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!

[G_Man]

Originally Posted by gasxtreme

They don't look like normal pages..... Here are the two that don't seem to work:
http://www.superchevy.com/rss/nonstandard_rss.xml
http://www.moparmusclemagazine.com/r...andard_rss.xml

Thanks
-steve

Just added the Chevy one and working fine on my site:

http://www.afterseppuku.com/theforum...day.php?do=rss

[gasxtreme]

Originally Posted by G_Man

Just added the Chevy one and working fine on my site:

http://www.afterseppuku.com/theforum...day.php?do=rss

Very strange..... Whenever I add that one I get the "XML error: Invalid character at line 20" error.

Any ideas westpointer?

Thanks
-steve

[oberheimhaven]

Has anyone checked out Loudblog?

[oberheimhaven]

I loaded everything to the Tee I dont see this in my admn any suggestions?? 3.5.4 I do have Vbacmps will this work with that?

Thxs

[oberheimhaven]

Found in Vb options

thxs
great hack will work well with my musicians site

mark

[Rakehel]

The install was fairly easy and everything seems to be working mostly well. Thank you for this modification!

I have 4 questions:

The display of the RSS feeds on forumhome begin immediately after the calendar events, with no line spacing between the last calendar event and the title of the first RSS feed. Can you tell me where I'd edit to place a line break between the two? I was hoping that this would help make the fact that these are RSS feed links set off and stand out more.

For the CNN feed I am not seeing the buttons to create a topic from each of the feeds. I am using Fox and Yahoo feeds in addition to CNN and the buttons for those feeds are displaying properly. Any ideas as to why this is or have I missed something here?

I saw this mentioned here once already: The font size on forumhome does not match the font size for the calendar events, it is larger. Is there a way to reduce it?

And last: Is there any way to eliminate some of the line spacing between RSS feeds as displayed on forumhome? Sort of tighten it up and have it use less display space? For instance, take this:

CNN RSS - Entertainment


The 'boozer, user and loser' is back
Anne Hathaway grows up


Fox News RSS


Usama bin Laden Mourns Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in New Video
Israeli Jets Launch Strike on Palestinian Interior Ministry


Yahoo Top Stories RSS


Israeli planes pound Gaza targets (AP)
Bin Laden purportedly defends al-Zarqawi (AP)

And make it something like this:

CNN RSS - Entertainment
The 'boozer, user and loser' is back
Anne Hathaway grows up

Fox News RSS
Usama bin Laden Mourns Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in New Video
Israeli Jets Launch Strike on Palestinian Interior Ministry

Yahoo Top Stories RSS
Israeli planes pound Gaza targets (AP)
Bin Laden purportedly defends al-Zarqawi (AP)

Thanks for any ideas!

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by Rakehel

For the CNN feed I am not seeing the buttons to create a topic from each of the feeds. I am using Fox and Yahoo feeds in addition to CNN and the buttons for those feeds are displaying properly. Any ideas as to why this is or have I missed something here?

Let me get the easy one first then I'll get the rest later today. For the "Talk About It" button to appear:

AdminCP->AboutToday->RssFeeds

In the Add feeds area, third option from the bottom you will see a box where you can put a forum number in. Set that to the forum you want each feed to be posted in. That will cause the buttons to appear so members can post them.

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by gasxtreme

Very strange..... Whenever I add that one I get the "XML error: Invalid character at line 20" error.

Any ideas westpointer?

Thanks
-steve

Hey Steve - I'm afraid I don't really have any ideas to give you. It's pulling up fine on my test site. It could even be that the site (the Chevy site) is occasionally posting a bad feed and the rest of us have missed hitting it. Are you still getting the error now? The only thing I can even think of trying is changing the method of getting the feed, i.e. if you are using fopen switch to cURL or vice versa.

[gasxtreme]

Originally Posted by westpointer

Hey Steve - I'm afraid I don't really have any ideas to give you. It's pulling up fine on my test site. It could even be that the site (the Chevy site) is occasionally posting a bad feed and the rest of us have missed hitting it. Are you still getting the error now? The only thing I can even think of trying is changing the method of getting the feed, i.e. if you are using fopen switch to cURL or vice versa.

Yes, I am still having the issue, on two sites...... I don't understand it :-/

Oh well I'll keep working on it and see what I can dig up.
-steve

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by gasxtreme

Yes, I am still having the issue, on two sites...... I don't understand it :-/

Oh well I'll keep working on it and see what I can dig up.
-steve

Do you get any feeds to work?