Integration with vBulletin - vBulletin Tweet Poster!

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Introduction & Description
It's amazing how twitter drives traffic to various websites around the web, so I thought it would be a very good idea to get advantage of it, because Twitter will bring us more traffic and more valuable registrations.

This add-on runs as a scheduled task every ten minutes, and posts the newly posted threads to twitter in the form:
Thread title - preview (if possible) - tiny or full URL.

Threads must be in forums viewable by guests, not private forums.

Features

• 1.0.0
  • Post to twitter using OAuth authentication.
  • You have your own application at twitter, so the tweets will be appeared from your website name. tweet.jpg
  • Only guest-accessible stuff is posted at Twitter.
  • Integrated with bit.ly to shorten the thread URL, giving more space for title and preview.
  • Set it up once, and forget it. twitter's access token doesn't expire, unless you revoke the access permission.
• 1.0.2
  • You can set from which forums the threads will be tweeted. (See the page where you edit the forum info and settings forum_option.jpg)
  • vBSEO compatible (if available), so the URLs are rewritten before they get shortened. This will help to reduce the number of redirects as few as possible.
  • The task prints valuable information when you run it manually, to help you diagnose problems when they happen! healthy_task_messages.jpg
• 1.0.3
  • Non-Unicode forums can use the built-in conversion (to UTF-8) to abide by the requirement of twitter. settings.jpg
  • You can disable the automatic tweeting function, and tweet threads manually right from the first postbit. with user group over which user group can tweet manually postbit_button.jpg Attachment 100845
  • You can set threads from which user group will be tweeted. Attachment 100845
• 1.0.5
  • Scheduled task: Post Hot threads.
  • Check port 443 on installation / upgrade.
  • The product can't be installed if cURL isn't complied into PHP.
  • Update forums / usergroups / permissions cache on successful authorization, to avoid problems with some admins, where caches don't get updated on upgrade!
  • strip_html from the preview text, for forums that enable HTML in posts.
  • Delete tweet if the thread is deleted.
  • Status Message Prefix. settings.jpg
• 1.0.6
  • Option: to remove URLs from preview text (enabled by default).
  • Option: to have only the thread title as a tweet without any part of the message.
  • Added form (in the footer) to allow admins to tweet from any page, right in their forums, with an option to disable it, also it's enabled only for super admins. Attachment 102934

How different is this from twitterfeed.com?

• This hack is not intended to be an alternative to twitterfeed.com, however:
• It may be safer than giving your Twitter-Login to twitterfeed.com (by redlabour)
• Later, this hack will include more options so you have better control over what is posted at twitter. (like post only hot threads, or threads by certain usergroup, etc.)
• You have your own application at twitter, so the tweets will be appeared from your website name, instead of any other service. tweet.jpg

Happy Users of This Product! contact me to add your twitter account.

• @syrianmeds
• @Bullshido
• @Cause4Chaos
• @Hatvertise
• @BatM_AU
• @TalkBritain

Requirements

• Mandatory:
  • vBulletin 3.8.0
  • PHP 5.2.3
  • cURL & OpenSSL compiled to your PHP installation.
  • Twitter account (I've created a dedicated account for my website @syrianmeds)
• Optional (but recommended):
  • bit.ly account to shorten URLs.
  • Your forum's character set must be UTF-8 (required by twitter) or latin with no non-English characters. Alternatively, you can use the iconv built-in function to convert the encoding.

Installation

1. Upload the files to their respective locations.
2. Import the XML product file: product-twitterposter.xml
3. *Optional* go to http://bit.ly/ and register an account there, you need it to shorten the URLs!
   There are two important values here: the login username and the apiKey (you can obtain it from http://bit.ly/account/)
   settings.jpg
4. Register your application at twitter. (You must be already registered as a regular member)
   https://twitter.com/oauth_clients/new
   screenshot1.jpg
   Pay attention to the Callback URL, it must point to the file twitterposter.php in your admincp, ex: http://www.yourdomain.com/forum/admincp/twitterposter.php
5. After registering your application, twitter will provide two values to you (Consumer Key and Consumer Secret), keep them for use in the authorization later.
   screenshot2.jpg
6. Go to vBulletin Tweet Poster -> Authorize.
7. Enter the two values in there appropriate fields and submit (screenshot3.jpg). You will be given a link to twitter.com to authorize this hack (screenshot4.jpg) to post on your behave.
8. You will be redirected to your admincp, and a "Hello World!" message will be posted to your twitter account.

Upgrade

1. Upload the files to their respective locations.
2. Import (Allow Overwrite: Yes!) the XML product file: product-twitterposter.xml
3. Re-authorize the hack, to make sure everything works for you.

Troubleshooting

• Q: I'm not seeing any updates after the one "#vBulletin Tweet Poster by http://services.milado.net/ Hello World! #testoauth".
  A: Please make sure that you have new threads in forums available to guests, otherwise the hack won't post anything.
  After that go to Admincp -> Scheduled Tasks -> Scheduled Task Manager, then find the task "vBulletin Tweet Poster" click run and see if there is any error displayed.
  
• Q: I'm getting the error "Fatal error: Call to undefined function curl_init() in /home/investme/forums/includes/twitterposter/twitteroauth/twitterOAuth.php on line 126"
  A: That error says that you don't have cURL installed on your server. If you have a dedicated server/vps, install and compile curl, if you're on shared/reseller hosting, contact your host and ask if they can install cURL support. (thanks stapler2025 for answering on my behave)
  
• Q: I receive the following error:
  

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <hash>
  <request>/statuses/update.xml</request>
  <error>Read-only application cannot POST</error>
  </hash>

  A: You have to enable write & read for your application at twitter, so go here, edit your application access setting and request new consumer key and token. If it didn't work, please delete the application, add a new one and use my settings from the screen shots.

Credits
I've used the Twitter's OAuth library, by Abraham Williams | http://abrah.am | @abraham

Change log

• 1.0.0 first public release (beta) Jun, 17th 2009
• 1.0.1 (beta) Jun, 17th 2009
  • New feature: The ability to exclude certain forums (forum_option.jpg), posts: #1831293 and #1831305
  • Diagnostic Information are printed in task manager for you to help diagnosing why the hack doesn't work for some admins! posts: #1831263, #1831443 and #1831460
• 1.0.2 (beta) Jun, 18th 2009
  • Bug fixed, posts: #1831301, #1831311, #1831349, #1831579 and #1831607
  • vBSEO Integration.
  • Improvement done to the task diagnostic messages. healthy_task_messages.jpg
• 1.0.3 (beta) Jun, 21th 2009
  • Implementation of iconv conversion for non-unicode forums.
  • Control threads by which usergroups will be posted to twitter.
  • Tweet threads in forums manually instead of it being automatic. postbit_button.jpg
• 1.0.4 (beta) Jun, 22th 2009
  • Bug fixed: Manual tweeting doesn't show thread preview!
  • Bug fixed: Plugin overwrites the hook: $template_hook['postbit_controls']
• 1.0.5 (beta) Jul, 23th 2009
  • Renamed function_twitterposter.php to functions_twitterposter.php
  • Moved some functions from functions_twitterposter.php to a new class in class_twitterposter.php (New PHP class is created, first step to move to OOP).
  • Canceled the redirection to twitter (on authorization), and replaced with a link opening in a new tab / window.
  • New scheduled task: Post Hot threads.
  • New: Check port 443 on installation / upgrade.
  • New: The product can't be installed if cURL isn't complied into PHP.
  • New: Update forums / usergroups / permissions cache on successful authorization, to avoid problems with some admins, where caches don't get updated on upgrade!
  • New feature: strip_html from the preview text, for forums that enable HTML in posts.
  • New feature: Delete tweet if the thread is deleted.
  • New feature: Status Message Prefix.
• 1.0.6 (RC1) Aug, 6th 2009
  • Add phrase 'HOT:'.
  • Improve bit.ly class a bit.
  • Push the plug-in at hook (postbit_display_complete) to run lastly, to put the tweet button at the last.
  • Include an option to remove URLs from preview text.
  • Option: to have only the thread title as a tweet without any part of the message.
  • Added form (in the footer) to allow admins to tweet from any page, right in their forums, with an option to disable it, also it's enabled only for super admins. Attachment 102934
• 1.0.7 (RC2) to be released.
  • Bug fixed: improperly cached template.
  • Bug fixed: Hot Threads Look up Time Span.
  • New feature: Include thread prefix in the tweet.

[Soonerdude]

Originally Posted by Serenity278

It is suppose to update every 10 minutes? It has been 23 minutes and I still have the first update on there #vBulletin Tweet Poster by http://services.milado.net/ Hello World! #testoauth https://twitter.com/cf_net

I just want to know if it is working.

My website is http://www.christianfellowship-net.com, am using 3.8.3, and am a newbie to vb and twitter by the way.

Thanks.

I was having the same problem, but realized that I had the limited guest viewing hack installed and once I disabled it, the posts started showing up.

[Serenity278]

Originally Posted by Soonerdude

I was having the same problem, but realized that I had the limited guest viewing hack installed and once I disabled it, the posts started showing up.

I don't have that mod installed but thanks for trying to help. I might just try that twitterfeed if I can't get this mod to work.

[drsli]

Very interesting hack! Is it possible to exclude forums from being posted at twitter, cause some of them have private status at my site?

[unp]

I get this error

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at [path]/includes/adminfunctions.php:279) in [path]/includes/functions.php on line 3087

[zelnik]

Does this have an option to turn on/off for specific forums/sections?!?!

[wtrk]

when i try to authorize the plugin i get a vbulletin error saying that the headers have aready been sent.

[Bounce]

Originally Posted by unp

I get this error

Originally Posted by wtrk

when i try to authorize the plugin i get a vbulletin error saying that the headers have aready been sent.

same, vb 3.8.3

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at [path]/includes/adminfunctions.php:279) in [path]/includes/functions.php on line 3087

[Milad]

Thanks guys for all your suggestions and feedback.

I'll try to roll the next version very soon.

Regards

[imagirlgeek]

I'm also not seeing any updates after the one "#vBulletin Tweet Poster by http://services.milado.net/ Hello World! #testoauth".

In my case, I don't think the scheduled job is running. Any ideas on how I can troubleshoot this further?

[Milad]

Hello

For those who don't see the updates posted to twitter, please make sure that you have new threads in forums available to guests, otherwise the hack won't post anything.

We want to keep good practice here, so when someone clicks your tweeted links they see the page they want.

After that go to Admincp -> Scheduled Tasks -> Scheduled Task Manager, then find the task "vBulletin Tweet Poster" click run and see if there is any error displayed.

Regards