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:
Q1: I have a question concerning timing several feeds: how would i stagger the postings so they aren't consecutive - I don't want to annoy members with too frequent (consecutive) posting?
For example, if I set up the individual feeds for periods of 1hr 1.5 hr, 2hr, 2.5 hr, for example, will I need to cron it every 1/2 hour or so to avoid getting several at one time?
Q2 second question is about moving threads. If I move a post made by the robot to a different forum, or delete it, or even PURGE (remove completely) will it know that it has already postedthat news item, or will it try to post it again?
I am using CPanel and have the Cron jobs available.
I click it and select Standard Mode.
PHP Code:
Standard Cron Manager
This is a web interface to the crontab program. It allows you to run commands at any time you specify. Enter the command you would like to run as well as running times.
Please enter an email address where the cron output will be sent:myemail@addresshere.com
And below that, Entry 1 and Command to run:
What is the command I need to type in??
I am using CPanel and have the Cron jobs available.
I click it and select Standard Mode.
PHP Code:
Standard Cron Manager
This is a web interface to the crontab program. It allows you to run commands at any time you specify. Enter the command you would like to run as well as running times.
Please enter an email address where the cron output will be sent:myemail@addresshere.com
And below that, Entry 1 and Command to run:
What is the command I need to type in??
But you need to have something receive the text email version of the alert and convert it to RSS for you.
There are free email2rss gateways out there, or you can work on your own
This is precisely what I have in place use articlebot for... I have signed up to many music email news lists on sites that don't have RSS feeds. But I receive the emails, publish them as an RSS feed, and then consume them with the articlebot and thus they appear in as threads on my forum.
If you need a hand with the choices available for email2rss gateways, just ask.
One problem I'm having is one of the BEST sites in my subject matter uses a weird RSS tag. Instead of having an description he uses <content:encoded> to list his news content. Is there anyway somebody could point me to what I have to modify? I'm decent at PHP, I just don't know where to start.
This would have to be a custom modification. Like asking IF this is that FEED use the content node instead of the description node.
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10-15-2004, 09:05 PM
