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.

[Amaranth]

Yes, I am also not allowed to access the link. Does anyone know why?

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=100269

I have not had this problem before.

[G-spot]

yeah is their anywhere else we can download it at? if anyone knows that'd be great. Thanks

[laskos]

is there any way i can get more content from the feeds ? ie when i run the feeds all i get is this as an example:

Published: Sat, 20 May 2006 07:59:08 GMT

Cardiff hosts a major sporting weekend with club rugby's top final and the world's most lucrative football game.
Click here to read More...

how can i get it to pull more text to my site as i would like my members to read more before going to the feed source.

thanks in advance

[bjornstrom]

Originally Posted by Amaranth

Yes, I am also not allowed to access the link. Does anyone know why?

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=100269

I have not had this problem before.

Yup, same here. Dunno whats happened lately.

[j1mmy]

Im kinda new to this, will this work on 3.5.4?

[davidw]

This one won't but vBulletin 3.6 will have a script to handle RSS feeds. You can read about it here and see many more features in the full thread here

[MikeBlah]

i'm having trouble using the google rss feeds... says there is no file there... anyone have that working?

[popmyzit]

Why cant i access that link... I can download everything else.... weird stuff on this forum

[davidw]

The author of this mod has pulled his modification.

[Lyte]

Is there a way to change the size/display of the Article Bot Manager. I don't understad why the section for editing it so teeny tiny. Why is it necessary to have to scroll up/down or left/right in order to see each of the feeds.

You can see what I mean here

How might I change this?

Thanks!

Lyte