vBulletin Blog - How to get blogs in new posts search

Many people are concerned over the lack of integration of the blog system with the main forum software. I see many posts asking "how do I get my blogs to show up in new posts?"

Basically you need to utilise the blog RSS feed and get it to post a blog as a post.

This is how to do it.

From your admincp - RSS Feed Manager
Add a new RSS Feed
Feed enabled: Yes
URL of feed: http://www.yoursite.com/blogs/feed.rss
Check every: 30 mins
Feeds to fetch: 0
Username: choose or make a new one - blog bot or something
Forum: chose an existing one or make a new forum and select options as you see fit, or see below.
Allow Smilies: yes
Display Signature: no
convert html to bb code: yes


Title template: {rss:title}
Body template:

PHP Code:

{rss:content:encoded}
[url={rss:link}]Click here to be taken to the Blog...[/url]
[url="http://www.yourwebsite.com"]Name of your forum [/url] 


In the next sections, pick what you want but also make sure you do the following
Thread action delay 1
Close thread after delay: yes

Making a new forum
When making a new forum for your blog posts, chose the setting your want for other users, but make sure of the following:

Act as forum: yes
Index New Posts in Search Engine: yes
Forum is open: yes

You can chose whether the forum is hidden or visible, but make sure the username you specified above is in a group that can post to this forum.

Permissions

I didn't want others to post so they have no post permissions. To get to the blog, they click on the link in the post and get taken there directly. To be able to see the posts they must have.

Can View Forum: yes
Can View Thread Content: yes
Can View Others' Threads: yes
Can Search Forums: yes


A working version is at www.midlandsweather.org.uk
My blog forum (so that you can see an example of the posts made is at www.midlandsweather.org.uk/mwf-blog


Please click ***install*** if you use this.

[Alfa1]

I hope that Scythe succeeds with this:

Originally Posted by Scythe42

But before that I need to code some stuff so that new entries vom vbBlog show up under New Posts. That's currently more important for my site.

[SBlueman]

Doesn't seem to be working for me unless I manually run the scheduled job.....

[optrex]

Originally Posted by SBlueman

Doesn't seem to be working for me unless I manually run the scheduled job.....

In your cheduled task mamanger is your RSS robot running?

*
*
*
0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50
active: yes

[SBlueman]

Yes, those are the settings in place. I find I have to go into the RSS Feed Manager, reset the last time checked and then manually run the scheduled task.

[optrex]

thats sounds like an issue with the RSS vb side of things. Might be best to get that checked out with vb

[icest0rm]

This is a good workaround, but we definitely need some sort of plugin that integrates the blog into the new posts without the use of an RSS feed. These posts from the rss feeds will unnecessarily accumulate. Anybody working on a real plugin?

[dartho]

@icest0rm - Sorry to hijack the thread, but I've made a basic product to show recent blogs/comments in search screens over here. The results are not as integrated as this modification but may be enough for some. I've also linked back to this thread in that add-ons description.

[KURTZ]

i just tried this nice feature ... it seems to runs correctly but when i do a preview of my feeds i've got this ...

This feed supports content:encoded. Your imported feeds may appear nicer if you use {feed:content:encoded} in your bodytemplate instead of {feed:description} and enable the Convert HTML to BB Code option.

also i've a question: when it create the thread with the feed it puts ALL the text of my 'new entry' so my question is: can i decrease the number of the words of my entries, so the feed only create a preview?

[kylek]

If someone already has a blog made and adds to it should this show? I am trying this out and everything looks okay but am getting no preview of feed when testing it.

[kylek]

Figured it out, forgot to set blogs to be viewable by unregistered members.