Article Bot

Article Bot
by velocd


Article Bot is a script that allows you to assign a user account (preferably an exclusive one) to an article bot that will post RSS feeds in select forums at designated intervals. These articles are derived from RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds.

RSS files are assigned to article bots, as well to individual forums, which in turn directs what, when and where your article bot will post.

Features

• Works with RSS versions: 0.9x, 2.0, 1.0, and Atom 0.3
• AdminCP interface for adding/modifying/deleting article bots & rss feeds
• Designate intervals (in minutes) to each RSS feed for when your article bot will post them.
• Requires only 1 file edit (admincp/index.php), allowing ease of upgrading your vBulletin
  without having to remodify files.
• Easy to install. Works best in conjunction with crontab (contab help is inside install.html)

News

• 7/25/04 - Version 1.1 Released
  • Bug Fixes
    • Replaced htmlspecialchars() with htmlentities() in articlebot.php to fully convert special entities from descriptions.
    • Added trim() to thread titles, to prevent double threads from being posted that are merely off by whitespace.
    • New table articlebot_rss_cache for storing a copy of article bot threads, for quicker checking of doubles when posting new threads.
    • Threads are checked in articlebot_rss_cache, so you can permanently remove them from the thread table (you don't have to "soft delete") without worrying about the bot replicating them.
    • Other minor bugs.
  • Features
    • New installer/upgraders for doing the SQL part automatically.
    • Added "label" field to add/modify RSS interface, that allows you to tag a label, e.g. [yahoo], to the beginning of threads, unique to each RSS feed. This might help for better distinction of RSS feeds.
    • Added an option to toggle on/off of building similar threads per RSS feed. Some RSS feeds could hault the script if the building of similar thread results for that feed takes too long (maybe the article thread title is too vague, and matches a lot of results--my guess is it's only a problem on large forums).
    • Added an option to toggle on/off skipping of articles that don't contain descriptions.
    • Regular expression search and replace for article titles and descriptions. This grants you much flexability to filter out things you don't want in your titles or descriptions (given you have some regex experience, I will try to post some patterns in due time.. feel free to add yours )
• 7/11/04 - Version 1.0 Released

Upgrading

• To upgrade, reupload the new PHP and MagpieRSS parser files to their places on your server. Upload upgrade_vx-x (replace the x's with the version you are upgrading to) to /path/to/forums/admincp/, and then execute that script.

Files

• 3 screenshots attached
• articlebot_v1.zip
  • install.html, logo.gif
  • articlebot_admin.php
  • articlebot/
    • rss_cache.inc
    • rss_fetch.inc
    • rss_parse.inc
    • rss_utils.inc
    • extlib/
      • Snoopy.class.inc

RSS Feeds

There are several in the install.html, but if you're looking for more than you could ever want, check out NewsIsFree's directory:

http://www.newsisfree.com/sources/bycat/


Remember to click install if you use this hack.

Also be sure to read through the what you haven't of the thread before asking a question, for it may have been answered.

[Byron]

Is it possible to insert a quote at the end of each post?

The quote will be randomly selected within the code in the template.

How to add this to the template?

[T3MEDIA]

Why the hell (?>\([^\)]*\))|\b[A-Z0-9._%-]+@[A-Z0-9._%-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}\b
would erase everything???? That is a legal egex command to block anything within ( ) and any email... but if I put this into this hack it wipes everything...

any idea why that is?

[Code Monkey]

Originally Posted by apshanon

I have installed articlebot hack in my 3.0.8 version. But I have upgaded vbulletin to 3.5.0. Please help me how I can setup articlebot again now

You can get articlebot working with vb 3.50 easily.

Make sure you still have the template. "articlebot_post" If not then create it.

PHP Code:

$article[description]

$article[link] 


Next open articlebot.php with your favorite editor. Change every instance of:

• $DB_site-> with $db->
• $vboptions[ with $vbulletin->options[

Do the same in admincp/articlebot_admin.php but also replace globalize( with $vbulletin->input->clean_array_gpc(


At this point, your article bot should function again.

Now just copy this and save it as cpnav_articlebot.xml and upload it into includes/xml directory. Then you will have your admin options again.

PHP Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<navgroups product="vbulletin">
    <navgroup text="Article Bots" hr="true">
        <navoption>
            <text>Manage Article Bots</text>
            <link>articlebot_admin.php</link>
        </navoption>
        <navoption>
            <text>Add Article Bot</text>
            <link>articlebot_admin.php?do=add</link>
        </navoption>
        <navoption>
            <text>Add RSS to Article Bot</text>
            <link>articlebot_admin.php?do=addrss</link>
        </navoption>
    </navgroup>
</navgroups>

My articles are being written correctly and the admin seems to function. Milage may vary. Enjoy

[Code Monkey]

Also in articlebot_admin.php arround line 192. Replace

PHP Code:

    print_forum_chooser(
        'forumid', 0, 0,
        '<b>Forum</b><br />The forum this RSS will be posted in.<br />
        <span class="smallfont"><i><u>Note</u>: the article bot will post in any forum, even if it lacks permission<br />
        to do so, if the forum is closed, or if the forum acts as a category.<br />
        Therefore, choose the forum accordingly.</i></span>', 0, 0, 0
    ); 


With this

PHP Code:

    print_forum_chooser(
        '<b>Forum</b><br />The forum this RSS will be posted in.<br /><span class="smallfont"><i><u>Note</u>: the article bot will post in any forum, even if it lacks permission<br />to do so, if the forum is closed, or if the forum acts as a category.<br />Therefore, choose the forum accordingly.</i></span>',
        'forumid', 0, 0, 0, 0
    ); 


[Code Monkey]

Well, the above updates will make your existing feeds work. In order to add new ones articlebot_admin.php will need to be reworked.

[DS MrSinister]

Originally Posted by JumpD

Well, the above updates will make your existing feeds work. In order to add new ones articlebot_admin.php will need to be reworked.

great job.


I cant reable my feeds geting errors . all my feeds are disable

You going to plan rework the articlebot_admin.php

[T3MEDIA]

Originally Posted by JumpD

Well, the above updates will make your existing feeds work. In order to add new ones articlebot_admin.php will need to be reworked.

Maybe you can help... my feeds keep turning "&" into "&" and of course ruins the feed. is there a way to stop that? as well the egex commands do not seem to be working.

[T3MEDIA]

Originally Posted by aciurczak

Here's what I need: What I want is help creating a script that will automatically do this every hour or so. Has anyone created an auto-move script before, or I should I start parsing through how the admincp component works? Thanks for any assistance one can provide...

- Alex

EDIT: Got it working. It moves threads with replies over to a discussion forum, and it also strips out threads with ADV: in the title as trash and puts them into a Trash forum, hidden from the public, for later review and deletion.

will you be releasing this or its private? Thanks.

[aciurczak]

Originally Posted by T3MEDIA

will you be releasing this or its private? Thanks.

Here's a link to the code:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=92542

Since that post I added another clause to take care of the ADV posts:

$DB_site->query("UPDATE " . TABLE_PREFIX . "thread SET forumid = 22 WHERE forumid = 17 AND title LIKE '%ADV:%'");

[chader144]

Any chance this will be ported to 3.5? I like the plug-in system.