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;
} 


[Nordinho]

Originally Posted by buro9

@Nordinho

I'm using vbseo, and I'm using both 3.8 and 4.0. So no, it's not vbseo that is causing it, and it's not 3.8 causing it.

Could it be this: "CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION cannot be activated when in safe_mode "?

Are you in safe mode?

Nope, I'm not in safe mode.

[buro9]

@Nordinho

It appears to be a PHP cURL thing.

Could you try inserting this at line 136 (just after the CURL options) in bitly.php
[edit]snippped, see post 22[/edit]

IF twitter.php also needs it, then it's line 161 of that (after the options) where it will need to be inserted.

Try just putting it in bitly.php to start with and let me know how it goes.

[LbR]

Works Now

[utahraves]

I installed this, followed all directions, do not get errors, but do not see the post happening on Twitter.
twitter.com/utahraves
Posted several tests then deleted them after wards but still not posting

EDIT: Ahhhh, It wasn't really clear to me the ARRAY deal. I believe I fixed it now. I'll test

[buro9]

Originally Posted by LbR

Getting this error

PHP Code:

You must be authenticated to access shorten on line 193 in /home/emonxco/public_html/forum/bitly.php
#0 /home/emonxco/public_html/forum/bitly.php(382): Bitly->doCall('shorten', Array)
#1 /home/emonxco/public_html/forum/newthread.php(262) : eval()'d code(10): Bitly->shorten('http://www.emon...')
#2 /home/emonxco/public_html/forum/newthread.php(262): eval()
#3 {main}


Warning: Invalid error type specified in [path]/vb/vb.php on line 284 


The pertinent line: You must be authenticated to access shorten

Have you put in your bit.ly and twitter details?

[buro9]

Originally Posted by utahraves

EDIT: Ahhhh, It wasn't really clear to me the ARRAY deal. I believe I fixed it now. I'll test

I've just made it clearer by splitting it out, and I've set it to exclude nothing by default.

[LbR]

Originally Posted by buro9

The pertinent line: You must be authenticated to access shorten

Have you put in your bit.ly and twitter details?

I have added Twitter Details and Bit.Ly details too i am not confirmed about this line

$shortUrl = $bitly->shorten('http://www.yourforumsdomain.com/showthread.php?t='.$newpost[threadid]);

[utahraves]

Works now. The array is for forums that are NOT supposed to post twitter updates... got it

[Moondust]

Originally Posted by buro9

@Moondust

Your error appears to be this: "You must be authenticated to access shorten "

Did you insert your bit.ly username and API key?
You probably want to insert your twitter details too.

The instructions do say to put your values in there.

Yes, i have edit the Bit.ly username and Api Key and my Twitter Account Detail in the Plugin PHP Text.

In Bit.ly i have put my twitter account details

[buro9]

Originally Posted by LbR

I have added Twitter Details and Bit.Ly details too i am not confirmed about this line

$shortUrl = $bitly->shorten('http://www.yourforumsdomain.com/showthread.php?t='.$newpost[threadid]);

Did you put your domain in there?