Forum News (News in a Forum)

This hack adds news headlines to the top of a forum. The headlines come from an XML source. The headlines are links to the articles. Through the admin cp, add or modify forums system, you can select from a list of sources (or select no news for that forum). There is also a master on/off switch for the entire feature, and you can also select how many headlines will appear.

Support for this hack will be provided only within the vbulletin.org forums.

This hack involves database modifications. Please make a backup copy of your database prior to installing this hack. The author of this hack assumes no responsibility for anything.

The XML feeds come from Moreover.com. This service is provided free-of-charge only to non-commercial, non-profit, educational, or personal/hobby sites, and may not be used on any for-profit site. If you operate a for-profit site, you must contact Moreover.com to discuss purchasing the rights to the service.







Changelog
v1.0: Original release
v1.1: Fixes problem of not being able to change a forum's newsfeed back to NONE after previously selecting one.
v1.1a: Error in instructions file corrected. If you have 1.1, you do not need to download this; absolutely no code has changed.
v1.1b: See Post #30 below. If you have v1.1a, you do not need to download again; just make the fix as instructed in Post #30.
v1.2: Changes the code added to forumdisplay.php so that only one query is used. If you have v1.1b, you only need to replace the code added to forumdisplay.php with the newer bit of code from the instructions.
v1.2a: Fixes a minor bug affecting only the appearance of the output. If you already have installed v1.2, you do not need to re-download and re-install; please see Post #34 below for the simple fix.
v1.2b: Current release. Corrects the URL shown in the registration required notice. The only change over v1.2a is the "forumnewsbit_accessreg" template.

OPTIONAL Add-in feature: Make this feature user-selectable
I have created some instructions you can use if you'd like to give your users the ability to not see the news in a forum. Read Post #44 below for more info.

[JJR512]

Anime-loo, did you run all the queries at the bottom of the instructions? There were two that started with, "INSERT INTO setting", which make those two settings appear.

Vivi Ornitier, to add news to a forum, edit that forum (admin cp-> forums & moderators: modify->click the edit link by the forum you want to add news to->select a newsfeed from the drop-down box that appears in the second section of options (see the second picture above).

[Brad]

Originally posted by JJR512
Anime-loo, did you run all the queries at the bottom of the instructions? There were two that started with, "INSERT INTO setting", which make those two settings appear.

yes i did

[JJR512]

Have you added any other sets of custom settings to the vBulletin Options? At the top, in the links to all the groups, is Who's Online the last one before News Options, or is there anything else in between them?

Note to anyone that DOES have other custom groups of settings: You will need to modify the three queries that start with "INSERT INTO". On the vBulletin Options page of the admin cp, at the top, where you have the links to all the settings groups on the page, if you point to each link, in the status bar of your browser you should see a URL that ends with something like settinggroup31. Point to the last of the links and note the number; is should be higher than 31 (31 is for Who's Online, the last of the groups that are stock). Now, in those three queries that start with "INSERT INTO", you will need to change all occurrances of the number 32 to whatever number you found plus 1; i.e., if your highest settinggroup number is 34, you need to change all 32s in the queries to 35.

[Brad]

ahh i see whats wrong your using the same displayorder # (32) as the default pm hack. got it working

[alanvo]

i did everything right, but for some reason, the news doesnt show up.

[Brad]

once i set a news item for a forum i cant select none anymore

[JJR512]

Anime-loo, I believe I have fixed that problem. I apologize for letting that one slip by; I thought I had tested for that, but I aparently forgot. Anyway, I've tested this on my own test board, and it works fine for me, as far as I can tell. I've updated the instructions. You will need to add some new code to admin/adminfunctions.php (previously not modified at all for this hack), and some of the new code for admin/forum.php has been changed. The forumdisplay.php and admin/functions.php files, all templates, and the database are not changed between 1.0 and 1.1.

alanvo, please try going to the vBulletin Options page of the admin cp, and submitting it. You don't have to change anything; just press the submit button at the bottom. Then go back to the forum, and refresh the page.

[JJR512]

For the record, the value -- None -- will now always appear as the first option in the newsfeed selection drop-down box.

The attachment in the original post in this thread has been updated.

[Brad]

Parse error: parse error in /home/kousetsu/public_html/newforum/admin/forum.php on line 235

re hacked 5 times.

[JJR512]

You must have made a mistake in editing that file. Make sure lines 187-196 look exactly like this:

PHP Code:

  if ($forumid!=-1) {
    makeforumchooser("parentid",$forum[parentid]);
  } else {
    makehiddencode("parentid","0");
  }

  maketableheader("Forum News Options");
  makeforumnewschoosercode($forum[forumnewsid]);

  maketableheader("Moderation Options");