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AboutToday - Bring RSS Feeds and Daily Events to Your Site! · **Released**: 02-05-2006

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.

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!!
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 · #**532** 08-30-2006, 12:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysticales

Which left one issue tho... seems when I did "Force Update" now, it redirects it to a bad url does a /./abouttoday.php

Which that part I can fix if I rename all the ./abouttoday.php in the file to remove the ./

I think you can safely remove the ./ if that is causing a problem. I haven't tested it yet but I don't think it's necessary.

venomx · #**533** 09-03-2006, 01:14 AM

Will you port this to vb 3.6?

Ascor · #**534** 09-03-2006, 04:55 AM

i have it just installed in 3.6, i use only the rss feed to let people choice creat new thread or not and all work nice !
Thank you westpointer for this great work

Puck 24/7 · #**535** 09-03-2006, 05:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by venomx

Will you port this to vb 3.6?

It already works with 3.6.

Nuguru · #**536** 09-04-2006, 07:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nuguru

Hello Westpointer,

I was wondering if you were able to come up with a fix on how I can delete a line above the mod so that it is in portion to normal spacing. It basically just seems like <br><br> or something. If you could give me some advice on fixing this issue, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank You,

Nuguru

Hello Westpointer,

Any luck on how this space can be adjusted? It's just a space, come on, throw me a bone here. It looks horrible.

Thank You,

Nuguru

egyptsons · #**537** 09-05-2006, 07:12 PM

great I will try it

CyberRanger · #**538** 09-05-2006, 08:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nuguru

Hello Westpointer,

Any luck on how this space can be adjusted? It's just a space, come on, throw me a bone here. It looks horrible.

Thank You,

Nuguru

I hope to look at this tomorrow. Unfortunately, what may seem like a simple space thing can be much more complicated.:nervous:

Maagic · #**539** 09-06-2006, 11:50 AM

Is there any way to get these to display horizontally instead of vertically? I got a big block of unused space on the right and center of my forum now and it looks kinda ugly

CyberRanger · #**540** 09-06-2006, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maagic

Is there any way to get these to display horizontally instead of vertically? I got a big block of unused space on the right and center of my forum now and it looks kinda ugly

I agree! I have a fix in mind for that.

CyberRanger · #**541** 09-06-2006, 01:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nuguru

Hello Westpointer,

Any luck on how this space can be adjusted? It's just a space, come on, throw me a bone here. It looks horrible.

Well, it is simple! I really need to get in here and clean up my code some. For now, to fix this until I can release a full update, do this:

In abouttoday.php

FIND (around line 1748):

PHP Code:


			
$dmain .= "<br /><br /><table width="".$stylevar['tablewidth'].""> 
 <tr align="center"> 
        <td class="thead" width="100%">".$dl->titlerss."</td></tr></table>";

REPLACE with (remove the breaks):

PHP Code:


			
$dmain .= "<table width="".$stylevar['tablewidth'].""> 
 <tr align="center"> 
        <td class="thead" width="100%">".$dl->titlerss."</td></tr></table>";

I should have all this in templates and will in the next version.

X vBulletin 3.8.12 by vBS Debug Information
Page Generation 0.05336 seconds Memory Usage 2,331KB Queries Executed 25 (?)
More Information
Template Usage: (1)SHOWTHREAD (1)ad_footer_end (1)ad_footer_start (1)ad_header_end (1)ad_header_logo (1)ad_navbar_below (1)ad_showthread_beforeqr (2)bbcode_php (6)bbcode_quote (1)footer (1)forumjump (1)forumrules (1)gobutton (1)header (1)headinclude (1)modsystem_post (1)navbar (6)navbar_link (120)option (1)pagenav (1)pagenav_curpage (4)pagenav_pagelink (3)pagenav_pagelinkrel (11)post_thanks_box (11)post_thanks_button (1)post_thanks_javascript (1)post_thanks_navbar_search (11)post_thanks_postbit_info (10)postbit (11)postbit_onlinestatus (11)postbit_wrapper (1)spacer_close (1)spacer_open (1)tagbit_wrapper Phrase Groups Available: global inlinemod postbit posting reputationlevel showthread	Included Files: ./showthread.php ./global.php ./includes/init.php ./includes/class_core.php ./includes/config.php ./includes/functions.php ./includes/class_hook.php ./includes/modsystem_functions.php ./includes/functions_bigthree.php ./includes/class_postbit.php ./includes/class_bbcode.php ./includes/functions_reputation.php ./includes/functions_post_thanks.php Hooks Called: init_startup init_startup_session_setup_start init_startup_session_setup_complete cache_permissions fetch_threadinfo_query fetch_threadinfo fetch_foruminfo style_fetch cache_templates global_start parse_templates global_setup_complete showthread_start showthread_getinfo forumjump showthread_post_start showthread_query_postids showthread_query bbcode_fetch_tags bbcode_create showthread_postbit_create postbit_factory postbit_display_start post_thanks_function_post_thanks_off_start post_thanks_function_post_thanks_off_end post_thanks_function_fetch_thanks_start post_thanks_function_fetch_thanks_end post_thanks_function_thanked_already_start post_thanks_function_thanked_already_end fetch_musername postbit_imicons bbcode_parse_start bbcode_parse_complete_precache bbcode_parse_complete postbit_display_complete post_thanks_function_can_thank_this_post_start pagenav_page pagenav_complete tag_fetchbit_complete forumrules navbits navbits_complete showthread_complete
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