NNTP Gateway for Usenet ( Newsgroups ), Mailing Lists

The latest version: V3.5.0Alpha 1 (21 Jul 2005)

What is it?

This hack provides a gateway from vBulletin forums to the USENET. It allows forum members to read newsgroup messages as well as to send posts to the newsgroups. In a nutshell, it turns vBulletin forums into a basic function news reader.

For an added bonus, this package also supports mailing list archive and forum to mailing list gateway. The software retrieves messages from a pop3 account and import them into the forums threaded. It also allows a forums user to send messages to the mailing list by the forum posting interface.

Why?

The gateway will be appreciated by forum members who do not know how to set up a news reader, or people who do not have port 119 open in their network. A forum interface to read and post news are often considered to be better than a news reader.

The gateway adds more contents to your forums and allows the members to interact with wider audience. It is common to see new users signing up to use this feature.

History

This hack was originally coded by Gilby for vB2. I modified the hack to work with vB3 and have been maintaining and improving the hack. I have now done the modification for this to work with vB3.5.

The very original hack by Gilby can be found here:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...7&page=1&pp=15

The vB3 version can be found here:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=65152

Features

Some of the features and improvement include:

• Handles both newsgroup posts and mailing lists.
• Handles MIME encoded messages and attachment.
• Handles UUEncoded messages.
• Two Admin Control Panels for all settings.
• Automated installation.
• Correct thread implementation. All imported messages and posts sent to newsgroups will be threaded correctly according to References and Message-ID headers.
• Optional setting to thread by subject for mailing lists that strip references header.
• Imported messages will be searchable just like normal forum posts.
• Similar threads are built when the messages are imported if the system setting is on.
• Multiple attachments importing.
• Save attachment to database or file according to vB setting.
• Thumbnail created while importing image files.
• Multiple attachment post to newsgroup is also supported.
• Selectable X-No-Archive header honouring system.
• Light on system resources.
• Global Killfile to filter out unwanted messages. Killfiles can have OR and AND effectiveness.
• Strip footer by setting for incoming messages. Strips out repeated message footers.
• Built options to disable signatures and footers for out going messages.

Future development

• Traditional "> " lead posting interface.

What do you need and do not need?

You do not need to edit vB php files.
No need to manually run SQL.

Installation

Basically the AdminCP interfaces take care of installation as well as upgrade in the background. Back up your database first. The scripts can modify your database without alerting you!

Please follow the instructions in the readme.txt file for more details.

It is not a must to click "INSTALL" for this hack if you use it, I do try better answering the questions from people who do.

Support

Please post your support questions to this thread. Please check the FAQ in the second post within this thread first. It may be surprising, but it is possible your question is answered in the adminCP NNTP settings.

Please always provide more details about your problem. Examples and debug messages will certainly help. Well, if you don't even try to have some effort to compose your question, the answer you get may also not include much effort.

================== UPDATES ======================
Jul 21 2005 (release version 3.5.0 Alpha 1)

AdminCP xml file is written by Kadence.

• Ported to work with vB3.5.
• Existing bug fixes.
• Debug message can be sent by email or logged in vB Tast Scheduler.
• Known problem: image attachment thumb nail creation still needs work.
• Needs to be done: Documentation.

Quick installation instruction:
1) Upload files to their correct directory
2) Enter AdminCP, click on NNTP Settings once to install/upgrade. Change settings to your like.
3) Click on NNTP Groups once to install/upgrade.
3a) For new install. Run once
http://www.yourdomain.com/setlastmsg.php

Delete this file afterwards.
If you are upgrading from an older version. There is no need to upload this file. Actually this file should not be there except brand new install.

4)
Manually run in debug mode: http://forums.yourdomain.com/gateway.php?debug=1

[trackpads]

How do you truncate the usernames? They are warping my threadview ugh

I posted the question here as well with a screenshot. It is some of the NNTP usernames that are doing it.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...447#post957447

Thanks again,

-Jason

[trackpads]

Bump please!!

Thanks again!

-Jason

[trackpads]

Some ideas for improvements or the next version:

1. Ability to have a seperate Killfile for some newsgroups. A good example is this scenario. I have Bush, Kerry both in my killfile. I know that in any computer or sports groups these are definately spam. However in the politics groups they are ok.

2. Ability to truncate ultra long usernames from imported posts. I have a few doozies that are stretching my last post columns. Here is an example:

=?Windows-1252?Q?Rob_Giordano_\=28Crash_Gordon=AE\

3. Make the script smart so that if the load goes up to a max amount (10 for example) that it will cancel operation until the next cron. This would help when in some cases it is working on some new groups and the forums are allready busy with members.

4. Make a default news server with username and password defined. This is instead of posting them each and every time you add a new group. I just added 90 groups and that was a lot of copying and pasting!!


Thanks to lierduh for creating this and thanks again to dkendall for the awesome edits!!

Thanks,

-Jason

[TMM-TT]

I'm not sure if this has been discussed yet (I have 20 pages to look through), so I'm going to take the risk and ask anyway -

Is it possible, in any way, to handle cancel-posts so posts are deleted when they are canceled, or when you as a user delete your own posts, send a cancel to the group?

[rmd708]

Truncating user names needs to be done in the thread list file of vbuletin. I did it, but it was a while ago so I forgot what I did. It involved copying the vb code used to truncate subject lines to X characters, and rewriting it to do the same for user names. If it is really needed I can look it up.

[rmd708]

One problem I'm having is some messages (MANY) are being completely striped of the body. It says email footer match found, and then deletes the entire message body. When I check the original message and then my strip footer list, there is nothing at all that matches. So I have no idea why these messages are being erased like that.

[dwbro1]

Originally Posted by rmd708

Truncating user names needs to be done in the thread list file of vbuletin. I did it, but it was a while ago so I forgot what I did. It involved copying the vb code used to truncate subject lines to X characters, and rewriting it to do the same for user names. If it is really needed I can look it up.

Oh yea this would really be nice. I get some of the kooks out there that put entire sentences for their name then by tables are about 50/50

[rmd708]

In functions_forumdisplay.php I have added

	$thread['trimnamezz'] = fetch_trimmed_title($thread['lastposter'], 15);

just above this:

	$thread['lastpostdate'] = vbdate($vbulletin->options['dateformat'], $thread['lastpost'], true);
	$thread['lastposttime'] = vbdate($vbulletin->options['timeformat'], $thread['lastpost']);

Then in the threadbit template, I use this:

<phrase 1="member.php?find=lastposter&amp;t=$thread[threadid]" 2="$thread[trimnamezz]">$vbphrase[by_x]</phrase>  <a href="showthread.php?$session[sessionurl]goto=lastpost&amp;t=$thread[threadid]"><img class="inlineimg" src="$stylevar[imgdir_button]/lastpost.gif" alt="$vbphrase[go_to_last_post]" border="0" /></a>

I forget what the original had, but your default one should be the same minus the variable "trimnamezz" (i forget what the default variable name is).

That will get the forum display user name trimmed.

Now for the forums index, in functions_forumlist.php:

Find:

					$lastpostinfo['lastpostdate'] = vbdate($vbulletin->options['dateformat'], $lastpostinfo['lastpost'], 1);
					$lastpostinfo['lastposttime'] = vbdate($vbulletin->options['timeformat'], $lastpostinfo['lastpost']);
					$lastpostinfo['trimthread'] = fetch_trimmed_title($lastpostinfo['lastthread']);

and add this below:

					$lastpostinfo['trimnamez'] = fetch_trimmed_title($lastpostinfo['lastposter']);

Then open up the particular template for the forum index and use the variable trimnamez in place of the default one.

[rmd708]

The strip footer seems to have problems. For example I found using {Yahoo! Groups} in the strip footer would strip the body of countless messages. I assume the '!' is being read as some type of wildcard, but am not sure about it.

[trackpads]

Thanks, it works great!

The only one that is missing is the subforum bits, see my screenie. I have looked everywhere and cant find the right code, how did you solve this?

Thanks again!