NEW Modified RSS News Feed Hack

Hack originally posted by: Xyphen - RSS News Feed Hack
Modified by: wolfstream - Modified RSS News Feed Hack

I am posting this up as a new hack because of the major changes made to how the script works. Also, I didn't want people to get confused as to which one to download since there were 3 different versions on the original post.

Xyphen released the original version, then wolfstream modified the script and corrected some errors. After that, I modified wolfstreams version to change how posts were inserted. Now the post count will increase, posts will be able to be searched, and similiar threads will work.

RSS News Feed Hack for vB 3.0.x. As long as vBulletin doesn't change the database structure much, this should be good for the next release also, and those to come.

Allows you to have a live RSS news feed (such as one from Google or CNET) in a forum. The user that posts it will basically be a bot, which *should* only be used for posting the news, but you can even make it for a regular user.

Comments are welcome! Support provided through this thread.

Latest Version:
- 1.26 - for PHP 4.3.0 & above
- 1.26a - for PHP prior to 4.3.0

vBulletin Versions:
- 3.0.0
- 3.0.1

PHP Versions:
- > 4.3.0
- < 4.3.0

Installation Overview:
- Files to edit: (2) /admincp/index.php, /includes/functions_newpost.php
- Files to upload: (4) rss.php, admincp/rss_admin.php, includes/RSS/class.RSS.php, includes/RSS/rss_update.php
- Queries to run: (4) in rss_install.php

History:
Version 1.26 (23 June 2004 - Slapyo, Natch)
- listing of bot's more intuitive (Natch)
- hopefully fixed duplicate problem (Slapyo)
- stripped html tags from title and description (Slapyo)

Version 1.25 (12 May 2004 - Slapyo)
- fix for &quot; showing up
- logs action in scheduled task log if turned on

Version 1.24 (20 April 2004 - Slapyo)
- posts now deleted with delete_thread function
- post counts updated when using delete all news

Version 1.23 (14 April 2004 - Slapyo)
- added ability to delete bots
- cleaned up includes
- fix for PHP versions prior to 4.3.0 calling html_entity_decode()

Version 1.22 (13 April 2004 - Slapyo)
- duplicate posts problem fixed
- fix for problem with ' appearing as \'

Version 1.21 (12 April 2004 - Slapyo)
- bot will not be subscribed to posts now

Version 1.2 (11 April 2004 - Slapyo)
- posts now inserted with build_new_post function

Version 1.1 (28 March 2004 - wolfstream)
- file edits taken down to 1
- cron script included

Version 1.0 (28 January 2004 - Xyphen)
- original release

Common RSS Feeds:
- Yahoo!
- CNET.com
- BBC
- Wired News
- The Register
- Ars Technica
- All Headline News

[58sniper]

Originally Posted by nelto

Yes me, Im having the same problem.
Any help here would be appreciated.

The suggestion by Slapyo appears to have resolved my problem. Your best bet is to view the actual feed in your browser and see if there is a pubDate field.

Examples:

Broken: http://www.defensereview.com/backend.php
Correct: http://news.com.com/2547-1_3-0-5.xml

View each, and you'll notice that the correct feed has a pubDate field for each item. The first one was the one I originally used for testing, and it didn't work. I changed to the other, and it's been working fine since.

[Scutter]

I'm thinking about using this hack but would like it to do 2 different things, first is what was intended as a rss news feed, secondly there is an XML feed from an online game which I play, the tags in this XML file are different than a news feed (names). Would it be quite simple to alter the sript to allow this? For example I was thinking that I could insert a simple if statement in the template that makes the posts to say something like (in simple terms so you get what I'm thinking)
If bot = this bot then
post title = some tag
post description = some other tag

I presume it is possible, but is it just a couple of template changes or will I need to alter the files of this hack to do it?

[Slapyo]

scutter, no template changes ... it would all be within the script.

[Slapyo]

Originally Posted by ToddW

Here's just one of the hundreds they offer.
All use the %20 - and none work with this RSS News Feed Hack :disappointed:

http://p.moreover.com/cgi-local/page?c=Human%20rights%20news&o=rss

toddw, the %20 corresponds to a space. try removing the %20 and replacing it with a space. however you will have a problem since there is no pubDate field in the news feed. the pubDate field is required because of the need to check for new news.

http://p.moreover.com/cgi-local/page?c=Human rights news&o=rss

[ToddW]

How come MoreOver doesn't use a PUB Date Field? Is there a way around this for MoreOver Feeds?

edit- Looks like since they 'refresh' every 15 minutes they don't find the need for a pubdate field ??? :ermm:

[58sniper]

Originally Posted by ToddW

How come MoreOver doesn't use a PUB Date Field? Is there a way around this for MoreOver Feeds?

edit- Looks like since they 'refresh' every 15 minutes they don't find the need for a pubdate field ??? :ermm:

Because their feeds are RSS 0.91 feeds, and you typically don't see pubDate in 0.91 feeds.

Nothing you can do about it other than complain to MoreOver.

[rjerina]

i installed this, it did the first feed read, but it seems to not be finding new entries, or just not adding new entries?

using the feed http://rss.pcworld.com/rss/latestnews.rss

the most recent article should be "New Cool, Quiet Laptop Hard Drives", but the most recent is "Is XP's Fix Safe?"

not sure what is going on.

[58sniper]

Originally Posted by rjerina

i installed this, it did the first feed read, but it seems to not be finding new entries, or just not adding new entries?

using the feed http://rss.pcworld.com/rss/latestnews.rss

the most recent article should be "New Cool, Quiet Laptop Hard Drives", but the most recent is "Is XP's Fix Safe?"

not sure what is going on.

They don't have a pubDate field in their feeds. See https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=431

[rjerina]

Originally Posted by 58sniper

They don't have a pubDate field in their feeds. See https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=431

so i cant use this feed? thats a bummer

this sucks. i cant use the best pc computing news feed i have found thus far, because this thing needs pub dates? why doesnt it just check against titles or links. seems kind of lame and limited.

[58sniper]

Originally Posted by rjerina

so i cant use this feed? thats a bummer

this sucks. i cant use the best pc computing news feed i have found thus far, because this thing needs pub dates? why doesnt it just check against titles or links. seems kind of lame and limited.

If you read this entire thread, you'd know it's because without a pubDate field, the script doesn't know when it was released, and, thus, if it's new or not. Perhaps if PC Computing got off their @ss and came out with an RSS 2.0 feed, instead of using that 0.91 feed, the world would be a better place.