Forum Display Enhancements - Add Recent Blog/Site Feed under Postbit. Displays Recent Blog feeds or Site Feeds.

Graphical Instructions are available at Bookmark My Services .

However i am adding the Instructions to install the same without images here.

Features:
1. Add Rss Feeds in your Profile and Display the Feeds Title in postbit under your userank or usertitle.
2. Works with Wordpress,and any RSS2 feeds including Vbulletin Forum Feeds. Example http://www.bookmarkmyservices.com/fo....php?type=RSS2 will also work.
3. Works and compatible with All previous and possible upcoming versions of VB.
4. Uses CafeRSS to parse XML feeds.

PS: I am not the original author, was not able to find link to where i got it from 4-5 months back, so if someone can find the original author please post the users identity. (it was not taken from VB forums itself so is hard to locate the original author).

Please Click Install if it works for you.
All Support will deal with installing it , no support will be provided regarding feature additions etc.

I will try to provide support here at VB itself but you can always contact me at Official Release Thread on Bookmark My Services.


Step 1 - Creating the forum database fields


We will be storing 3 pieces of information against each user.
Site/Blog RSS Feed -URL of the RSS feed (xml file) this is the only field members will need to enter
Last Blog Title - Title of the most recent entry on a member's feed,populated by PHP itself
Blog URL - URL to a members site/blog feed(PHP handles this also)


Go to AdmincCp>UserProfile Fields - Add New User Profile Field

Expand the "User Profile Fields" on the left hand menu and click "Add New User Profile Field"


Use the default of Single-Line text Box and click Continue


This is where we need to enter all of the required information for new fields (one at a time). To start we will create the Site Feed field. Set the following properties:

Title: Site RSS Feed

Description: Please specify the full URL of the RSS feed of your blog or website. By filling in this field a link to your latest blog or feed entry will be displayed in all of your posts.




We will now repeat the above steps for the other 2 required fields, and these will not be user editable (php handles that),for that we will need to change the Field Editable by User property to No. The settings to change for these two new fields are:

Title: Last Feed Title

Field Editable by User: No



Title: Feed URL

Field Editable by User: No





If you now click on User Profile Field Manager (on the left) you should see all of your user profile fields like:



Make sure you make a note(use paper and pencil if required )of the field names (in this case field5, field6 and field7) as we will need them later.

Go to the User CP (Control Panel) and follow the link to Edit Profile you should see a new Site Feed Url field.



Step 2.PHP script to handle the fields (basically Field 6 and Field7 in our example)
cafeRSS will be used.Do not worry the file attached sitefeedcron.php contains all the PHP and will need minor but careful editing.
You might need to change 3 instances of field5, field6 and field7 to reflect the profile fields that you created earlier (the one you noted down on paper). Thus, change all instances of field5, field6 and field7 according to your fields, say you have field7 for field5 replace field5 with field7 and so on.


Step 3. Displaying the recent Feed/Blog entry under Username (only 2 edits required)
In the vB Admin CP go to Styles & Templates and then Style Manager you now need to Expand Templates () and find the correct Postbit Template >> to edit. (postbit and postbit_legacy)



You will need to edit the postbit_legacy (member details on left of post) and postbit (member details above) template depending on how you want to display feeds for the users on the forums.



On my boards I am using the postbit_legacy and displaying our members last site feed entry under their user rank, to do this find the code in postbit_legacy

PHP Code:

<if condition="$show['avatar']">
<div class="smallfont">
&nbsp;<br /><a href="member.php?$session[sessionurl]u=$post[userid]"><img src="$post[avatarurl]" $post[avwidth] $post[avheight] alt="<phrase 1="$post[username]">$vbphrase[xs_avatar]</phrase>" border="0" /></a>
</div>
</if> 


And after it the following :

PHP Code:

<if condition="$post[field5]"> 
<div class="smallfont"> 
Feed: <a href="$post[field7]">$post[field6]</a> 
</div> 
</if> 


Make sure that field5, field6 and field7 are the correct names of the fields we created in the first step of this tutorial. Now if you look at your profile it should show the site field url as:


Now,open postbit and find :

PHP Code:

<if condition="$post['usertitle']"><div class="smallfont">$post[usertitle]</div></if>
<if condition="$post['rank']"><div class="smallfont">$post[rank]</div></if> 


After Add :

PHP Code:

<if condition="$post[field5]"> 
<div class="smallfont"> 
Feed: <a href="$post[field7]">$post[field6]</a> 
</div> 
</if> 


Now all you need to do is upload the sitefeedcron.php file to public_html folder and setup the cron as shown under.Create a folder named cafeRSS_cache where you placed sitefeedcron.php file, and Chmod folder to 0777. This folder caches/stores feed information.Tutorial for Crons if interested can be found using Google . Change the username to your cpanel login username. And You can run cron every 30 mins, 1 Hr. depending on your preference. Cron shown below is for 1 min.


Before you setup the cron edit the fields accordingly and setup the database name,database username and the password.And chmod file as 0644.

PHP Code:

//Please edit this accordingingly to your forum sql login.
require('../public_html/yourforumfolder/includes/config.php');

$host = localhost;

$user = username;

$dbp = databasepassword;

$db = databasename;

mysql_connect($host, $user, $dbp);

mysql_select_db($db); 


Edit above to make sql connection to forums database.

Now locate this code :

PHP Code:



$lSQL = "select userid, field5 from userfield 

where field5 <> '' and field5 is not NULL"; 


Change that according to your Fields you setup in Step 1 . For example if your first Site Feed Field was No.8. Set field5 above to field8.

Similarly change the following field number in code :

PHP Code:



$lSQL = "update userfield set field6 = '$lBlogBits[1]', field7='$lBlogBits[0]'

where userid =$lUserID";

mysql_query($lSQL);

echo "Feed: <a href='$lBlogBits[0]'>$lBlogBits[1]</a>"; 


Just remember for my example Field5 represents :Site RSS Feed . Field7 Represents : Last Feed Title and Field8 Represents : Feed URL

That is the end of this tutorial.
And here is what it will look like in the end after cron has run :

http://www.bookmarkmyservices.com/blog-feed-tutorial/final-output.gif

If you have any problems or questions please use this support thread only. This tutorial was modified and first used on Dmoz Resources Zone. I am not the original writer for the mod, long time ago I did search and had this sitting on my computer and only recently I have shared after testing with Vbulletin version 3.6.8. It has been on my forum since version 3.6.5.Now recently i tested it on my New Bookmark My Services Website. It has been modified from its original and PHP code edited also.

Live Demo 1 Running Since 3.6.5 Version of VB
Live Demo 2 Running on Vb Version 3.6.8.

Please leave link to the site, since it took me some efforts rewriting the tutorial and editing few php code to make it work.

To add Link to footer open Admincp>Styles & Templates>Style>

Select your template and from dropdown menu select All Style Options and hit Go.

Now under the Footer Field you see .

Find

PHP Code:


<!-- Do not remove this copyright notice -->
$vbphrase[powered_by_vbulletin]
<!-- Do not remove this copyright notice --> 


After Add:

PHP Code:


<br/><a href="http://www.bookmarkmyservices.com/" rel="follow" title="Bookmark My Services" >BookMark My Services</a> 


Please do not modify the Above link in any way. If you wish it to be removed the fee is 7 USD. Contact us via Our Form.For removal of above link
Please do not use the modifications if you will not be putting link in the footer. Thanks

[chubzilla]

ive done all the edits and all that shows up is my forum url? I made sure to put the feed.rss url in the first profile field and nothing

[kevcj]

I never could get this to work with blogger.com feeds. Any suggestions??

[kevcj]

Does anyone know how to get this working with RSS feeds as well as RSS2 feeds? Everything coming from blogger.com is not showing up.

[a1whs.com]

Originally Posted by kevcj

Does anyone know how to get this working with RSS feeds as well as RSS2 feeds? Everything coming from blogger.com is not showing up.

Which version of VB are you using, i will work it more and try installing on my other domain with latest VB and see if its working , and will try blogger also.

[Businesss]

Is this working for vBulletin 3.7.2 Patch Level 2???

If so, what changes do I need to make?

I can't get the latest post from blog to show...It just shows the following:

Feed:

and then it is blank.

[anupam_luv]

For VB4 Forum just make the following changes

In postbit find

<span class="usertitle">
{vb:raw post.usertitle}
</span>
<vb:if condition="$post['rank']">
<span class="rank">{vb:raw post.rank}</span>
</vb:if>

and after that write

<!-- Custom -->
<vb:if condition="$post[field7]">
<div class="usertitle">
Latest Blog: <a href="{vb:raw post.field9}">{vb:raw post.field8}</a>
</div>
</vb:if>
<!-- Custom -->

Field7 represents :Site RSS Feed .
Field8 Represents : Last Feed Title
Field9 Represents : Feed URL

Also in sitefeedcron.php file, apart from making the neccessary changes in field names
Search the word "userfield" and append the prefix to ur table to it e.g. vb_userfield
Then make it run via "Schedule Tasks" (By adding a new schedule task)... Thats it.

[anupam_luv]

I have vb 4 cms and I want to set everybody's Site RSS Feed to its own VB Blog's rss feed (if his blog exists) otherwise keep it blank....

What should be the sql query to perform that ?

[DNN]

so basically, this would allow every individual profile user to have their own RSS feed?