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]

Version 2.0.5 added Aug 2, 2006

• Modified to work with vb versions 3.5.4 and 3.6 RC2.

Version 2.0.4 added Jul 21, 2006

• Added an option that will hide threads auto-created from the "New Post" and "Today's Post" searches.
• "Guest" will be displayed properly if a guest is allowed to start a thread from an RSS Feed.
• Fixed problem with description displaying in "Today in History" module.

Version 2.0.3 added Jul 11, 2006

• Built in support to use either fopen OR cURL for fetching RSS Feeds. This has been modified to automatically check for cURL and use it if available, otherwise use fopen.
• Cleaned up formating in "Today's Events" section so that the font size is the same as events pulled from the calendar.
• Moved the automatic update of RSS Feeds from a hook into "Hourly Cleanup #1" to it's own scheduled task called "AboutToday". This is set to run every 15 minutes by default.
• Modified how poorly formatted feeds are handled so that one bad feed won't cause the feeds to error out.
• Post count will be incremented when threads are started via AboutToday.

Version 2.0.2 added Jun 16, 2006

• Built in support to use either fopen OR cURL for fetching RSS Feeds
• Added function to change German umlauts into ue, oe, etc.
• Fixed possible XSS exploit in the Local Events database system

Version 2.0.1 added May 20, 2006
Fixed bug that was causing duplicate threads to be created

Version 2.0 added May 19, 2006

The biggest change in this release is the ability to have RSS Feeds AUTOMATICALLY create threads!


Version 1.3.1 Gold added Mar 20, 2006

This release fixes a problem with the interaction between this product and the left sidebar product. If the left sidebar product was installed before AboutToday was, the $myfeeds variables would not be available for the left column. I've changed when $myfeeds get evaluated so they are always before the left column. If you already have this product installed, you only need to import the new product-abouttoday.xml for the change to take effect. If you do not use the $myfeeds variables, you really don't need to worry about this update.

Version 1.3 Gold added Mar 3, 2006

Sorry folks! I messed up two items when doing the update - one minor, one critical. It is imperative that you install ver 1.3 or you won't be able to add new feeds!

Version 1.2 Gold added Mar 3, 2006

Be sure to do "Force RSS Update" after if you are upgrading! That will give you the newest look!

I'm VERY excited about this release! I think the new options for displaying the RSS Feeds plus the addition of two more global feed variable for displaying the feeds on vba (or where ever global.php is called) really make this product even more exciting!

• 2 Minor Bugs Fixes
• RSS Updates automatically when edited/added
• Two more Global Variables created for placing RSS Feeds anywhere on a vbulletin page. Feeds can now be placed in $myfeeds, $myfeeds2 and/or $myfeeds3 to allow more flexibilty with vba.
• The feed display page completely reworked. When a feed is selected, the summaries stay on the side for easy navigation.
  
• Separate option to include feed in "Today's Events"
  
• Local events are turned off if no events have been entered. This makes the RSS Feed display much cleaner.

Version 1.1 Gold added Feb 18, 2006

• 2 Minor Bugs Fixes
• RSS Updates added to cron
• Options to run with only locally entered events, RSS Feeds, or Both
• Global Variable created for placing RSS Feeds anywhere on a vbulletin page
• Direct linking to RSS item added as optional feature
• Ability to force RSS update added
• vBa (vbAdvanced) Module supported

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How can I display the RSS Feeds on a sidebar?

If set "How many rows across for $myfeeds variable?" to a value greater than zero, a variable called $myfeeds will become available. Place this where you want the feeds to appear. Check out the attached example of the feeds displayed in the left sidebar.

2 How do you go about forcing the rss update....i dont see it anywhere?

Once you install the ver 1.1, you will need to go into the usergroup permissions, giving the admin group permission to force an update. Then, that option will appear with the others when viewing abouttoday.php.

[Gio~Logist]

Nice hack you got there. I look forward to see what will become of this

[lazyseller]

I dont have a site where this would fit well... but very nice hack....

[docvader]

Nice concept. Are you going to provide links for relevent rss feeds also?

I honestly can't see myself inputting all of this data myself either. Are there databases that one can find or purchase, that will work with this?

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by docvader

Nice concept. Are you going to provide links for relevent rss feeds also?

I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean provide a list of suggested RSS Feeds for admins or have the product come with some feeds already setup?

[docvader]

Well, if you think about it, this is an awesome concept, but, the act of sitting down for the next few years, typing in historical events for every day of the calender year, is not exactly going to make me popular with the ladies.

Are there preconfigured databases that we could import? Or, rss feeds with this "today in history" stuff that we can bring into your hack??

It's an awesome concept, exactly what I've been looking for.

[bashy]

I aggree with what your saying, but aint this what the RSS feed will do?

Originally Posted by docvader

Well, if you think about it, this is an awesome concept, but, the act of sitting down for the next few years, typing in historical events for every day of the calender year, is not exactly going to make me popular with the ladies.

Are there preconfigured databases that we could import? Or, rss feeds with this "today in history" stuff that we can bring into your hack??

It's an awesome concept, exactly what I've been looking for.

[bashy]

I have installed this....

It wont save the description though.......
I fill in all the details, including a description...
Add Event
and it deletes the descriptin and says Fields marked in RED must be filled in!
and the descriptin is in red...of course cause its frigging deleted it lol...

Also the catergories in the catergoy tree aint clickable???

Whats ya thoughts please.......

[Sooner95]

If I am looking at this correctly, this is a sweet idea.

RSS Feeds are good for boards, but never cared for them fillingup forums with 100 posts a day, ect..

This just simply puts the feeds, and organized nicely, on a seperate page. So if members want to check it outk the can, otherwise they are not bothered.

Very nice..Will be putting this on my site. Kudos!