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!

[obmob]

Hello, this seems powerful, is there a 3.6 version?

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by obmob

Hello, this seems powerful, is there a 3.6 version?

This version will work on 3.6.4. I am in the process of totally recoding the RSS portion of the program to take advantage of the inherent RSS abilities of vb 3.6.x.

[firefox100]

Great work CyberRanger, is what was searching. I will install it, I will comment then how it was me.

[djchris]

Hi CyberRanger,

I've installed your mod and love every bit of it.
I understand that for the rss url, I have to use a .rss link. am I right?

I'm looking at using rss feeds from the following urls:
http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/rss/0,6166,,00.html
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/rss/index.htm#sg

But these rss feeds don't seem to work because they are .xml formats.

Would love your assistance in this.
Thanks.

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by djchris

Hi CyberRanger,

I've installed your mod and love every bit of it.
I understand that for the rss url, I have to use a .rss link. am I right?

I'm looking at using rss feeds from the following urls:
http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/rss/0,6166,,00.html
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/rss/index.htm#sg

But these rss feeds don't seem to work because they are .xml formats.

Would love your assistance in this.
Thanks.

You need to select the feeds that end in xml. For example, on http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/rss/0,6166,,00.html this feed should work: http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/mnt/...lheadlines.xml

[djchris]

Thanks..
Sorry, my fault. I set the forumid wrongly....hence it didn't show.

[Mys]

Install was smooth as silk for me (3.6.4) and everything is working as promised!

Would it possible to include a Query in this hack that would add a Happy Birthday message to Today's Events on the date of each member's birthday?

[deezelpope]

This is WONDERFUL!!! *Installed without a hitch!* Thank you very much!!:up:

[CyberRanger]

I installed AboutToday and followed instructions. Now when I go to Admin CP -> AboutToday -> Setting - I get a 404 error

Is this because of version incompatibility? Or could I have done something incorrectly, please advise if you can.
Thanks
Amit Wadhwa

I would suggest you re-upload all the AboutToday files then from the admincp, import the product file product-abouttoday.xml (Manage Products - Add/Import Product). When you import the product-abouttoday.xml file, be sure "Allow Overwrite" is set to Yes.

[wolf32]

Great Mod!

I have around 20 different RSS feeds and have it set where a thread is created when a person chooses to talk about that feed.

When I want to create a thread for the feed a majority of the time I get a message saying "Redirecting" rather than "Your thread has been created!"

Once I "Force RSS Update" it will then create the thread, but only after I force the update.

Is there a way to fix this agonizing problem, to where whenever I create the thread, it will be created and I won't have to "Force RSS Update" every time?

Note: I didn't have this problem when I had around 7-12 feeds.

http://www.u-connex.com