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!

[ubblite]

j1mmy, you did it correct the second time. All files are supposed to be uploaded into their proper folders in your FTP. The only file which is uploaded to your forum root directory is 'abouttoday.php', and the rest go into the directories as westpointer mentioned. The easiest way to do this is by dragging your folders from your AboutToday unzipped files into your forum root, making sure they copy over (which I believe you did in your second attempt).

[ubblite]

Just to let people know, this great hack is working with vBulletin 3.6.0 Beta 1.

[j1mmy]

Alright thanks ubblite for the comfirmation. By the way, im having trouble with the RSS feeds ans getting it started. Im trying to use.

For example, i want to use the feeds shown here:http://www.2rss.com/rss_35132.html

...onto my site, but how would i implement it into AboutToday? Ive tried coping and pasting it but i get an errors saying something about the feed's script. Im not sure if im doing the write thing.

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by j1mmy

Alright thanks ubblite for the comfirmation. By the way, im having trouble with the RSS feeds ans getting it started. Im trying to use.

For example, i want to use the feeds shown here:http://www.2rss.com/rss_35132.html

Your example isn't an RSS feed, it's a normal web page. A feed would look like this: http://rss.cnn.com/rss/edition.rss.

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by ubblite

Just to let people know, this great hack is working with vBulletin 3.6.0 Beta 1.

Cool! I hadn't checked it yet myself.:banana:

[j1mmy]

Originally Posted by westpointer

Your example isn't an RSS feed, it's a normal web page. A feed would look like this: http://rss.cnn.com/rss/edition.rss.

Oh, im trying to look for a directory full of those things sorted by category. Are there any that you know?

[XFSImperial]

Great mod, running fine. I would recommend an easier way for setting permissions...I've got like 30 usergroups....lots of clicking for enabling.

*clicks install*

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by XFSImperial

Great mod, running fine. I would recommend an easier way for setting permissions...I've got like 30 usergroups....lots of clicking for enabling.

*clicks install*

I'm not sure if there is any way to do it differently. The problem is that vbulletin only allows default usergroup permissions to be set to "no". So, you have to enable it for every usergroup.

Maybe I should change the question for viewing RSS Feeds to more of something like "Deny Viewing RSS Feeds" so that a "No" would let the group view the feeds. Of course, that would mean changing the settings for those who have already installed the mod.

What do you think?

[klaush]

Originally Posted by westpointer

hmmm ... not sure! I'll check into that. How do they appear now?

Eröffnungsfeier (must be) Er?ffnungsfeier

Gäste (must be) G?ste

fühlen (must be) f?hlen

and so on...

[Nathan_R]

Fixed my problem.

Here's how to get this working with cURL (at least the direct feeds portion):

In abouttoday.php

find:

				$xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
				xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, "startElement", "endElement");
				xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, "characterData");
				if (!($fp = @fopen($file, "r"))) {
				   $rssopened = 'no';
				}
			
			
			
				while ($data = @fread($fp, 4096)) {
					if (!xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, feof($fp))) 
					{
					die(sprintf("XML error: %s at line %d",
					xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($xml_parser)),
					xml_get_current_line_number($xml_parser)));
					}
				}
				
				xml_parser_free($xml_parser);

and replace it with:

     
// begin cURL sub
  
       $ch = curl_init();
       curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $file);
       curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
       $store = curl_exec ($ch);
       $data = curl_exec ($ch);
       curl_close ($ch);

				$xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
				xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, "startElement", "endElement");
				xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, "characterData");

// ignore EOF				while ($data = @fread($fp, 4096)) {
					if (!xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, sizeof($data)))
					{
					die(sprintf("XML error: %s at line %d",
					xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($xml_parser)),
					xml_get_current_line_number($xml_parser)));
					}
//				}

				xml_parser_free($xml_parser);
// end cURL sub