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

[Slapyo]

i just replied to your post.

[The Realist]

Thanks Slapyo but Im no coder. Any available for this?

[Slapyo]

once i graduate in a couple weeks (june 13) i will have some time to be able to look into this further.

[Intex]

Slapyo - good luck with everything. Any help in the future will be appreciated.

[clangrounds.com]

I had to delete the remains of a past failed RSS install, but it worked like a charm after that! I've been creating different users/characters to report on the different news sections, and it's kind of funny since my members think they're real people posting all those threads.

[Slapyo]

lol cool.

[Intex]

After a bit of searching, I've found a basic way to exclude selected forums from the new posts listing.


Search.php find:

PHP Code:

WHERE forumid IN(" . implode(', ', $forumids) . ") 


Replace with:

PHP Code:

WHERE forumid IN (". implode(',', $forumids).") AND forumid NOT IN(x) 


X above should be replaced with the forum you want to exclude. If you want to exclude more than one forum, then simply separate each forum with a comma.

However, this would mean that your members who do want to see new posts regarding these RSS forums, won't see them. A solution to this would be to create a separate search.php file. Just copy the existing search.php and rename it to something like search-rss.php.

You can then add another link to your NAVBar or whereever you like to call this particularly search script and show new posts, i.e.

http://www.yourdomain.com/forum/sear....php?do=getnew

I know this isn't an ideal solution, but it's a solution nonetheless. As already discussed, it would be better to have it prompt you if you want to include RSS feeds. Then again, for users that don't and never do, this would be undesirable as well .

I've just changed my NAVBar menu so that 'New Posts' was renamed 'Posts' and this has a drop-down menu, which allows me to select 'New Posts (No RSS)', 'New Posts (with RSS)' , 'Mark Posts Read' etc.

Hope you find this useful until another solution is developed. Maybe it will also help Slapyo on the query side anyway.

[The Realist]

I'll stick mine all in a drop down menu, makes life a lot easier. For the time being I have excluded all RRS posts from the new posts search.

Laters

[PAINTBALLM]

before i install this. one question.

Can I make a category on my forums JUST for news feeds, and have it post a new thread for every new topic? (for people to discuss and such).

Let me know

[Intex]

Not sure what you mean by category. If you mean post into a particular forum or sub-forum, then yes - this is exactly what the hack does. It will pull feeds from other websites and it will create a new thread for every headline.

For example, I have a forum called RSS Feeds which has many sub-forums. I've created numerous bots that retrieve content from other websites and it automatically posts threads into each of these sub-forums.

Originally Posted by PAINTBALLM

before i install this. one question.

Can I make a category on my forums JUST for news feeds, and have it post a new thread for every new topic? (for people to discuss and such).

Let me know

[PAINTBALLM]

Thats what I mean, sorry. Nice... Installing now

[PAINTBALLM]

wjen I run rss.php I get

Parse error: parse error in /www.pbmessage.com/forums/includes/functions_newpost.php on line 1188

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: build_new_post() in /www.pbmessage.com/forums/includes/RSS/rss_update.php on line 103

[The Realist]

Recheck your edits of the files again, you have done something wrong.

[rsuplido]

Cool Hack! Here'a a suggestion though. Can it be done so that clicking on a thread will redirect to a page split into two frames horizontally? the main news is at the top, the thread discussion is at the bottom. Possible?

[Deimos]

Hmm i've got a problem here
After it's all installed, no errors show up, but when I goto Enable the mod, every user (Including me) who accesses the forums shows logged in AS the news bot? And the forum listing doesn't show up AT ALL
If I disable the mod, it returns to normal................!?