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vBulletin to Twitter, live tweets of new threads · **Released**: 01-26-2010

This should work on all 4 and 3 versions of vBulletin as it's trivial.

Description:

You start a new thread, this hack makes a tweet about it on your twitter account.

This are live updates... not delayed, not based on RSS... the instant the thread is started, a tweet is made. This is how this hack differs from other hacks.

Why:

Mostly for SEO, but also as an alert system.

For SEO the idea is simply that search engines are drinking from the Twitter firehose and are indexing the links that are tweeted. Faster and increased indexing of your site benefits you by helping it be found.

For alerts it means that users are able to use whatever twitter client they wish to obtain updates. A lot of these provide filtering capabilities, so they're able to get a live filtered stream of updates that interest them. This works very well when you also use thread prefixes.

Pre-requisites:

You should have an account on bit.ly for URL shortening, and you should have an account on Twitter.

Go and register if you haven't yet:
http://bit.ly/
http://twitter.com/

Installation:

NOTE: Most problems are related to not putting your bit.ly or twitter user details in the plugin. Follow the instructions carefully!

Upload the two attached files to your forum root. These are twitter and bitly classes that enable the hack to work, you can also download these from the author:
http://classes.verkoyen.eu/bitly
http://classes.verkoyen.eu/twitter/

Go to the plugin manager and create a new plugin with the following details:
Product: vBulletin
Hook: newthread_post_complete
Title: Tweet to Twitter

PHP Code: [See below]

To configure the PHP code you need to know your bit.ly API key (go get it from bit.ly/account) and your username and password for twitter.

You also should make a list of the forumIds that are non-public as you will want to put these in the array provided.

i.e. if your admin forum is forumId = 7 and you also have a private forum for regular members which is forumid = 12, then you will want this:
$excludedForums = array(7, 12);

The PHP code should be this, with all of the relevant values for your forum inserted (replace everything bolded, including the < and > bits):

PHP Code:


			
// The array below are the ids of non-public forums, update these to be your admin forum ids or anything non-public by default
$excludedForums = array(0);

// If you are having trouble getting bitly URL shortening to work... disable it!
$useBitly = true;

if (!in_array($foruminfo[forumid], $excludedForums)) {
    $shortUrl = 'http://www.yourforumsdomain.com/showthread.php?t='.$newpost[threadid];

    if ($useBitly) {
      // http://classes.verkoyen.eu/bitly
      require_once 'bitly.php';
      $bitly = new Bitly('<bit.ly username>', '<bit.ly API key>');
      $shortUrl = $bitly->shorten($shortUrl);
    }

    $tweet = '';
    if (isset($newpost['prefixid']) && $newpost['prefixid'] != '') {
        $tweet = $vbphrase['prefix_'.$newpost['prefixid'].'_title_plain'].' ';
    }
    $tweet .= $newpost['title'].' '.$shortUrl;

    // http://classes.verkoyen.eu/twitter/
    require_once 'twitter.php';
    $twitter = new Twitter('<twitter username>','<twitter password>');
    $twitter->updateStatus($tweet);
}

So the bit.ly line might look like this after you've put your values in:
$bitly = new Bitly('testUser', 'R_hj3456hgf3hig56hi2gf6');
NOT
$bitly = new Bitly('<testUser>', '<R_hj3456hgf3hig56hi2gf6>');
See? Remove those <> bits, they just show what to replace.

The shortUrl line might look like this:
$shortUrl = 'http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t='.$newpost[threadid];

The Twitter line might look like this:
$twitter = new Twitter('stephenfry','op1umisn1ce');

All make sense?

And that's it. Save and activate the plugin and create a test thread.

Now whenever a new thread is started, a tweet will be made to twitter instantly.

You can see this in effect here:
http://twitter.com/lfgss

That is being pushed new threads for http://www.lfgss.com/ and it's working perfectly.

Any questions?

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Q: It doesn't work!

A: That's not a question, however if it doesn't work then it's extremely likely you got your username and passwords wrong or left the < > signs in there. Double-check and do it again.

Q: I see an "INVALID_JSON" error

A: Disable bitly by setting $useBitly to false.
Q: I see an "You must be authenticated to access shorten" error

A: The credentials that you entered are either wrong, or you made a mess of the syntax. You did remove the < > when you put your values in right? Did you check the example given above?

Q: I see an error that says "Warning: curl_setopt_array() [function.curl-setopt-array]: CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION cannot be activated when in safe_mode or an open_basedir is set in [path]/bitly.php"

A: Wow, that's a good one... but easily fixable. Insert this at line 136 (just after the CURL options) in bitly.php:

PHP Code:


			
$no_hack_needed = (ini_get('safe_mode') !== '1' && ini_get('open_basedir') === false);
if ($no_hack_needed) {
  $options[CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION] = true;
} else {
  $options[CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION] = false;
  $options[CURLOPT_HEADER] = true;
}

buro9 · #32 01-27-2010, 08:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nordinho

Allrighty, the curl error is gone. Now on to the next one

Scary. You are having fun.

In bitly.php where you have these lines:

PHP Code:


			
 // we expect JSON so decode it
$json = @json_decode($response, true);

Could you echo $response and then return; out of there so that I can see what the hell bitly returned. The JSON from them should be fine, so I want to be sure it's working at all.

Nordinho · #33 01-27-2010, 08:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by buro9

Scary. You are having fun.

In bitly.php where you have these lines:

PHP Code:


			
 // we expect JSON so decode it

$json = @json_decode($response, true);

Could you echo $response and then return; out of there so that I can see what the hell bitly returned. The JSON from them should be fine, so I want to be sure it's working at all.

Lol, well it's a mod that will save me a lot of time, and an error was fixed, so keeping it positive!

Not to sure what to change exactly though. Tried echoing it out. But I'm getting the same error all the time, so I'm echoing out something wrong.

buro9 · #34 01-27-2010, 08:37 PM

Basically this:

PHP Code:


			
echo $response;
exit();

You need to see what is coming back before the exception gets thrown.

Nordinho · #35 01-27-2010, 08:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by buro9

Basically this:

PHP Code:


			
echo $response;

exit();

You need to see what is coming back before the exception gets thrown.

Ah oke,

here we go:

Quote:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: nginx/0.7.42 Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:39:49 GMT Content-Type: text/html;charset=utf-8 Connection: keep-alive Content-Length: 376 Allow: GET, HEAD, POST Set-Cookie: anonu=psu__ba8fda56-d8f2-4008-9a45-78795aec6c7e---59cd87d95c4bc62d01c0f3740f056d73; Domain=.bit.ly; expires=Wed, 28-Dec-2011 17:39:49 GMT; Path=/; Version=1 Set-Cookie: bsession=e165dfe2-db36-4c65-bde9-3329f63d8df9---7a0a8596aff915c72e69e50dcc22b10a; Domain=.bit.ly; expires=Wed, 28-Dec-2011 17:39:49 GMT; Path=/; Version=1 { "errorCode": 0, "errorMessage": "", "results": { "http://www.nordinho.net/vbull/showthread.php?t=44452": { "hash": "aLLETL", "shortCNAMEUrl": "http://bit.ly/91KLR4", "shortKeywordUrl": "", "shortUrl": "http://bit.ly/91KLR4", "userHash": "91KLR4" } }, "statusCode": "OK" }

buro9 · #36 01-27-2010, 08:43 PM

Strange... it's working perfectly fine.

What version of PHP are you using?

Nordinho · #37 01-27-2010, 08:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by buro9

Strange... it's working perfectly fine.

What version of PHP are you using?

PHP 5.2.9

It does post as well in bit.ly, it seems to fail at connecting with twitter

buro9 · #38 01-27-2010, 09:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nordinho

PHP 5.2.9

It does post as well in bit.ly, it seems to fail at connecting with twitter

I don't think it is, it errors in the bit.ly library when it tries to parse the JSON.

The JSON is fine, it's the call to deserialise it that fails.

This: http://php.net/manual/en/function.json-decode.php

I'll have a stab around tomorrow and see if I can figure it out.

Nordinho · #39 01-27-2010, 09:05 PM

Allrighty, thanks for the help sofar!

Jesh · #40 01-27-2010, 11:11 PM

Getting 500 internal server error, any ideas?

Bouncer222 · #41 01-28-2010, 02:43 AM

This mod is all great and I love the idea, never thought of it... but..

How exactly is it helping you get visitors to your site from those viewing your twitter page? I mean...all those threads that are relayed to twitter to be posted have no link backs to your actual vbulletin site, do they? Correct me if I'm wrong.

But if it just copies threads/posts and posts it on tweeter without some sort of link back to original thread... then what's the use?

Again, correct me if I'm wrong.
And thanks for the mod!

X vBulletin 3.8.12 by vBS Debug Information
Page Generation 0.11880 seconds Memory Usage 2,346KB 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 (6)bbcode_php (6)bbcode_quote (1)footer (1)forumjump (1)forumrules (1)gobutton (1)header (1)headinclude (1)modsystem_post (1)navbar (4)navbar_link (120)option (1)pagenav (1)pagenav_curpage (4)pagenav_pagelink (2)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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