Show RSS Feed Icon in each forum

So I wanted to add an image link to each forum for its unique RSS feed. This would allow people to subscribe to their favorite forums with their favorite News Reader instead of email. It would always be up to date and accurate.

There are three steps to doing this.

First, I decided I needed a small plugin to determine if RSS was turned on within the forumdisplay template. Go to your plugin manager and add the following code to the "forumdisplay_start" plugin.

PHP Code:

if ($vbulletin->options['externalrss'])
{
   $show['rss'] = true;
} 


Next we will be editing the forumdisplay template itself.

Find:

<table class="tborder" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" border="0" width="100%" align="center" style="border-bottom-width:0px">
<tr>
<td class="tcat" width="100%">$vbphrase[threads_in_forum]<span class="normal"> : $foruminfo[title]</span></td>
<td class="vbmenu_control" id="forumtools" nowrap="nowrap"><a href="$show[nojs_link]#goto_forumtools" rel="nofollow">$vbphrase[forum_tools]</a> <script type="text/javascript"> vbmenu_register("forumtools"); </script></td>
    <if condition="$show['forumsearch']">
<td class="vbmenu_control" id="forumsearch" nowrap="nowrap"><a href="$show[nojs_link]#goto_forumsearch" rel="nofollow">$vbphrase[search_this_forum]</a> <script type="text/javascript"> vbmenu_register("forumsearch"); </script></td>
    </if>
</tr>
</table>

And replace with:

<table class="tborder" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" border="0" width="100%" align="center" style="border-bottom-width:0px">
<tr>
<td class="tcat" width="100%">$vbphrase[threads_in_forum]<span class="normal"> : $foruminfo[title]</span></td>
<td class="vbmenu_control" id="forumtools" nowrap="nowrap"><a href="$show[nojs_link]#goto_forumtools" rel="nofollow">$vbphrase[forum_tools]</a> <script type="text/javascript"> vbmenu_register("forumtools"); </script></td>
    <if condition="$show['forumsearch']">
<td class="vbmenu_control" id="forumsearch" nowrap="nowrap"><a href="$show[nojs_link]#goto_forumsearch" rel="nofollow">$vbphrase[search_this_forum]</a> <script type="text/javascript"> vbmenu_register("forumsearch"); </script></td>
    </if>
    <if condition="$show['rss']">
<td class="tcat"><a href="external.php?type=rss2&forumids=$foruminfo[forumid]"><img class="inlineimg" src="$stylevar[imgdir_misc]/feed_icon.png" height="14" width="14" alt="Feed Icon" title="Subscribe to $foruminfo[title]'s RSS Feed"></a></td>
    </if>
    </tr>
</table>

Finally the third step is to upload the attached image to represent your feed. If your site isn't set up to allow IE to view transparent backgrounds in PNG images, you will probably want to convert the image to a GIF format matted to your background.

Distibuted under the "Wayne License". You may modify to suit your needs, No Attribution Necessary, Redistribution allowed on sites which can verify legitimate vBulletin License Holders only.

[tobaro]

works fine. many thx.

[Turbe]

Originally Posted by gekko

Installed it. Works great.

For those of you experiencing the problem with the icon not appearing for forums (only categories), you need to insert it twice in the FORUMDISPLAY template. Find the next instance of the code, and insert it again.

Thanks, that worked..

I hadn't bothered to even look for a second location... I only use the 2nd location now.

[perfphysio]

HI guys, this RSS feed mod is still working well in 3.7.3 which is great

I have an old question and am wondering if someone has any idea. By default vbulletin uses /forum/external.php to generate the RSS feed for the entire site.

I would like to use this to generate almost all of my sections but not ALL, e..g to leave out a few forum ID's but include the rest in an aggregated feed

Does anyone know how to do this or can anyone suggest another URL where this is discussed. Being able to only search the board for more than 3 characters means searching for RSS isn't of much use

Many thanks in anticipation

[Dave#]

In Vb 3.5 - how can I add the alternate rss link into header include only for forums? Is there a conditional to say if is_forum ?

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="$vboptions[bbtitle] - $foruminfo[title_clean] - RSS Feed" href="external.php?type=RSS2&amp;forumids=$forumin fo[forumid]" ]