Add-On Releases - AGM Advanced vBNavbar RSS Reader (Flash-based)

AGM Advanced vBNavbar RSS Reader (Flash-based)
'Display either an External Newsfeed or Latest Forum Posts in Your vBulletin Navbar'
Syrus XL Media - LIVE DEMO -> www.digitalport.co.uk
Please note BOTH versions are included in the download package.
Documentation is available in Word, PDF & Text - all included in package.

Introduction
This product is capable of showing either a Newsfeed from other websites using their RSS feeds, or the Latest Forum Posts version will display the latest posts from your forum directly within your vBulletin Navbar. It has been designed to fit the default navbar of the standard vBulletin style, and uses the same color scheme. It is coded to strip the standard HTML RSS layout code and use its own. The RSS reader is coded in ActionScript 2.0 to allow most users to use it without updating their Adobe Flash Browser Plugin.

Features include:
? Auto-scrolling feed
? Pause on mouse-over
? High-light description on mouse-over
? Buttons for Forward and Rewind feed
? Auto-detect flash version and notify user if update is required

Depending on which version you install, the reader will open in either a new window for use as a newsreader, or open in same window if used for latest forum posts. All the aforementioned features are available in both versions.

If you are familiar with vBulletin template coding then you can place
this product anywhere on your forum.

Installation
Upload all the files depending on which version you require (details in download package).

Edit the ag_read.php ? this file acts as a proxy if you are pulling data from an external RSS source, it also allows you to specify the rss source, whether it is external or internal. You should change the value of the dataURL to suit your own requirements. If this is to point at your own forum then please enable external rss data handling via the AdminCP. By default we have set the dataURL to the BBC?s rss newsfeed in the external dataPull version and vBulletin.com for the Latest Posts demonstration.

Template Edit
This modification only requires one template edit, making it simple to install into any vBulletin setup.

AdminCP -> Styles & Templates -> Default Style -> Edit Templates -> Navigation / Breadcrumb Templates > navbar

Find:

    </td>
<if condition="$show['member']">
    <td class="alt2" nowrap="nowrap">
    <div class="smallfont">
        <strong><phrase 1="$bbuserinfo[username]" 2="member.php?$session[sessionurl]u=$bbuserinfo[userid]">$vbphrase[welcome_x_link_y]</phrase></strong><br />

Before Add:

<!-- AG Advanced RSS Reader -->
<td class="alt2">

<div align="right">
<script src="Scripts/swfobject_modified.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<object id="FlashID" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="200" height="85">
  <param name="movie" value="vbnavrss.swf" />
  <param name="quality" value="high" />
  <param name="wmode" value="transparent" />
  <param name="swfversion" value="6.0.65.0" />
  <param name="expressinstall" value="Scripts/expressInstall.swf" />


  <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="vbnavrss.swf" width="200" height="85">

    <param name="quality" value="high" />
    <param name="wmode" value="opaque" />
    <param name="swfversion" value="6.0.65.0" />
    <param name="expressinstall" value="Scripts/expressInstall.swf" />
    <div>
      <h4>AG RSS Reader requires a newer version of Adobe Flash Player.</h4>
      <p><a href="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer"><img src="http://www.adobe.com/images/shared/download_buttons/get_flash_player.gif" alt="Get Adobe Flash player" width="112" height="33" /></a></p>
    </div>

  </object>

</object>
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
swfobject.registerObject("FlashID");
//-->
</script>

</div>
</td>
<!-- End AG Advanced RSS Reader -->

End of Template Edit. Click Save.

If you download this product and like it please click Install, so we can notify you of future updates.

Syrus XL Media 2003-2009

[zelnik]

Looks like a great mod is there a way of adding it to a side column instead of the navbar?

[syrus.xl]

Originally Posted by zelnik

Looks like a great mod is there a way of adding it to a side column instead of the navbar?

It could be added anywhere, but you need to consider the 200 pixel width. Obviously, the coding would need to be changed slightly, so it would function in a side-column which I assume is on vBulletin.

[zelnik]

Originally Posted by syrus.xl

It could be added anywhere, but you need to consider the 200 pixel width. Obviously, the coding would need to be changed slightly, so it would function in a side-column which I assume is on vBulletin.

Hi Syrus,

Thanks for the reply looks like a great mod.

I'm running this for the side column https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=175181

I'll give it a try and see how it looks and report back if it's do'able if the coding could be done then I wouldn't mind paying for the branding free version you mentioned in the install package.

I've been using a news ticker until now but I've discovered via my host that it's causing my site to be massively slow if it can't get the rss feed, like if the site is slown or down for example so looking for an alternative and this seems ideal, if not better!

[syrus.xl]

Originally Posted by zelnik

Hi Syrus,

Thanks for the reply looks like a great mod.

I'm running this for the side column https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=175181

I'll give it a try and see how it looks and report back if it's do'able if the coding could be done then I wouldn't mind paying for the branding free version you mentioned in the install package.

I've been using a news ticker until now but I've discovered via my host that it's causing my site to be massively slow if it can't get the rss feed, like if the site is slown or down for example so looking for an alternative and this seems ideal, if not better!

It shouldn't cause issues, because it is flash-based and only calls the feed in if available, if not then it just shuts down, it doesn't make any other calls. So if the feed is dead, it just shows nothing, but most websites feeds should show - it handles many feed types.

Sorry for the reply, but I've been busy working on another large vbulletin website.

[zelnik]

Hi there,

Have installed it for a few days now trialling it out but I'm a bit concerned about how much traffic this is producing as firefox is constantly saying "transferring data from <website url>"

I assume it's doing this for everyone on my site surely that's producing a decent amount of traffic/bandwidth opposed to a system that just goes and gets an rss feed say once every 30 mins and then everyone uses the stored feed?

Look forward to your thoughts.

[syrus.xl]

The actual coding in flash doesn't mean it is constantly pulling data externally. It only refreshes once upon a page load, some AJAX versions do actually have refresh intervals, however this one doesn't work like that. The amount of data would not change if a visitor was on any page for 1 minute or a few hours, it pulls once and that is it.

Firefox will show any flash object constantly transfering data even if it is not. The reason is because data is pulled externally via the proxy file, therefore the flash object may look to the browser that data is being continually sent/received - the fact is if the flash object was set to stop after pulling the data once then it would not show this message, but then the RSS feed would fail.

Bandwidth shouldn't be an issue, it is only the cost of the main flash object you would need to worry about, if that. The swf is designed to be compact as much as possible, this is why some people have mentioned certain languages failing, if all languages were embedded then the file size would be over 400k per page load, which is far beyond anything we would consider releasing.

Hope that explains it a bit better.

[BadgerDog]

Installed for testing ....

Thanks you ... nice work ... :up:

Is there any way to make the box a little shorter, but wider? I mean, is there someplace I can set the height and width?

Also, for last posts, how many does it pull and is it the vBulletin external file that specifies that?

Regards,
Badger