Add-On Releases - CinVin vB Forum Feed Listing

[ BY REQUEST ]

This nifty little utility will present a list of all of your forums RSS feeds on one page! Your users can then easily pick & choose which forums they want to subscribe to via RSS, Google, Yahoo, or Bloglines.

Ever go to a big site like CNN and view their page of RSS feeds that you can subscribe to? This is the same thing but for your vBulletin forums!

In addition to your users, the search engine spiders will love this!

We went out of our way to make sure that this CinVin vBulletin add-on was quick & easy to both install and modify!

• Automatically adds an RSS button to your footer template.
• Correctly shows where your visitors are when viewing the Who's Online page.
• Forums can be specifically excluded from being listed.
• Ability to specify which usergroup to use for permissions when viewing the list of forums.
• "Link" forums can be turned off from showing.
• All options are configured through the vBulletin ACP.
• All descriptions and names are completely phrased so you can quickly add alternate lanquages or change the existing wording.
• All display output is handled through vBulletin templates so you can quickly change the output appearance.
• All templates and phrase are installed as a vBulletin product through your ACP which means there are no file edits!
• Compatible with vBSEO.
• Easy integration with vBadvanced CMPS.
• Debug mode to help you with any problems you may be having.

Installation only take a few moments...

• Unzip the .zip file that you downloaded.
• Upload the single PHP file and single folder in the upload_to_your_forum_folder folder from the download to your forums folder.
• Go into your ACP and select Plugins & Products => Manage Products => Add/Import Product => {Select the CinVin_vB_Forum_Feed_Listing.xml file from the download} => Import

You're all done! Just point your browser to http://www.yoursite.com/forums/cv_rss_feeds.php to view your new RSS feed listings.

DEMO #1: CinVin RSS Feeds (this is the 'stock' version)

DEMO #2: Cool Sci-Fi RSS Feeds (this one has been integrated with vBa CMPS)


FAQ's
- What vB versions? This should work with all versions of vB 3.6.x and above. It should also work with vB 3.5.x but I have not tested it on that version.

- Can I remove the "CinVin" text at the very bottom? NO! Believe it or not that little text is what allows us to work on hacks like this for free and, more importantly, to continue to support them. You are free to move the notice to your footer template, for example, if you would like to keep your notices all together but for removing it entirely a Branding Free license is available through CinVin.

[KW802]

Originally Posted by abramelin

before using this mod. do we have to set rss or xml feed for each forum? if yes, how?

ACP => vBulletin Options => External Data Provider => Enable RSS Syndication

Originally Posted by chorton

... debug mode set to "1" and this is the error i get DEBUG MODE IS TURNED ON! Not much help there ...

The debug mode is really meant for helping to see why a forum is not being listed, not for a forum being listed but with a bad URL.

Originally Posted by chorton

The urls for the links are a bit messed up. I am running vbseo.

I have to get my test site with vBSEO on it up updated to test it on. I haven't played with vBSEO for some time so off the top of my head I'm not sure why you'd be seeing the template names like that instead of the link.

[JD45]

Some forums have activity and they're still showing blank?

[KW802]

Originally Posted by JD45

Some forums have activity and they're still showing blank?

Give an explicit example.

(Also, remember, the blank screen is related to what the stock "external.php" script is doing, not this hack. )

[Kihon Kata]

Didja forget me?

[JD45]

Originally Posted by KW802

Give an explicit example.

(Also, remember, the blank screen is related to what the stock "external.php" script is doing, not this hack. )

Like my admin area. I KNOW there are posts there, but the page is showing up blank still.

But General Chat is showing up just fine....

[KW802]

Originally Posted by Kihon Kata

Didja forget me?

No, just not a chance to install vBSEO yet. Been a bit of a hectic few days.

Originally Posted by JD45

Like my admin area. I KNOW there are posts there, but the page is showing up blank still.

But General Chat is showing up just fine....

Which forum explicitly? As a guest viewing your forums I don't see an "admin" area (which, I'm assuming, is a good thing).

[JD45]

Originally Posted by KW802

No, just not a chance to install vBSEO yet. Been a bit of a hectic few days.

Which forum explicitly? As a guest viewing your forums I don't see an "admin" area (which, I'm assuming, is a good thing).

Yes, the admin area is not visible to guests, but as an admin myself, shouldn't I be seeing it so I can use the RSS fee myself?

[heynurse]

Kevin,

Thanks so much for responding to my request to make this! You did a great job!

[leedjc]

I know that this isn't exactly related to this hack, but is it possible to limit the text of each post in the feed? So it creates a link directing the user to my forums to read the rest of the post?

Also, can you turn off feeds for individual forums?

Thanks

[KW802]

Originally Posted by JD45

Yes, the admin area is not visible to guests, but as an admin myself, shouldn't I be seeing it so I can use the RSS fee myself?

When you are attempting to view the feed, are you still logged in to vB? I haven't torn apart the vB 3.6.x version of external.php yet so off the top of my head I'm not sure how they're handling authorization in it.

Originally Posted by heynurse

Kevin,

Thanks so much for responding to my request to make this! You did a great job!

Glad to help out.

Originally Posted by leedjc

I know that this isn't exactly related to this hack, but is it possible to limit the text of each post in the feed? So it creates a link directing the user to my forums to read the rest of the post?

By default vBulletin will use the 'threadpreview' value as the feed description. You could either change that or try this hack.

Originally Posted by leedjc

Also, can you turn off feeds for individual forums?

In this hack or do you mean in general? In this hack, no; it will show all forums that the person who is viewing the page has access to. In general, you can change the external.php to only include certain forums but as far as I know there are no vBulletin options to exclude forums.