!!

[Al-Fateh]

the only bad thing about this feeds, is that they flood your forum and kills the member posting

[dj_deswab]

I have installed this, but I don't see anything on my page and I don't understand number 3

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!

[G_Man]

Originally Posted by Al-Fateh

the only bad thing about this feeds, is that they flood your forum and kills the member posting

You don't have to have them posted and you can actually decide which feeds the member can select for posting.

I think it is the opposite. The members can read the news or whatever and if they are interested press a button and viola! Its in your forum as a new thread. Then when someone else comes across that same article on the AboutToday page they see a button to join the thread that was already started.

This Hack does with RSS what forums need done, in my opinion.

[G_Man]

Originally Posted by dj_deswab

I have installed this, but I don't see anything on my page and I don't understand number 3

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!

I think that is in the wrong order. The first thing I would do is go to your User Group for Admin and scroll all the way down. You will see a bunch of options for AboutToday. I set those all to yes for myself and just clicked the View Options for my other UserGroups.

After you set the permissions you will see more options for you on the AboutToday Page.

That should get you started.

[dj_deswab]

Great got it to work. Hey there anyway to move this to the feed to the top of my page and how?; right now they are at the bottom.

[G_Man]

Originally Posted by dj_deswab

Great got it to work. Hey there anyway to move this to the feed to the top of my page and how?; right now they are at the bottom.

Not sure what you mean? Got a link?

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by G_Man

The members can read the news or whatever and if they are interested press a button and viola! Its in your forum as a new thread. Then when someone else comes across that same article on the AboutToday page they see a button to join the thread that was already started.

I couldn't have said it better myself! Note too that you can set how often a feed gets updated. So, even if you have a feed set to automatically create threads you can still decide how often that feed will be updated.

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by dj_deswab

Great got it to work. Hey there anyway to move this to the feed to the top of my page and how?; right now they are at the bottom.

I think you are talking about how summaries can be displayed at the bottom of the forumhome page in the "Today's Events" section. That cannot be moved. However, you could set you feeds so that none of them display in that section and then use some of the $myfeeds variables to get a more customized look. This is a bit more of an advanced usage of the program. See this thread for more details:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=213

and this:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=215

and this:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=217

[Canis Firebrand]

I can't figure out why I don't see the buttons like in this image.