RSS News Feed Hack

My friend made this hack, he owns http://www.liquidpro.net. Check him out.
You may contact him at liquidpro@neo.rr.com. Or you can IM him on AIM at LiquidPro10.

An example is shown at http://www.xtreme-forumz.net. Go to the Techno forum under the General category. Then the CNET News sub-forum.

RSS News Feed Hack for vB 3.0.0. As long as vBulletin doesn't change the database structure much, this should be good for the next release also, and those to come.

Allows you to have a live RSS news feed (such as one from Google or CNET) in a forum. The user that posts it will basically be a bot, which *should* only be used for posting the news, but you can even make it for a regular user.

Comments are welcome!

Instructons:
Note: DON'T FORGET TO MAKE A BACKUP OF EACH FILE BEFORE YOU MODIFY IT!

Copy the files to your web server... keep the same directory structure as in the zip file.
Run the rss_install.php file to setup the RSS script.
If you're upgrading run the rss_upgrade.php file to setup the RSS script. Don't forget to remove all previous modifications (you can find them by searching for "LiquidPro")

#### open the /index.php script ####
Find this:

PHP Code:

require_once('./includes/functions_forumlist.php'); 


Add below it:

PHP Code:

require_once('./includes/RSS/rss_update.php'); 


#### open the /forumdisplay.php script ####
Find this:

PHP Code:

require_once('./includes/functions_forumdisplay.php'); 


Add below it:

PHP Code:

require_once('./includes/RSS/rss_update.php'); 


#### open the /admincp/index.php script ####

Find this:

PHP Code:

construct_nav_group("$vbphrase[styles] &amp; $vbphrase[templates]", '<hr />'); 


Add below it:

PHP Code:

// Manage Hacks
// by: Andrew Wickham
// LiquidPro Inc.
//
construct_nav_option('RSS News Feed', 'rss_admin.php', '<br />');
construct_nav_group('Hacks');
//
// End Manage Hacks 


You're done, thanks for installing the hack.

Hack by: Andrew Wickham (http://www.liquidpro.net)
Hack for: Xtreme-Forumz (http://www.xtreme-forumz.net)

[Serge]

Great idea. I would think maybe a cron script would be better? You could make it so it would check the feed and make a new post everytime something new came?

I don't know about that I was just thinking out loud maybe I will try and see what I can do.

[Xyphen]

LLFan, I mean... that every time someone loaded the main page it would have to access an outside source (the RSS news feed) and check if there's any new updates

[mitchjaz]

I'm running vb3 RC3. I get a mysql error due to the apostrope's in tome headlines. If I turn on magic quotes,that conflicts with other programs on my site. Is there a way to get around this? Maybe with .htaccess?

[Xyphen]

Hm, I'm not entirely sure, I don't do much with .htaccess. Maybe there's some work-around for it. I'll look into that.

Also, do you guys mind posting the URLs that you are using it on? I'd like to see it in action as a user, not the creator.

[sjau]

When does the script now update the RSS feed?

[Xyphen]

It now updates it only when you visit the specified forum. I re-wrote it tonight, and I'm going to release it probably tomorrow evening, v1.1. It has Admin Panel support now too, so it'll be a lot easier.

[raxafarian]

Originally Posted by Xyphen

It now updates it only when you visit the specified forum. I re-wrote it tonight, and I'm going to release it probably tomorrow evening, v1.1. It has Admin Panel support now too, so it'll be a lot easier.

I'm pretty sure this is due to the crappy feed I posted above, but mine will not update. If I remove the two 'rss' tables and reinsert them, it pulls new headlines. If not, it doesn't do anything.

Also changing to another feed won't update...I still need to blow those 2 entries away and put them back.... then the new feed works... once.

[mitchjaz]

If anyone knows a workaround so it can operate with magic quotes turned off, that would be great. Also, the ability to receive image tags would be a nice feature for later as well. Here's a feed from the front of my site that I pipe in via RSS through vbindex and a server side include.

http://www.dphoto.us/forum/index.php...al_camera_news

[techglitch]

What about doing multi feeds for multi forms? For those who want to categorize more feeds..

[Xyphen]

Thanks for all the input guys. And the multi-feeds and multi-forms thing is going to be included in v1.1. I like the idea, that was the original plan but I decided not to do it for some reason. About the <img> tag. You'd have to make sure that your forum allows you to post HTML tags, or it won't work, just for future reference.