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!

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by j1mmy

do i need to edit the usergroup 'members' at all for them to access AboutToday?

Yes, just like you had to for the Administrator group. Of course, you won't give normal users the same level of permissions. If you are only using the RSS portion of AboutToday, the typical usergroup permission would look like:

[j1mmy]

Thanks.

Also, is it possible to change the location of where it is? Is it possible to list them on one of the sides of the forum at all?

Say, if a member clicked on the title of a sub-forum, vB will take them to a seperate page with only that sub-forum on it. Is it possible to show AboutToday on that page aswell - with a copy of coding from the eindex page?

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by j1mmy

Thanks.

Also, is it possible to change the location of where it is? Is it possible to list them on one of the sides of the forum at all?

Say, if a member clicked on the title of a sub-forum, vB will take them to a seperate page with only that sub-forum on it. Is it possible to show AboutToday on that page aswell - with a copy of coding from the eindex page?

If you mean have the feed display on a forum page like it does at the bottom of forumhome, yes it can be done. Each feed has the option of being assigned to three different variables ($myfeeds, $myfeeds2, $myfeeds3). You assign the feed to that variable (using manage RSS Feeds) then place the variable where you want it to appear. Of course, you could use conditional logic to make it only show on the forumid you want. But ... showing you how to do that is beyond the support I can provide here.

[j1mmy]

Well i really would like it to do that, also, if thats possible, this must be possible aswell:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=118274

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by westpointer

But ... showing you how to do that is beyond the support I can provide here.

Actually, let me show you an example of how you can do this. I'm going to make some of the feed summaries show on one forum under the navbar. I think that would be a good example to help everyone realize some of what they can do with this mod.

The end result is going to be this. I've selected two feeds to show at the top of the Main Forum using the $myfeeds variable:



On other forums, we'd won't see the feeds:



Here are the steps:

1. In admincp->abouttoday->settings, change the "How many rows across for $myfeeds variable?" to two.
   
2. For the two RSS Feeds you want to display, in admincp->abouttoday->RSS Feeds, set "Include this Feed in $myfeeds variable?" to "Yes"
   
3. The final step is to place the $myfeeds variable in the navbar template. We'll place it all the way at the bottom of the template with a conditional to only appear on the main forum (id of 2)
   

Done!

[j1mmy]

How about making them viewable anywhere else but the top?

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by j1mmy

How about making them viewable anywhere else but the top?

LOL ... at some point you really need to just play with it yourself.

Okay ... bottom of the forum:

Edit the template FORUMDISPLAY. We'll do the $myfeeds2 variable this time:



Will give you this at the bottom of every forum page (but not forumhome)



This is with $myfeeds2 set to have two columns and the four feeds displayed set to be included in $myfeeds2.

Now ... go forth and play with it!:banana:

[j1mmy]

Just one more thing, ok so i know how to move it about. But i also like that box around it, could i move that box with it where ever it goes? Or just the text?

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by j1mmy

Just one more thing, ok so i know how to move it about. But i also like that box around it, could i move that box with it where ever it goes? Or just the text?

Sorry, I missed your question yesterday. If you haven't figured it out yet, I'll show you how to do it tomorrow.:banana:

[DanGarion]

So does this use CURL or FURL? I've had problems with the use of FURL with my host because I have to run in CGI mode. I've installed this and it's not getting any feeds so I'm figuring this is the problem.

When I update the feeds the abouttodat.php just shows no news articles.