Miscellaneous Hacks - Exclude Forums From external.php

Ever wanted to exclude some of your forums from the external.php output, without having to add and maintain a huge include list?

Now you can, this mod adds two attributes to the external.php query string.

• excludeids is a comma delimited string of forums to exclude from the external.php output.
• notitleids=1 will not list all the included forum ids in the RSS feed title.

Why was this mod created and how is it used?

We redirect all our feed requests to feedburner and use it to serve all our forum feeds. We have a feed for each of our individual forums and a general feed for the entire site. Recently we added some commercial forums and don't want to clutter the feed with the commercial content, so we needed to exclude two forums. Our forum feed string now looks like:

http://forum.voxilla.com/external.php?type=rss2&lastpost=1&excludeids=97,98&notitleids=1

How does this mod work?

This mod uses the hooks in external.php to add the new settings without the need for custom code modifications.

[echamberlain]

Originally Posted by SBlueman

Ok...let me try this....what do I edit and where do I go to edit which forums to exclude?

You add the new attributes to where ever you are using external.php.

My main RSS feed now looks like:

http://forum.voxilla.com/external.php?type=rss2&lastpost=1&excludeids=97,98&notitleids=1

[SBlueman]

So I am editing something in external.php to exclude forums now?

[Antivirus]

interesting, i thin i can use this, need to look into it

[SBlueman]

What I am trying to do is only include one forum in my rss feed. Any suggestions on how to do this efficiently?

[echamberlain]

Originally Posted by SBlueman

What I am trying to do is only include one forum in my rss feed. Any suggestions on how to do this efficiently?

It's documented in the vBulletin manual.

[nfn]

Thanks for this Mod.
I am the one who asked for this here and here!

This is special great if you have forums that are "feed by feeds"

Here is my contribution so you don't have to add or change any query string in external.php

Go to Admin CP, Plugin & Products, Plugin Manager and Add New Plugin

Product: Exclude Forums From external.php
Hook Location: external_start
Title: Anything you want
Execution Order: 4
Plugin PHP Code: $vbulletin->GPC['excludeids'] = '1,2,3';
Plugin is Active: Yes

Note: 1,2,3 are the forum id's you want to exclude.

Done!

Installed

Thanks

[nfn]

One more note, you can add

$vbulletin->GPC['notitleids'] = 1;

in the Plugin PHP Code to hide the ID of you forums.

[NeutralizeR]

notitleids=1 still lists id's in the titles for me. It's the last forum created, is this the reason?

Is there a way to automatically exclude a specific forum from the feed without changing the original url?

[Cybertims]

Is it possible to feed forums that have no guest access, I want to share a staff room on two seperate forums, so a feed to and from each seems to be the answer.....is it possible though>

Cheers

[mexicanpizza]

echamberlain, nice work, thanks! Any idea how to write a mod to INCLUDE specific THREADS?