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!

[oberheimhaven]

Someone wanting to make a quick 20.00 bucks pm me or e mail musicianquarters@aol.com

I cant seem to get this working some work some dont anyone wanting to make some quick cash e mail me however plz be professonal no kids and no scammers plz I have been through that nightamre stold my site actually would like to have the writer of this hack do this if you're not to busy its for cash!!! and cash is king!!

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by oberheimhaven

and cash is king!!

LOL! I'll give it a quick look for free! PM me your site url along with a vb admin username and password.

[oberheimhaven]

sent thanks man!!! I sincerely appreciate the help!!

[bada_bing]

This is cool will install soon.. subscribed

[Lyte]

I'm using ArticleBot to bring RSS feeds as new threads/posts to my forum area. From those posts, the first few words appear on the right hand column under "PC101 Tech News" BUT, I'm not liking how it's the same information repeated! So....

Does the AboutToday hack allow me to put an RSS feed into the forum area about topics "A,B and C" and then put RSS feeds to the right column about topics "X, Y and Z". Obviously, I'm wanting to make what's in the forum different from what's in the column.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Lyte

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by dacho

The problem it's not with the language ( i test it with the English language)
SO
I take your advise and disable all my others installed products
the problem it's with : Rules And User Agreement
they can't work together !
maybe you can look at it to do integration

I installed the "Rules And User Agreement" on my board and everything still works fine. I do only have one test rule so maybe it's something with one of your rules. The only thing I can think of you to try at this point it to record the rules you have, delete or disable them, and see what happens. Then add each rule back until it breaks.

Originally Posted by dacho

another issue :
because of some of us work with utf-8 and we take the RSS content from site that work with windows-1255 (for example)
so we get a gibberish content from them

I can try to look into this more but to be honest I have very little experience with checking or manipulating the character type.

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by Lyte

I'm using ArticleBot to bring RSS feeds as new threads/posts to my forum area. From those posts, the first few words appear on the right hand column under "PC101 Tech News" BUT, I'm not liking how it's the same information repeated! So....

Lyte

I don't think it can really do what you want. But here's what it can do. You can have the items from RSS Feed A listed in the right column. Then you can have the items from RSS Feed B create threads in a specificed forum. However, you cannot have RSS Feed A list items in the right column that are different from the items that RSS Feed A would post in a forum as a new thread.

[specmav]

Is their a way to use a custom BB code so I can align images to the left or right?

Thanks

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by specmav

Is their a way to use a custom BB code so I can align images to the left or right?


Thanks

Sorry, there's no way to do that currently.

[specmav]

I am having a problem with setting up permissions for this mod.

My site allows guests to post replies to registered users threads. My only problem is that guests can use the Talk about it button to create threads and I want to prevent this. I only want registered users to be able to create threads from RSS data.

Any help on how to solve this?

Thanks

Also, do you plan on adding any custom BB code to do this in later editions. I think it would make the posts created from RSS a little cleaner. But that is only my opinion.