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 OrangeFlea

Exactly, and not for the Abouttoday.php page, but on the RSS list (vbA home page) itself.

No, there isn't. I'll look into it some more but I'm not sure there is a way to do that.

Originally Posted by OrangeFlea

Also, is there a way to sort the feeds in a certain order?

Yes, the RSS feeds are sorted based on the NAME field. So you could number your feeds 1,2,3, etc then use the TITLE field for what to display to the user.

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by ILTK

Great product

Thanks!

Originally Posted by ILTK

I was wondering if there was any plans of maybe adding filters to filter out items from feeds?

Not right now but I plan to add that in the future.

[venomx]

Will this work on 3.6.1?

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by venomx

Will this work on 3.6.1?

Yes, vb 3.5 and up.

[venomx]

Fresh install of About Today and vB3.6.1 and its giving me errors. I get weird errors in the PSS pages, like URL= and if I click the button to talk about it and the feed has an image with it I get a url for the image and /img> at the end...

EX: http://www.hotoffthewire.net/forum/showthread.php?t=5

[Shazz]

Make sure the </img> code is fully set.... If you see it at the end

[venomx]

I just gave up on everything. I deleted the account my forum was on and now I am just parking that domain. Too much bull with updates and errors..

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by venomx

I just gave up on everything. I deleted the account my forum was on and now I am just parking that domain. Too much bull with updates and errors..

Ah man! You shouldn't have done that! I could have walked you through what to do in a few minutes. If you change your mind, PM me your sites url along with a username and password that can access the vb admin.

[G_Man]

Hey Westpointer,

Been using the hack for sometime now with no problems, so thanks again

did want to ask about something you mentioned about 5000 posts ago! You said the next version would possibly enable you to have automatically posted threads that are not replied to automatically deleted...

You still planning on adding this. I have some great feeds going, like quotes. Some get replies, some don't... I am stacking up the threads though!! LOL If you aren't going to do this I might delete a feed or two.

Thanks again for the great Mod.

[Slingblade61]

Install went fine......I have been reading this thread for ages and have seen a couple of references to CMPS.......does it (can it) work there?

If so, how?