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]

Originally Posted by Milad

Can you make it wprk with vBAdvanced CMS?

I'll give it a shoot. I don't have vbAdvanced installed but I'll see if I can figure it out.

[Sooner95]

Originally Posted by westpointer

Hmm ... I think I know why. I need to make a little fix. Until then, call up http://www.yoursite.com/forums/abouttoday.php?do=rss. That should kick off your feeds.

Thanks for the feedback on the description fix. I'm glad that worked!

ok did that.. and got this.

Invalid SQL:
SELECT count(id) as events FROM histtd_events 
								WHERE;

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 '' at line 2
Error Number : 1064
Date         : Tuesday, February 7th 2006 @ 01:32:27 PM
Script       : http://www.bulldogbbs.com/forums/abouttoday.php?do=rss.
Referrer     :

[Lionel]

This is very nice. I've always wanted something like that and I ended up tweaking a calendar for a today in history, but it's in no way as great as yours. That's too bad I am using 3.07. I would have installed it in a heartbeat.

[Danny Diamond]

This plugin wont install from the screen that was suggested. What could the problem be and is anyone else having this issue?

[Snake]

Whoa this is just GREAT!

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by Sooner95

ok did that.. and got this.

Invalid SQL:
SELECT count(id) as events FROM histtd_events 
								WHERE;

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 '' at line 2
Error Number : 1064
Date         : Tuesday, February 7th 2006 @ 01:32:27 PM
Script       : http://www.bulldogbbs.com/forums/abouttoday.php?do=rss.
Referrer     :

Here is a new abouttoday.php. Can you give it a try? It appears that for some reason your site is not seeing the "do" when I have it coded as $_GET['do'] but is seeing it as $_REQUEST['do']. The attached file will let me know if that is indeed what is happening.

[This change plus the product change for the description getting lost in IE have been added to the product zip file.]

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by KYNSimon

This plugin wont install from the screen that was suggested. What could the problem be and is anyone else having this issue?

So if you are on the screen pictured in the attachment (with the upload path set to where you have the file product-abouttoday.xml), what happens when you click on "Import"?

[6piston]

hi westpointer

Great script!!

i got it working

but i have this problem,
it was all testing. so i decided to change the RSS url set number of news from 4 to 10
i did that and it didn't display the changes
so i executed the script to get new cache
still no updates on the changed

then i deleted the RSS feed and added a new one

then i executed the script to get new cache
but i got this error:
XML error: not well-formed (invalid token) at line 45

i tried deleting the RSS feed again and recache just to clear everything
No errors.

then i added a new RSS feed ran the recache
same error:
XML error: not well-formed (invalid token) at line 45

any ideas?

[dirtycrow]

nice! installed.

i accidentally moved a event into Destination: [category] and now i can't delete it

[mholtum]

Originally Posted by dirtycrow

nice! installed.

i accidentally moved a event into Destination: [category] and now i can't delete it

When I try to edit the userfroups I get this error

Database error in vBulletin 3.5.3:

Invalid SQL:
UPDATE vb350_usergroup SET

### UPDATE QUERY GENERATED BY fetch_query_sql() ###
`title` = 'Administrators',
`description` = '',
`usertitle` = 'Administrator',
`opentag` = '',
`closetag` = '',
`passwordexpires` = '0',
`passwordhistory` = '360',
`forumpermissions` = '1048575',
`attachlimit` = '0',
`pmquota` = '50',
`pmpermissions` = '3',
`pmsendmax` = '5',
`calendarpermissions` = '63',
`wolpermissions` = '31',
`adminpermissions` = '3',
`genericpermissions` = '205520831',
`genericoptions` = '23',
`profilepicmaxwidth` = '250',
`profilepicmaxheight` = '250',
`profilepicmaxsize` = '65535',
`avatarmaxwidth` = '100',
`avatarmaxheight` = '100',
`avatarmaxsize` = '20000',
`emotionpermissions` = '1',
`pagerpermissions` = '13',
`pagerquota` = '100',
`pagerminpost` = '0',
`pagerminpostperday` = '0',
`pagermaxperday` = '0',
`pagersendmax` = '0',
`pagersendmaxchar` = '300',
`journalpermissions` = '34783',
`que` = '4095',
`vbspacecomments` = '0',
`toplistpermissions` = '31',
`abouttodaypermissions` = '255'
WHERE usergroupid=6;

MySQL Error : Unknown column 'vbspacecomments' in 'field list'
Error Number : 1054
Date : Tuesday, February 7th 2006 @ 12:05:32 PM
Script : http://www.ravensrealm.net/forums/admincp/usergroup.php
Referrer : http://www.ravensrealm.net/forums/ad...&usergroupid=6
IP Address : 70.162.7.101
Username : mholtum
Classname : vb_database