RSS News Feed Hack

My friend made this hack, he owns http://www.liquidpro.net. Check him out.
You may contact him at liquidpro@neo.rr.com. Or you can IM him on AIM at LiquidPro10.

An example is shown at http://www.xtreme-forumz.net. Go to the Techno forum under the General category. Then the CNET News sub-forum.

RSS News Feed Hack for vB 3.0.0. 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!

Instructons:
Note: DON'T FORGET TO MAKE A BACKUP OF EACH FILE BEFORE YOU MODIFY IT!

Copy the files to your web server... keep the same directory structure as in the zip file.
Run the rss_install.php file to setup the RSS script.
If you're upgrading run the rss_upgrade.php file to setup the RSS script. Don't forget to remove all previous modifications (you can find them by searching for "LiquidPro")

#### open the /index.php script ####
Find this:

PHP Code:

require_once('./includes/functions_forumlist.php'); 


Add below it:

PHP Code:

require_once('./includes/RSS/rss_update.php'); 


#### open the /forumdisplay.php script ####
Find this:

PHP Code:

require_once('./includes/functions_forumdisplay.php'); 


Add below it:

PHP Code:

require_once('./includes/RSS/rss_update.php'); 


#### open the /admincp/index.php script ####

Find this:

PHP Code:

construct_nav_group("$vbphrase[styles] &amp; $vbphrase[templates]", '<hr />'); 


Add below it:

PHP Code:

// Manage Hacks
// by: Andrew Wickham
// LiquidPro Inc.
//
construct_nav_option('RSS News Feed', 'rss_admin.php', '<br />');
construct_nav_group('Hacks');
//
// End Manage Hacks 


You're done, thanks for installing the hack.

Hack by: Andrew Wickham (http://www.liquidpro.net)
Hack for: Xtreme-Forumz (http://www.xtreme-forumz.net)

[mirdin]

Originally Posted by Slapyo

after thinking about your problem some, it sounds like the problem that i had before. did you make the changes in your functions_newpost.php? it should change the build_new_post function and then change the global variables just below that in the function.

You hit the nail on the head
I did make the changes to functions_newpost.php, but guess what? I forgot to upload it
It seems to work correctly now

[mirdin]

hmm..I seem to get double posts from the yahoo feed
The second time the cronjob ran it posted all the articles again. The articles are identical.

[Slapyo]

are you sure they are complete doubles? because i noticed that too from yahoo, but when looking at it closer, the news article has the same title, but the description and/or link are a little different, so it shows up as a completely new article. atleast that is how i understand it.

[mirdin]

Yes, they are identical, the first time it added 50 articles. The second run, it added the same 50.

How does it exactly check for doubles?

Is it this code?

PHP Code:

        // filter out the old items
        while($rss_thread_data = $DB_site->fetch_array($rss_query)) {
            for($j = count($rss_allItems) - 1; $j >= 0; $j--) {
                if($rss_thread_data[title] == $rss_allItems[$j][TITLE] &&
                   $rss_thread_data[rss_date] == $rss_allItems[$j][pubDate]) {
                    $rss_allItems[$j][OLD] = true; 


[Slapyo]

ya, that looks like it. that was from the original author. i made no changes to the way it retrieves the articles or checks the articles to see if they are old or not. it appears to be checking the title and the date. if both the title and the date of the article are the same then it marks it as old and doesn't enter it.

maybe it could be yahoo updating a news article so the title, link, description are all the same, but since the news was updated the date was different. maybe load up the rss file in your browser and check the pub dates, then check em again later on. see if duplicate titles, descriptions, links have different pub dates.

i know i get a couple repeat articles from yahoo as well.

[dethfire]

Warning: file(): URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /htdocs/www/includes/RSS/rss_update.php on line 32

Warning: file(http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/topstories): failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /htdocs/www/includes/RSS/rss_update.php on line 32

Warning: implode(): Bad arguments. in /htdocs/www/includes/RSS/rss_update.php on line 32

[Slapyo]

i started a new thread with the new file so people wouldn't get confused as to which one they should download in this thread. all support for the hack will be handled over in that thread.

@dethfire ... that error sounds like it is problem with your server config. did the script work for you before, or is this the first time you are using it?

[pgowder]

Originally Posted by Slapyo

i started a new thread with the new file so people wouldn't get confused as to which one they should download in this thread. all support for the hack will be handled over in that thread.

@dethfire ... that error sounds like it is problem with your server config. did the script work for you before, or is this the first time you are using it?

Can you post a link to the new thread?

[Slapyo]

Originally Posted by pgowder

Can you post a link to the new thread?

that would help wouldn't it .... sorry bout that.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=63798

[P.Jackson]

a list of some rss feeds and urls would be cool