Article Bot

Article Bot
by velocd


Article Bot is a script that allows you to assign a user account (preferably an exclusive one) to an article bot that will post RSS feeds in select forums at designated intervals. These articles are derived from RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds.

RSS files are assigned to article bots, as well to individual forums, which in turn directs what, when and where your article bot will post.

Features

• Works with RSS versions: 0.9x, 2.0, 1.0, and Atom 0.3
• AdminCP interface for adding/modifying/deleting article bots & rss feeds
• Designate intervals (in minutes) to each RSS feed for when your article bot will post them.
• Requires only 1 file edit (admincp/index.php), allowing ease of upgrading your vBulletin
  without having to remodify files.
• Easy to install. Works best in conjunction with crontab (contab help is inside install.html)

News

• 7/25/04 - Version 1.1 Released
  • Bug Fixes
    • Replaced htmlspecialchars() with htmlentities() in articlebot.php to fully convert special entities from descriptions.
    • Added trim() to thread titles, to prevent double threads from being posted that are merely off by whitespace.
    • New table articlebot_rss_cache for storing a copy of article bot threads, for quicker checking of doubles when posting new threads.
    • Threads are checked in articlebot_rss_cache, so you can permanently remove them from the thread table (you don't have to "soft delete") without worrying about the bot replicating them.
    • Other minor bugs.
  • Features
    • New installer/upgraders for doing the SQL part automatically.
    • Added "label" field to add/modify RSS interface, that allows you to tag a label, e.g. [yahoo], to the beginning of threads, unique to each RSS feed. This might help for better distinction of RSS feeds.
    • Added an option to toggle on/off of building similar threads per RSS feed. Some RSS feeds could hault the script if the building of similar thread results for that feed takes too long (maybe the article thread title is too vague, and matches a lot of results--my guess is it's only a problem on large forums).
    • Added an option to toggle on/off skipping of articles that don't contain descriptions.
    • Regular expression search and replace for article titles and descriptions. This grants you much flexability to filter out things you don't want in your titles or descriptions (given you have some regex experience, I will try to post some patterns in due time.. feel free to add yours )
• 7/11/04 - Version 1.0 Released

Upgrading

• To upgrade, reupload the new PHP and MagpieRSS parser files to their places on your server. Upload upgrade_vx-x (replace the x's with the version you are upgrading to) to /path/to/forums/admincp/, and then execute that script.

Files

• 3 screenshots attached
• articlebot_v1.zip
  • install.html, logo.gif
  • articlebot_admin.php
  • articlebot/
    • rss_cache.inc
    • rss_fetch.inc
    • rss_parse.inc
    • rss_utils.inc
    • extlib/
      • Snoopy.class.inc

RSS Feeds

There are several in the install.html, but if you're looking for more than you could ever want, check out NewsIsFree's directory:

http://www.newsisfree.com/sources/bycat/


Remember to click install if you use this hack.

Also be sure to read through the what you haven't of the thread before asking a question, for it may have been answered.

would be good from Erwin to post a link, so we can all compare!

[Natch]

Erwin is talking about Slapyo's New Modifies RSS feed hack - there is a search button for just such an occasion

[DrkFusion]

This is a great hack (y)

[ranger2kxlt]

Ok stupid question, where do you get RSS feeds from? I mean what site will this info be pulled from? I run a F0RD website, where would i find info on stuff like that?

*sorry disregard opened the zip and you have lots of feeds for me :-D

[Blackbeard]

Silly question time, but would this work on 3.01 as iam not planning on updating yet

[Sypher]

nice job! *clicks install*

[Velocd]

Originally Posted by Blackbeard

Silly question time, but would this work on 3.01 as iam not planning on updating yet

This hack will work on all vBulletin 3 versions.

[Gryphon]

It doesn't seem to like table prefixes. :ermm:

Appears to be line 377 in articlebot_admin.php

Replace

        FROM user

With

        FROM ".TABLE_PREFIX."user

[GamerzWorld]

How do we find RSS sites :/ Think you could post a list of sites please?

[Gryphon]

It would depend on what you are interested in. If you want gaming, try your favorite fansite and look for their RSS link. If you want world news, head to a news website and find their link.

There are tons of links, hard to just post some that you may or may not like. He already gave examples in the install file.

*edit
Velocd, how about the option to prefix the titles with something we can use to identify the different feeds. Like a feed from Blues could be [Blues] Morning Q&A's and ShackNews could show as [Shack] Game Reviews.

The cron also shows up in the whois online as the base path.