AboutToday - Bring RSS Feeds and Daily Events to Your Site!

What is AboutToday?

AboutToday provides a central place to bring daily items of interest to your forum visitors. It includes two main components: an RSS Reader System and Local Events database System.

Please NOTE: This mod has been modified for vb ver 3.6.4. It should work on vb ver 3.5.4 and 3.6.x.

1. An RSS Reader system where the admin can enter RSS feeds that will then be displayed on the page. RSS feeds can be set to AUTOMATICALLY create threads or be set so that users can easily create a thread from a feed.. Feeds can be read via fopen or cURL.
   
   
   
   
   
   The RSS Feeds are fully intergrated with vbAdvanced and could actually be placed anywhere you want!!
   
2. A database system that can hold unlimited categories of "AboutToday" events. For example, you could have a history category (like a Today in History) with sub-categories for different eras in history. Or, you could have a daily joke or software tip of the day, etc.
   
   The "Add Event" feature is intended to help you if you want for example - Sports: Today in History. With the vb calendar, you cannot have categories and you are restricted with how far back the dates can go.
   
   
   
   
   So with the "Add Event" feature, you could have a category tree like:
   • Hockey
     • Professional
     • College
     • High School
   • Football
     • American Football
     • The Rest of the World (Soccer)
   • Baseball
   
   with the normal calendar feature, you cannot have categories. And with "Add Event" you can have any date. So, if you want an event like "Jan 1, 132 B.C. - the first ball was invented", you can do that. But, that isn't possible in the normal calendar. Also, the events in "Add Event" are fully searchable.

Installation

Copy the following files to your server in the forums directory:

abouttoday.php
includes/class.csv.php
includes/class_abouttoday.php
includes/cron/cron_abouttoday.php
includes/xml/bitfield_abouttoday.xml
includes/xml/cpnav_abouttoday.xml
admincp/abouttodayadmin.php

From the admincp, import the product file product-abouttoday.xml (Manage Products - Add/Import Product).

REFRESH your admincp window. You should now see a listing in the left column of the admincp for "AboutToday".

Getting Started

NOTE - if this is a new install, a Yahoo RSS Feed and CNN Entertainment Feed have been automatically added to give you a feel for how the product looks.

If you plan to use the RSS Feeds:

1. From the admincp, select AboutToday - RSS Feeds. Add an RSS Feed.
2. From the admincp, select Usergroups - Usergroup Manager. Add permissions so the Administrator group can use the product.
3. From your forum directory, bring up the file abouttoday.php.
4. If you want the feeds to AUTOMATICALLY create threads, go to admincp - abouttoday - settings. There you must set the userid of the account to use to create the thread. Then, edit the RSS Feed with the forumid of where the threads for that feed should be created!

If you plan to create your own "today in history" type of database:

1. From the admincp, select AboutToday - Categories. Add a category.
2. From your forum directory, bring up the file abouttoday.php. "Add" your first event to the category you have created!

Version Status
I've tested this product extensively but ... use this totally at your own risk!

Credits
I learned a lot about how to code this and used a lot of the code from what Ron1n did with ecDownloads. What I've learned from his code while helping to support ecDownloads has been invaluable.

Sites Using this Product
Visit www.armchairgeneral.com to see this product in action.

Click Install!
Please Click Install if you are using this product. Thanks!

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by oberheimhaven

well it worked then it didnt??? Is this on my end or config problem??

Really neither. As long as the url is valid (which it is), leave it be. Sometimes the feeds themselves will contain an invalid (poor xml) entry. When that site updates it's feed, the problem often goes away. So ... just wait and see for now.

[Creasey]

Originally Posted by westpointer

sorry, no way to modify that output right now. (well, you could modify the php files, but I don't recommend that.)

Great addition to the boards, nice job!!

Ok I wanted to see if anyone could help me out here. At the bottom the rss feeds fit and layout perfectly (as shown here)



I have a white space I am trying to fill on the right hand side of my forums with various boxes. I have gotten the feed to work there but the output is all clumped up and not spread across the entire box (as shown here)



Is there away to make the feed cover the width of the box? Am I missing something?
How many rows across for $myfeeds variable? is set to 1 right now

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by Creasey

Is there away to make the feed cover the width of the box? Am I missing something?
How many rows across for $myfeeds variable? is set to 1 right now

1 is the correct setting for the number of feeds. That will give you a column of feeds. The problem is in how the style sheet is apply the padding to the list that the feeds are in.

Here's a fix for now. In the file abouttoday.php, around line 1564 AND 1568

FIND:

PHP Code:

$dtodayx = "<ul class='smallfont' ul class='smallfont'> 


REPLACE WITH:

PHP Code:

$dtodayx = "<ul class='smallfont' ul class='smallfont' style=\"margin-left:-20px\"> 


Do the same thing in the file includes/cron/cron_abouttoday.php on lines 273 AND 277. You may need to adjust the value of margin-left to get the optimum look for your board.

[Creasey]

Thanks, worked great.

IE displays perfectly and as usually happens from time to time FireFox has its own opinions on how things should look and is not lining up perfectly.

Thanks again for the help!

[oberheimhaven]

Well I have drop down menu to click when I do Nothing LOL ErghhhhhhSuch a beautiful hack only to get her to work properly

[Renmiri]

Love the idea! Is it possible to make a BBCode to bring one of the defined feeds into a post ?

BTW the ecCode link is busted, I think (or I'm to low on the totem pole here )

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by oberheimhaven

Well I have drop down menu to click when I do Nothing LOL ErghhhhhhSuch a beautiful hack only to get her to work properly

PM me your url with an admin account and password and I'll check it out for you.

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by Renmiri

Love the idea! Is it possible to make a BBCode to bring one of the defined feeds into a post ?

BTW the ecCode link is busted, I think (or I'm to low on the totem pole here )

Sorry but I don't understand what you mean. Can you PM me more info re the BBCode and what link is busted?

Thanks!

[Renmiri]

Originally Posted by westpointer

Sorry but I don't understand what you mean. Can you PM me more info re the BBCode and what link is busted?

Thanks!

Oh!

I want to be able to do this on a post

[feed=20]yahoo[/feed]

and get 20 lines of yahoo RSS feed added to my post. The ones that were there when I posted and saved the post, no need to make it dynamically updated

[dacho]

In the Top i get :
Warning: implode(): Bad arguments. in \global.php(503) : eval()'d code on line 4