Version: 1.00, by Velocd
Developer Last Online: Nov 2023
Version: 3.0.3
Rating:
Released: 07-10-2004
Last Update: Never
Installs: 269
No support by the author.
Article Bot by velocd
Article Bot is a script that allows you to assign a user account (preferably an exclusive one) to an article bot that will post RSS feeds in select forums at designated intervals. These articles are derived from RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds.
RSS files are assigned to article bots, as well to individual forums, which in turn directs what, when and where your article bot will post.
Features
Works with RSS versions: 0.9x, 2.0, 1.0, and Atom 0.3
AdminCP interface for adding/modifying/deleting article bots & rss feeds
Designate intervals (in minutes) to each RSS feed for when your article bot will post them.
Requires only 1 file edit (admincp/index.php), allowing ease of upgrading your vBulletin
without having to remodify files.
Easy to install. Works best in conjunction with crontab (contab help is inside install.html)
News
7/25/04 - Version 1.1 Released
Bug Fixes
Replaced htmlspecialchars() with htmlentities() in articlebot.php to fully convert special entities from descriptions.
Added trim() to thread titles, to prevent double threads from being posted that are merely off by whitespace.
New table articlebot_rss_cache for storing a copy of article bot threads, for quicker checking of doubles when posting new threads.
Threads are checked in articlebot_rss_cache, so you can permanently remove them from the thread table (you don't have to "soft delete") without worrying about the bot replicating them.
Other minor bugs.
Features
New installer/upgraders for doing the SQL part automatically.
Added "label" field to add/modify RSS interface, that allows you to tag a label, e.g. [yahoo], to the beginning of threads, unique to each RSS feed. This might help for better distinction of RSS feeds.
Added an option to toggle on/off of building similar threads per RSS feed. Some RSS feeds could hault the script if the building of similar thread results for that feed takes too long (maybe the article thread title is too vague, and matches a lot of results--my guess is it's only a problem on large forums).
Added an option to toggle on/off skipping of articles that don't contain descriptions.
Regular expression search and replace for article titles and descriptions. This grants you much flexability to filter out things you don't want in your titles or descriptions (given you have some regex experience, I will try to post some patterns in due time.. feel free to add yours )
7/11/04 - Version 1.0 Released
Upgrading
To upgrade, reupload the new PHP and MagpieRSS parser files to their places on your server. Upload upgrade_vx-x (replace the x's with the version you are upgrading to) to /path/to/forums/admincp/, and then execute that script.
Files
3 screenshots attached
articlebot_v1.zip
install.html, logo.gif
articlebot_admin.php
articlebot/
rss_cache.inc
rss_fetch.inc
rss_parse.inc
rss_utils.inc
extlib/
Snoopy.class.inc
RSS Feeds
There are several in the install.html, but if you're looking for more than you could ever want, check out NewsIsFree's directory:
Velocd, is the "RSS Label" value available as a variable name to use in the template? I'd like to have that value appear in my template so I'm hoping that there's a variable name for it.
Great hack, working well. However the posts added by AB don't trip whatever gets tripped to send out an email to the forum members... Any way around this?
Warning: main(/admincp/global.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/mgunnin/public_html/forums/admincp/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 43
Fatal error: main(): Failed opening required '/admincp/global.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/mgunnin/public_html/forums/admincp/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 43
I am not sure what to do to fix this, did everything step by step and check 100 times. I know it is something simple that I am just overlooking.
Email Addresses to Notify When there is a New Post
(Separate each address with a SPACE)
doesn't seem to be used when AB posts. Threrefore the people I want to see the new post aren't getting the normal email. They have to happen upon it, which isn't timely.
Email Addresses to Notify When there is a New Post
(Separate each address with a SPACE)
doesn't seem to be used when AB posts. Threrefore the people I want to see the new post aren't getting the normal email. They have to happen upon it, which isn't timely.
Thanks!
Pardon my curiousity but..... what kind of RSS feed are you receiving that your users would want to get an email every time there is a new item received? Seems like an overkill to have site XYZ.com send an email every time there is a new item at ABC.com.