Article Bot

Article Bot
by velocd


Article Bot is a script that allows you to assign a user account (preferably an exclusive one) to an article bot that will post RSS feeds in select forums at designated intervals. These articles are derived from RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds.

RSS files are assigned to article bots, as well to individual forums, which in turn directs what, when and where your article bot will post.

Features

• Works with RSS versions: 0.9x, 2.0, 1.0, and Atom 0.3
• AdminCP interface for adding/modifying/deleting article bots & rss feeds
• Designate intervals (in minutes) to each RSS feed for when your article bot will post them.
• Requires only 1 file edit (admincp/index.php), allowing ease of upgrading your vBulletin
  without having to remodify files.
• Easy to install. Works best in conjunction with crontab (contab help is inside install.html)

News

• 7/25/04 - Version 1.1 Released
  • Bug Fixes
    • Replaced htmlspecialchars() with htmlentities() in articlebot.php to fully convert special entities from descriptions.
    • Added trim() to thread titles, to prevent double threads from being posted that are merely off by whitespace.
    • New table articlebot_rss_cache for storing a copy of article bot threads, for quicker checking of doubles when posting new threads.
    • Threads are checked in articlebot_rss_cache, so you can permanently remove them from the thread table (you don't have to "soft delete") without worrying about the bot replicating them.
    • Other minor bugs.
  • Features
    • New installer/upgraders for doing the SQL part automatically.
    • Added "label" field to add/modify RSS interface, that allows you to tag a label, e.g. [yahoo], to the beginning of threads, unique to each RSS feed. This might help for better distinction of RSS feeds.
    • Added an option to toggle on/off of building similar threads per RSS feed. Some RSS feeds could hault the script if the building of similar thread results for that feed takes too long (maybe the article thread title is too vague, and matches a lot of results--my guess is it's only a problem on large forums).
    • Added an option to toggle on/off skipping of articles that don't contain descriptions.
    • Regular expression search and replace for article titles and descriptions. This grants you much flexability to filter out things you don't want in your titles or descriptions (given you have some regex experience, I will try to post some patterns in due time.. feel free to add yours )
• 7/11/04 - Version 1.0 Released

Upgrading

• To upgrade, reupload the new PHP and MagpieRSS parser files to their places on your server. Upload upgrade_vx-x (replace the x's with the version you are upgrading to) to /path/to/forums/admincp/, and then execute that script.

Files

• 3 screenshots attached
• articlebot_v1.zip
  • install.html, logo.gif
  • articlebot_admin.php
  • articlebot/
    • rss_cache.inc
    • rss_fetch.inc
    • rss_parse.inc
    • rss_utils.inc
    • extlib/
      • Snoopy.class.inc

RSS Feeds

There are several in the install.html, but if you're looking for more than you could ever want, check out NewsIsFree's directory:

http://www.newsisfree.com/sources/bycat/


Remember to click install if you use this hack.

Also be sure to read through the what you haven't of the thread before asking a question, for it may have been answered.

[johnnyb]

Originally Posted by Milorad

vbulletin should have an auto-pruning option on each forum, like phpbb does. That would solve your problem if your RSS forums were distinct from your regular forums.

You should perhaps look at this: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=67049

I don't really care too much about the post count thing, but I agree that it would be proper for it not to count.

Thanks, I guess this should somewhat help. My main concern is the post count, and the new posts selection.

It's like one annoying post +++++!

[Holidazed]

Ok, it seems to be working. A new article showed up. But it does not give me a link to the full article? See for yourself.

http://www.dungeonkeepersdomain.com/...ead.php?t=1387

Help?

[johnnyb]

It's the RSS feed man. Try finding another feed.

Also, fix the crontab to make it automatic, so you don't have to manually keep putting in the articlebot.php url for it to update.

Put in a command like this:

php -q /home/yourusername/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php

[ambrosious]

Get this message, can someone decipher it for me, tell me what is wrong?

Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to parse RSS file. (mismatched tag at line 122, column 2) in /home/ambro/public_html/vbulletin/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc on line 230

Warning: array_reverse(): The argument should be an array in /home/ambro/public_html/vbulletin/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 137

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/ambro/public_html/vbulletin/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 141

[N00BIE]

Ok i've installed this hack without no installation problems. didn't do the cron way i went with

include_once './articlebot/articlebot.php';

all seems fine up to this point i even uploaded the RSS.xml to my server ( dunno if this was correct) and linked to it from the AdminCP as seen on the attached piccy

but now where do i see the rss feed info on my site ?? it's linked to the MAIN FORUM yet i see no sign of the template that i was asked to m8 in the hack ?? any ideas peeps ???

[ambrosious]

I've fixed mine, and NOOBIE, your's may be similar to what I was experiencing. Look for, do a search on MAGPIE compatible RSS feeds. Use those links and it should start putting out. That's how mine worked, anyway.

[N00BIE]

does it matter where i place the XML file on the server ?? of have i got to link to it somewhere else ??

[RS25com]

I, like others, am also getting this error:

Error: There is no file located at http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/c...max&format=rss

But when you click that link - go ahead and try - there is something there. Wazzup?

Any ideas?

[Megareus Rex]

Yes RS25com, that is my error...


I'll post mine again, using one of the RSS feeds i intend to install:

Error: There is no file located at http://www.npr.org/rss/rss.php?topicId=7

I ask again, what is the problem??? I've triple-checked EVERYTHING, so I have no frickin' idea.

[RS25com]

The only thing I can think of is that my link and your link both have URL variables. That means the server is creating the content on the fly. Maybe the script is looking for something like www.site.com/file.rss and not /file.rss?id=1&car=2 etc.

Is there a fix for this?