Add-On Releases - CinVin vB Forum Feed Listing

[ BY REQUEST ]

This nifty little utility will present a list of all of your forums RSS feeds on one page! Your users can then easily pick & choose which forums they want to subscribe to via RSS, Google, Yahoo, or Bloglines.

Ever go to a big site like CNN and view their page of RSS feeds that you can subscribe to? This is the same thing but for your vBulletin forums!

In addition to your users, the search engine spiders will love this!

We went out of our way to make sure that this CinVin vBulletin add-on was quick & easy to both install and modify!

• Automatically adds an RSS button to your footer template.
• Correctly shows where your visitors are when viewing the Who's Online page.
• Forums can be specifically excluded from being listed.
• Ability to specify which usergroup to use for permissions when viewing the list of forums.
• "Link" forums can be turned off from showing.
• All options are configured through the vBulletin ACP.
• All descriptions and names are completely phrased so you can quickly add alternate lanquages or change the existing wording.
• All display output is handled through vBulletin templates so you can quickly change the output appearance.
• All templates and phrase are installed as a vBulletin product through your ACP which means there are no file edits!
• Compatible with vBSEO.
• Easy integration with vBadvanced CMPS.
• Debug mode to help you with any problems you may be having.

Installation only take a few moments...

• Unzip the .zip file that you downloaded.
• Upload the single PHP file and single folder in the upload_to_your_forum_folder folder from the download to your forums folder.
• Go into your ACP and select Plugins & Products => Manage Products => Add/Import Product => {Select the CinVin_vB_Forum_Feed_Listing.xml file from the download} => Import

You're all done! Just point your browser to http://www.yoursite.com/forums/cv_rss_feeds.php to view your new RSS feed listings.

DEMO #1: CinVin RSS Feeds (this is the 'stock' version)

DEMO #2: Cool Sci-Fi RSS Feeds (this one has been integrated with vBa CMPS)


FAQ's
- What vB versions? This should work with all versions of vB 3.6.x and above. It should also work with vB 3.5.x but I have not tested it on that version.

- Can I remove the "CinVin" text at the very bottom? NO! Believe it or not that little text is what allows us to work on hacks like this for free and, more importantly, to continue to support them. You are free to move the notice to your footer template, for example, if you would like to keep your notices all together but for removing it entirely a Branding Free license is available through CinVin.

[Discussions]

The problem with only the main index showing on the RSS feeds is due to categories being set up as links, such as using # to make each category an anchor. This has nothing to do with VBSEO per say, although it too allows such anchoring to be done.

Perhaps this information will help you to rewrite the code a little bit differently in a way to enable those categories which are anchored to also show properly.

[KW802]

Originally Posted by Discussions

The problem with only the main index showing on the RSS feeds is due to categories being set up as links, such as using # to make each category an anchor. This has nothing to do with VBSEO per say, although it too allows such anchoring to be done.

Perhaps this information will help you to rewrite the code a little bit differently in a way to enable those categories which are anchored to also show properly.

Discussions, is using the # tag something that a stock vBulletin does? I have several categories set up as links as well and in the code I skip them (actually, in this version it skips them in the next version there is an option to include them or not).

[JD45]

Originally Posted by KW802

When you are attempting to view the feed, are you still logged in to vB? I haven't torn apart the vB 3.6.x version of external.php yet so off the top of my head I'm not sure how they're handling authorization in it.

Yes

[Discussions]

Originally Posted by KW802

Discussions, is using the # tag something that a stock vBulletin does? I have several categories set up as links as well and in the code I skip them (actually, in this version it skips them in the next version there is an option to include them or not).

No, a stock version of Vbulletin doesn't use the # on categories. But is useful to implement # for search engine optimization or if you don't want members clicking on the category name.

[SaN-DeeP]

By default RSS2 is enabled it seems, how can i change this to display on RSS format ?
I dont want the descriptions to be added alongwith RSS feeds.
(if there is any advantage / disadvantage of using rss2 over rss do let me know)

Thanks.

[Code Monkey]

Very nice indeed.

[KW802]

Originally Posted by JD45

Yes

I'd have to play around but it's something outside of the scope of this hack. Before you installed this hack (or if you uninstall it) are you able to view the RSS feeds for your admin forums?

Originally Posted by Discussions

No, a stock version of Vbulletin doesn't use the # on categories. But is useful to implement # for search engine optimization or if you don't want members clicking on the category name.

Can you give an example of a typical implementation of it? I'll see what I can do.

Originally Posted by SaN-DeeP

By default RSS2 is enabled it seems, how can i change this to display on RSS format ?
I dont want the descriptions to be added alongwith RSS feeds.
(if there is any advantage / disadvantage of using rss2 over rss do let me know)

Thanks.

Essentially RSS2 offers a lot more options than RSS feeds. If all you're after is a basic thread title & description then just about any of the forms will work but for your users subscribing to the RSS feeds then most likely there preference would be RSS2. To change the actual link to external.php then modify the "cv_ffl_forum_feed_link" template (it's in a grouping called "CinVin Forum Feed Listing Templates").

With the newer versions of external.php (as of vB 3.6.x I believe) the default was changed to be RSS2 instead of RSS. To change it back in regards to this hack then change the template from...

$vboptions[bburl]/external.php<if condition="$forumid">?forumids=$forumid</if>

... to:

$vboptions[bburl]/external.php?type=rss<if condition="$forumid">&forumids=$forumid</if>

[JD45]

Originally Posted by KW802

I'd have to play around but it's something outside of the scope of this hack. Before you installed this hack (or if you uninstall it) are you able to view the RSS feeds for your admin forums?

We're getting close to the solution or problem. I disabled the hack and then went and tried to access the RSS feed by typing in the url i.e.

http://www.justpressplay.net/forum/e...2&forumids=123

The feed for the admin area came up a blank page but the general chat area showed up just fine.

[SpArKs85]

Im getting blank pages too. Yahoo says it can't find the RSS file...

http://forums.gamesters-paradise.com/cv_rss_feeds.php

http://forums.gamesters-paradise.com...php?forumids=7

EDIT:
Strange, I went to JD45's site:

http://www.justpressplay.net/forum/external.php

I don't even get that, what gives?

I tried changing the template "cv_ffl_forum_feed_link", no joy.

This hack is realy handy as my forums are news based...

[KW802]

Sometime shortly (next couple of days at worst) I'll be updating the code to have some more debugging information in it as well a few other fixes.

In the interim... if all of the forums are getting blank pages, make sure you have RSS feeds turned on in your ACP!