Miscellaneous Hacks - vBulletin to Twitter, live tweets of new threads

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;
} 


[carrlos]

This hack will no longer work because it does not support "OAuth" authorization. I have switched to Twitterfeed and it works like clockwork!

[Videx]

Twitterfeed has serious limits which make it a less attractive alternative to direct posting via mod. Though I still do use it to post to FB since there is no mod for that.

*) Updates are at best every 30 minutes.
*) Maximum 5 updates every 30 minutes.

[DAMINK]

Yep not working anymore.
Time to switch.

[Sparrow-Sean]

Damn, such a good mod that now does not work, GRRR.

[caciocode]

What changes do we have to make to make it work?

This forum is dying because this is not working anymore, please help.

[Videx]

Originally Posted by caciocode

What changes do we have to make to make it work?

This forum is dying because this is not working anymore, please help.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=509

[MikeCyber]

edit, nevermind

[fountainmass]

I just got this working again. It was pretty simple.

First, like with the other mods, you will need to register a new Twitter Application (while logged with your normal Twitter account) - http://dev.twitter.com/apps/new

Note down the "Consumer Key" and "Consumer Secret" (Under App Details) as well as the "Access Token" and "Access Token Secret" (under My Access Token on the App details screen).

Step 1: Download Tijs Verkoyen's new twitter.php file (which supports OAuth) - http://classes.verkoyen.eu/modules/t...tter_2_0_1.zip

Step 2: Edit the file.

1. add your Access Token to "private $oAuthToken = " (line 88)
2. add your Access Token Secret to "private $oAuthTokenSecret =" (line 96).

Step 3: Upload it to the root directory of your forum (ie. replace your old twitter.php)

Step 4: Edit your vBulletin module, and change these two lines:

PHP Code:

$twitter = new Twitter('<twitter username>','<twitter password>');
$twitter->updateStatus($tweet); 


to

PHP Code:

$twitter = new Twitter('<Twitter Consumer Key>', '<Twitter Consumer Secret>');
$twitter->statusesUpdate($tweet); 


All should be sweet now.

At least, it was for me...

[Alecsmith]

@ fountainmass Thanks for tip but its still giving error so i removed it.

[Videx]

Originally Posted by fountainmass

I just got this working again. It was pretty simple.

At least, it was for me...

Not nearly as simple as just installing a mod (vBulletin2Twitter). Out of curiosity, why did you go to all this trouble instead?