Add-On Releases - CinVin vB Forum Feed Listing

[ BY REQUEST ]

This nifty little utility will present a list of all of your forums RSS feeds on one page! Your users can then easily pick & choose which forums they want to subscribe to via RSS, Google, Yahoo, or Bloglines.

Ever go to a big site like CNN and view their page of RSS feeds that you can subscribe to? This is the same thing but for your vBulletin forums!

In addition to your users, the search engine spiders will love this!

We went out of our way to make sure that this CinVin vBulletin add-on was quick & easy to both install and modify!

• Automatically adds an RSS button to your footer template.
• Correctly shows where your visitors are when viewing the Who's Online page.
• Forums can be specifically excluded from being listed.
• Ability to specify which usergroup to use for permissions when viewing the list of forums.
• "Link" forums can be turned off from showing.
• All options are configured through the vBulletin ACP.
• All descriptions and names are completely phrased so you can quickly add alternate lanquages or change the existing wording.
• All display output is handled through vBulletin templates so you can quickly change the output appearance.
• All templates and phrase are installed as a vBulletin product through your ACP which means there are no file edits!
• Compatible with vBSEO.
• Easy integration with vBadvanced CMPS.
• Debug mode to help you with any problems you may be having.

Installation only take a few moments...

• Unzip the .zip file that you downloaded.
• Upload the single PHP file and single folder in the upload_to_your_forum_folder folder from the download to your forums folder.
• Go into your ACP and select Plugins & Products => Manage Products => Add/Import Product => {Select the CinVin_vB_Forum_Feed_Listing.xml file from the download} => Import

You're all done! Just point your browser to http://www.yoursite.com/forums/cv_rss_feeds.php to view your new RSS feed listings.

DEMO #1: CinVin RSS Feeds (this is the 'stock' version)

DEMO #2: Cool Sci-Fi RSS Feeds (this one has been integrated with vBa CMPS)


FAQ's
- What vB versions? This should work with all versions of vB 3.6.x and above. It should also work with vB 3.5.x but I have not tested it on that version.

- Can I remove the "CinVin" text at the very bottom? NO! Believe it or not that little text is what allows us to work on hacks like this for free and, more importantly, to continue to support them. You are free to move the notice to your footer template, for example, if you would like to keep your notices all together but for removing it entirely a Branding Free license is available through CinVin.

[Netaudio]

Originally Posted by Neal-UK

I've just upgraded to vBSEO 3.1.0 GOLD on both my sites, and when I try to view the feed page now I get this:

I have same problem, please Help me.

Thx

[Ohiosweetheart]

Looks like support is sparse. I guess I'll have to uninstall it... again...

[KW802]

Originally Posted by Saviour

I have only two issues with this hack...

1. Why does BB code show in the feed?
2. Why isn't all the content of the thread post showing in the feed?

If you can help me out with this...I'd greatly appreciate it...

Update...

Anyone at all? This post is three days old...

When you say feed, do you mean in the output page of this script or your actual external.php RSS feed?

Originally Posted by Netaudio

I have same problem, please Help me.

Thx

See the responses a few above yours about vBSEO 3.1 and the function name that was changed. You can either do a manual edit on the file or wait until the next release.

Originally Posted by Ohiosweetheart

Looks like support is sparse. I guess I'll have to uninstall it... again...

Considering that it was a holiday week (I prefer spending time with the family & friends, not being online) and that both issues (vBSEO 3.1 gold and the link problems) have been addressed your criticism is a bit unfounded. Heck, Peggy, you yourself posted what the issue is with the links over at vBFAQ. :erm:

For the links problem turn off the option to include the template names in your HTML output in your ACP (shouldn't be turned on anyway in a production environment).

[Saviour]

Originally Posted by KW802

When you say feed, do you mean in the output page of this script or your actual external.php RSS feed?

Go to this link: http://www.saviour-pc.com/forums/cv_rss_feeds.php

That will bring you to my feeds page on my forum...

Now clcik the RSS button next to Saviour PC Forum...

Look for the link to "Interested in making a website" and click it...

Do you see the BBCode? That's what I'm talking about...

My other question is why doesn't all the content from the post show up in the feed?

Thanks for your quick reply...I appreciate that.

[KW802]

Originally Posted by Saviour

Go to this link: http://www.saviour-pc.com/forums/cv_rss_feeds.php

That will bring you to my feeds page on my forum...

Now clcik the RSS button next to Saviour PC Forum...

Look for the link to "Interested in making a website" and click it...

Do you see the BBCode? That's what I'm talking about...

OK, gotcha' now. That is the actual RSS code that is generated by the stock "external.php" script that comes with vBulletin (eg: http://www.saviour-pc.com/forums/external.php).

The BB code showing is a good question since the external.php script is supposed to strip out the BB code tags. When vB.com is back up (they're down at the moment for the vB 3.7.x beta upgrade) ask them to take a look at http://www.saviour-pc.com/forums/external.php?forumids=54 to see if they would know why your BB codes are not being stripped. The external.php is a stock vBulletin script and the cv_rss_feeds.php script does not have any affect on it.

Originally Posted by Saviour

My other question is why doesn't all the content from the post show up in the feed?

By default the amount of the output shown is the same length as the thread preview (when you hover over a thread title in the forum thread listing). That is set in ACP => vBulletin Options => Forum Display Options (forumdisplay) => Length of Thread Preview Text with a default length of 150 characters. If you change that value then take note that it will also affect when you hover over the thread title. If you want just your RSS feeds from external.php to display the entire thread instead of just the thread preview then you can add an option like "fulldesc=1" to the URL. For example, http://www.saviour-pc.com/forums/ext...hp?forumids=54 versus http://www.saviour-pc.com/forums/ext...=54&fulldesc=1. I personally wouldn't give the full feed since then it doesn't give the reader motive to click the link and visit the site since but if you want to change it then modify your "cv_ffl_forum_feed_link" template and change it from...

$vboptions[bburl]/external.php<if condition="$forumid">?forumids=$forumid</if>

... to ...

$vboptions[bburl]/external.php?fulldesc=1<if condition="$forumid">&forumids=$forumid</if>

... instead. Note that besides adding the fulldesc=1 option the "?" in the if condition changes to an ampersand "&" as well.

[Saviour]

Well...bad news...

vbulletin.com does not support modified versions. So they want me to backup all my data...and re-install the product...ain't gonna happen.

I finally got my forum the way I want it...and had no problems...up until now...

So...needless to say...I have uninstalled your product.

Thanks, anyway...

[KW802]

Originally Posted by Saviour

Well...bad news...

vbulletin.com does not support modified versions. So they want me to backup all my data...and re-install the product...ain't gonna happen.

I finally got my forum the way I want it...and had no problems...up until now...

So...needless to say...I have uninstalled your product.

Thanks, anyway...

Um... this script does not modify external.php in any way shape or form, it simply points to it.

After you uninstalled it, does the BB codes still show?

[Saviour]

Originally Posted by KW802

Um... this script does not modify external.php in any way shape or form, it simply points to it.

After you uninstalled it, does the BB codes still show?

I'm not trying to be a wise guy...but if I uninstalled it...how will I get it to show?

[KW802]

Originally Posted by Saviour

I'm not trying to be a wise guy...but if I uninstalled it...how will I get it to show?

The links to external.php in your /forums folder is part of vBulletin and comes with it. When you view your RSS feeds the generic link would be http://www.saviour-pc.com/forums/external.php. You can then pass parameters into the script by putting them in the URL. For example, if your forum visitors knew that your Other forum had a forum ID of 54 then they could see the RSS feeds only from that forum by using a URL like http://www.saviour-pc.com/forums/ext...hp?forumids=54 directly.

This script (the "CinVin vB Forum Feed Listing") is simply a listing of all of your forums that links to the external.php script that comes with vBulletin. Think of it is as a mini 'site-map' with a quick link to the individual forum RSS feeds.

That is why if you said you were having a problem while viewing cv_rss_feeds.php then it is a problem with this script but if you are seeing strange results while viewing the actual RSS feed that it links to, (eg: http://www.saviour-pc.com/forums/ext...hp?forumids=54) then it is unrelated to this script so it does nothing more than points to it. For example, when somebody mentioned earlier that when they changed the name of cv_rss_feeds.php in the ACP but the automatic button in the footer didn't change as well then that is a problem that I missed but seeing BB codes in the actual RSS feeds is unrelated to anything with this script (cv_rss_feeds.php) since the feeds are generated by external.php and is a stock vBulletin script.

I try to help out with any questions that people might have with problems/issues related to the stuff I release but when it comes time for stuff like "Why are BB codes showing up in the RSS feeds generated by external.php?" then that is something that the vBulletin support guys should really be handling.

[Saviour]

Okay...I went to the URL of the external PHP file and they still show up...

I hope you continue to give me support on this...if I can get this issue resolved...I'll be more than happy to reinstall your product...I love it.

Attached is the code from my external.php file. Hopefully you can take a look at it and tell me what the issue is.

Like I said...I'd love to have this installed and working properly.

Update...

I've decided to give this another try...I think it may be something I'm doing...will play the waiting game.

Installed!