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.

[Robert Basil]

I should mention that I have the same exact problem no matter what version of RSS feed I use and I also have the same problem when pulling from an Atom feed on my personal blog.

It's probably something right in front of my face, but I can't seem to find the problem.

[Robert Basil]

Originally Posted by mobilephonegame

http://news.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline.../uk/rss091.xml

Since this feed works on your forum I tried it on mine and still have the same problem as above.

I even tried changing the bot from it's own user to my account and still have the same problem.

I'm running out of ideas to get this working and am about to call it quits.

[Robert Basil]

I just read through all 21 pages and don't see anyone with the same problem.

I am wondering where the articlebot_post template is supposed to grab the "description" and "link" variables from as I searched through the articlebot, articlebot_rss and articlebot_rss_cache tables and do not see those variables anywhere.

Maybe this is my problem?

[Robert Basil]

Someone? Anyone?

[mobilephonegame]

Originally Posted by Sportbikeworld

Someone? Anyone?

I know this might sound silly....but have u added the articlebot_post template to all styles being used by the board.?

i.e we use default template with another theme integrated, therefore we had to add the template to both styles for it to show on the forum etc :-)

[mobilephonegame]

Originally Posted by Sportbikeworld

I just read through all 21 pages and don't see anyone with the same problem.

I am wondering where the articlebot_post template is supposed to grab the "description" and "link" variables from as I searched through the articlebot, articlebot_rss and articlebot_rss_cache tables and do not see those variables anywhere.

Maybe this is my problem?

think the coding is in articlebot_parse & articlebot_fetch :-)

[puredj]

Nice hack! I installed it myself...

Ooh by the way, you can change this:

PHP Code:

chdir('/path/to/forums/'); 


to:

PHP Code:

chdir(dirname(dirname(__FILE__)).'/'); 


Then you don't have to set the path (in case you don't know the exact path)

[buro9]

Originally Posted by bjornstrom

I installed the Articlebot without problems and it works like a charm. Incredible!

I would like to make a contribuion to the programmer, anyone with a paypal link?

/Martin

Count me in on that... very nice and just what I was looking for.

Also, for anyone that wants to do email2rss, try this:
http://wonko.com/software/mailfeed/

Works a stunner, much better than mailbucket (which truncates messages).

Only criticism for Article Bot is the lack of feedback on what it's doing when you're debugging, but that's minor as reading the code and adding some echoes is not a problem

[Robert Basil]

Originally Posted by mobilephonegame

I know this might sound silly....but have u added the articlebot_post template to all styles being used by the board.?

i.e we use default template with another theme integrated, therefore we had to add the template to both styles for it to show on the forum etc :-)

We have our default style (and a mobile style for me when I am on the road) and it's added to both of them.

[puredj]

Originally Posted by Dez_U

getting this error messages all over my forum

Warning: main(./articlebot/articlebot.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/.sites/70/site4/web/forums/index.php on line 419

Warning: main(): Failed opening './articlebot/articlebot.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php') in /home/.sites/70/site4/web/forums/index.php on line 419

Warning: Unknown(./articlebot/articlebot.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/.sites/70/site4/web/forums/includes/functions.php(1955) : eval()'d code on line 1

Warning: (null)(): Failed opening './articlebot/articlebot.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php') in /home/.sites/70/site4/web/forums/includes/functions.php(1955) : eval()'d code on line 1

see my post before,
change in articlebot.php

PHP Code:

chdir('/path/to/forums/'); 


to:

PHP Code:

chdir(dirname(dirname(__FILE__)).'/');