Article Bot

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:

http://www.newsisfree.com/sources/bycat/


Remember to click install if you use this hack.

Also be sure to read through the what you haven't of the thread before asking a question, for it may have been answered.

[romeshomey]

Also, any article that has a $ sign in it, the $ sign shows up as $

Example:
AP - A suspect swallowed nearly $50,000 in cash in a failed attempt to smuggle the funds out of Colombia, officials said Monday.

That is with any article having a $ in it.

Works fine in the Title, but not in the Description.

Any idea how to fix that?

[Velocd]

Not that I need it too, but just pointing that out.

Yep, that's deliberate. I suppose I could make it configurable per RSS, but for a thread to have just a link and title would seem spammish.

Also, any article that has a $ sign in it, the $ sign shows up as $

Not sure what you mean. Those two symbols look exactly the same. You have ascii code for it?

[romeshomey]

Originally Posted by Velocd

Not sure what you mean. Those two symbols look exactly the same. You have ascii code for it?

It didnt show as I pasted it here, these forums converted it.

Here is what its showing on my forum http://www.insidersportszone.com/for...ead.php?t=6312

Its basically showing up as & # 36 ; with no spaces in between instead of the $ sign.

[romeshomey]

Yea its weird. In some articles its showing the $ fine, in others its showing in ascii....

In this post it works right http://www.insidersportszone.com/for...ead.php?t=6292 but in this one it doesn't http://www.insidersportszone.com/for...ead.php?t=6312 . Baffeling..

[romeshomey]

Someone told me to go into the PHP script for the parser (which is the articles.php right?) and change the &gt; with > and &lt; with < to make the <b> </b> HTML work. He says its being sent over from source code and its not being converted..

I'll try it here in a bit if I can find where to do it at..

[romeshomey]

I notice in your code you have

$article['description'] = strip_tags(htmlspecialchars($article['description']));

I changed it too

$article['description'] = $article['description'];

Seems to work fine now...... No more <b> </b> Shows up bold now.. Only problem now is there is no space between the bold words and the rest of the article.

Example here: http://www.insidersportszone.com/for...6497#post26497

I would also like to know how to get them to show up if they dont have a desription. Because I cant use NFL.com or alot of sports feeds because they dont have descritions in their feeds.

Thanks again..

[romeshomey]

Ok, so everything is working great now except the spacing between the Article and Descritpion.

Example:
http://www.insidersportszone.com/for...6508#post26508

Derek improves to .700 after 3-for-3 nightHOUSTON -- Add another impressive line to Derek Jeter's glittering resume: the most successful hitter in All-Star game history. Jeter went 3-for-3 Tuesday night, upping his career totals in the game to 7-for-10. That .700 batting average is the highest for anyone with at least 10 at-bats, topping the .600 of former Philadelphia Phillies star Richie Ashburn. "I don't know, it's not just good fortune," said Jeter, whose three hits all went to the opposite field against... (Associated Press)

So basically, what I need to know, is how to seperate:

Derek improves to .700 after 3-for-3 night

and

HOUSTON -- Add another impressive line to Derek Jeter's glittering resume: the most successful hitter in All-Star game history. Jeter went 3-for-3 Tuesday night, upping his career totals in the game to 7-for-10. That .700 batting average is the highest for anyone with at least 10 at-bats, topping the .600 of former Philadelphia Phillies star Richie Ashburn. "I don't know, it's not just good fortune," said Jeter, whose three hits all went to the opposite field against... (Associated Press)

by a space...

[ranger2kxlt]

Suggestion:
What about the bot having the ability to search the RSS before posting?

Since I run a Ford site and we deal with the new Thunderbirds, we would like to ONLY gather ford thunderbird information from this....Is there a way for the bot to pull keywords and only post threads with certain search words?

[Velocd]

Ok, so everything is working great now except the spacing between the Article and Descritpion.

Normally the article title shouldn't be inside the description, unless you modified the articlebot_post template.

Suggestion:
What about the bot having the ability to search the RSS before posting?

Yes, that would be possible. Look at that AnyRSS link mini2 posted first, to see if it is of help.

If I set a forum as being not open to new posts, will this still post to that forum?

The articlebot can post in any forum, even those that are closed or not visible.

[Frzzy]

/me clicks install

A question, can the bot recognize and ignore already posted item?