Logician NEWS: Drag Any Message to Your Main Page

This is a news script which will drag vb forum messages from your vb db to your non-vb main page/news page. There are a lot of good news script around but I needed a highly customizable main page news script with some special features and wrote it myself. I'm using it in my site's main page for a long time, but I was just too lazy to write installation/help documents to share it here, sorry!

FEATURES:

* This script simply pulls forum messages which you marked as "news" from your vb database and post them in your non-vbulletin (main/other) page.
* You can mark messages as "NEWS" in any forum you want (including private forums). You dont need to restrict your news to a specific forum.
* You can drag any message to your main page, regardless of its date. So news is NOT supposed to be the most recent messages in your board.
* You do NOT have to carry the whole message to your main page as news. You can import it all or simply take some part of it. So eg. you can drag a message's the first paragraph to your news page and link the thread for "Read More".
* Moreover you can insert invisible custom NEWS text which will be dragged to your main page to your board messages, but not shown in the original forum thread. So your original thread message and news text on your main page can be different than eachother.
* You can have sticky news in your main page (even if they are not sticky in your forum).
* News does NOT need to be the first message in the thread. You can tag any reply message as news and pull it to your main page either.
* Script parses ALL of your message icons/smilies (including your custom add-ons) and some of the important vBCode like: [url] [email] [img] [b] [i] [u]
* You can specify which members may post news.
* You can form your News' title seperately, apart from of the original thread/message title.
* You can set maximum number of news shown in your main page.
* You can set maximum number of characters that all shown news should not exceed. Some messages can be long and some can be short and if you set a character limit, the script will automatically compile enough news from your database to fit your web page's relevant part according to the limit you set.
* You can enable/disable:
News Poster Name
News Date
News Read Number
News 'Send to a Friend' Link
Comment number/Add comment button/Last commenter
Will viewing news increase the original thread's view count or not
News is sticky or not
for ALL your news INDIVIDUALLY.
* All news tags are invisible in the original thread. So forum readers do not notice any difference when you tag a message as news.
* Dragging a message to your main page as news is as simple as inserting a hidden [news]Title of My News[/news] tag to your forum message.

Well, these features are what I needed in my news script, so it should suffice to you too!

It's an easy to install script and will work with ALL vbulletin versions because it's an add-on, not a hack. I can give support as much as I have time, but please ask here, not via email or PM.

If you use the script, please click INSTALL. If you post the URL of your news page after installation, you can help other users see the script in action in different pages and in custom designs, thank you!

Logician

[Logician]

Originally posted by inetd
Logician, this hack can work with WebTemplates?

nope inetd, you cant integrate this script into a webtemplate. However you can create a webquery inside your webtemplate which derives news from your vb db. Of course news compiling features of a webquery will not be as advanced as Logician News script, but can do the trick, if you dont have so high expectations.

[Ryangel]

using 2.2.6

Everything works fine

except that the text that i tag with [news][/news]
when i go back to view the thread, it doesnt disply.. as though it disappeared.

I will recheck code now. Just wondering if anyone had the same experiance or know a solution.

[Ryangel]

ok I added {param} in all the right places in the new vbcodes and it worked!

Did i get a bad .html install file? cuz i found it strange.

[Logician]

Originally posted by Ryangel
except that the text that i tag with [news][/news]
when i go back to view the thread, it doesnt disply.. as though it disappeared.

lol Ryangel but this is the default behaviour of the hack. :glasses: As mentioned in the instructions ALL hack tags (ie. [news] [summary] [intro] [options]) are INVISIBLE in the original thread.

[news] tag only tags your message as a news to notify the hack and helps you to choose a custom news title for your message. It doesnt have any other usage (especially in the thread) so I dont get why you want to make it visible?

[Ryangel]

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh.

How silly of me. *whacks self*
:cross-eyed:

[Ryangel]

Thanks for the clearification logician!

and again, great addon!

[miho]

Is it posible to link from the news (read more...) to the orginal posting and not only to the thread. I think it is not so easy to find the right message if there are many messages in an thread.

Must be something in this line:

$news[$i][link]='[<a href="'.$forumlocation."showthread.php?threadid=". $news[$i][threadid]."&postid=".$news[$i][postid].'">'.$readresttext.'</a>]';

Thanks Michael

[Logician]

Originally posted by miho
Is it posible to link from the news (read more...) to the orginal posting and not only to the thread.

Isnt it already so?

[miho]

No, not in vb version 2.2.3.

[Logician]

Originally posted by miho
No, not in vb version 2.2.3.

Did I get you right:

When [summary] or [intro] tags are used in a news message you want "Read More" link to link the news message itself which [news] tag is used, not the thread itself? If it is so, this is already the default hack behaviour and it's not related to the vb version you are using.

If this is not working for you, you mignt be designed your news HTML ($newstablesample) incorrectly in "phpheader.php" file in options. You need to use ??NEWSLINK?? variable for this link.

If you can post your $newstablesample and the link of your webpage which is not working correctly, I can help more..