Forum News (News in a Forum)

This hack adds news headlines to the top of a forum. The headlines come from an XML source. The headlines are links to the articles. Through the admin cp, add or modify forums system, you can select from a list of sources (or select no news for that forum). There is also a master on/off switch for the entire feature, and you can also select how many headlines will appear.

Support for this hack will be provided only within the vbulletin.org forums.

This hack involves database modifications. Please make a backup copy of your database prior to installing this hack. The author of this hack assumes no responsibility for anything.

The XML feeds come from Moreover.com. This service is provided free-of-charge only to non-commercial, non-profit, educational, or personal/hobby sites, and may not be used on any for-profit site. If you operate a for-profit site, you must contact Moreover.com to discuss purchasing the rights to the service.







Changelog
v1.0: Original release
v1.1: Fixes problem of not being able to change a forum's newsfeed back to NONE after previously selecting one.
v1.1a: Error in instructions file corrected. If you have 1.1, you do not need to download this; absolutely no code has changed.
v1.1b: See Post #30 below. If you have v1.1a, you do not need to download again; just make the fix as instructed in Post #30.
v1.2: Changes the code added to forumdisplay.php so that only one query is used. If you have v1.1b, you only need to replace the code added to forumdisplay.php with the newer bit of code from the instructions.
v1.2a: Fixes a minor bug affecting only the appearance of the output. If you already have installed v1.2, you do not need to re-download and re-install; please see Post #34 below for the simple fix.
v1.2b: Current release. Corrects the URL shown in the registration required notice. The only change over v1.2a is the "forumnewsbit_accessreg" template.

OPTIONAL Add-in feature: Make this feature user-selectable
I have created some instructions you can use if you'd like to give your users the ability to not see the news in a forum. Read Post #44 below for more info.

[Smoothie]

question....in my vb options, the settinggroup, whosonline is 31, and then there are 2 new ones. Quiz is 32, and signature settings is 302. What number should I use when i change the "insert into" queries?

[JJR512]

You can really use any number that's not already in use. You could make it be 33 to appear in between quiz and signature settings, or you could make it be 303 to appear last.

[Smoothie]

Two more quick questions before i install. have you had a any problems with moreover.com slowing your forums down, and are there additional queries that are added by using this hack?

Thanks.

[JJR512]

I believe it adds one query to every forumdisplay page to check if that forum has a newsfeed, and if there is, there is another query to get the details.

I haven't had any problems from moreover.com. They seem like a pretty good, reliable source. Although I suppose I should probably add some error handling in case it can't connect to their server.

[JJR512]

(Post edited because of changes to the code.)

This hack uses only one new query when showing a forum, and that query is ONLY used if that forum is getting a newsfeed. Thanks to FireFly for showing me how to do that.

[Smoothie]

JJR512-

Thanks for the info. BTW, in the instructions .txt file, you say:

Note regarding the next three queries:

but you have only 2 listed below that. I'm thinking it was the one above, and the 2 below? One that started with:

INSERT INTO settinggroup

and the other 2 that started with:

INSERT INTO setting

All 3 should use the same number?

[JJR512]

Yes, sorry about that, I put that note in the wrong spot.

[xug]

JJT512, you have showed us again what a great 'hacker' you are.

Thanks for this great hack, one word : SUPER.

In note to a posting about slowing down, I have the feeling that it slows my forum down for about one or two seconds, which is in my eyes not a problem at all.

[xug]

I found a small bug and can't solve the problem myself.

When you look at the news that is presented like :

HiTech gets Aces High again! From: ConsoleDomain Jul 13 2002 3:24AM

and want to select the news link source, so in this sample above here it would be 'ConsoleDomain' main website you get an error because the link that will be projected is like :

http://www.gamesdomain.com%20target=/

So the taget function is not properly coded and can't figure it out myself, to me the coding looks good, but hey, I'm a dunno

Please help.

[JJR512]

Sorry about that; I left a closing quote out of an <a href...> tag in the forumnewsbit template.

In that template, find this:

<a href="$forumnews[sourceurl] target="_blank">

Change it to this:

<a href="$forumnews[sourceurl]" target="_blank">

I will update the attachment shortly, but if you already have v1.1a, you do not need to download it again, as this is the only fix.