[RELEASE] Usenet Gateway for vB 2.01

Description:

This hack provides a gateway to selected usenet groups. The entire usenet group is mirrored locally. Posts submitted locally to mirrored newsgroups will also be sent out to usenet. A single perl script is executed via cron that collects news and posts any outgoing articles. Incoming messages are parsed against customizable spam filters and threaded correctly before being placed in your forums. By default, no personal information is sent to usenet other than the posters username and whatever you have globally configured as a footer and organization. The option does exist for a user to include a custom email to use for usenet posts. After initial installation (which involves creating some new tables, adding a few columns to existing vB tables, and entering the database connection information to the news script) configuration is completed via the vB control panel.

• See it in action at dBforums.com (usenet forums are at the bottom)
• Download latest version for vB 2.2.4

Current version is 20020323 for vB2.xx

Current feature list:

• correct threading of outgoing posts on usenet
• full control panel integration
• email notification to usenet replies
• emoticon translation into vb icons
• vb code removal or conversion prior to posting to usenet
• hyperlinked urls in messages
• color coded, italicized & indented quotes
• vB style quote to usenet style quote conversions for outgoing posts
• logging of outgoing posts
• support for multiple news servers
• support for seperate footers per forum in outgoing posts
• multi-language (selectable) handling of quoted MIME printable headers (for all those funny foreign characters)
• handling of mailing archive groups
• flexible spam control and replacement variable options for incoming and outgoing messages
• configurable auto-expire option
• option for users to show email address in their outgoing usenet posts (may be different than normal one in profile
• option to enable/disable user signatures on outgoing posts.
• fully compatible with vB moderation functions

Still to be done:

• canceling of messages after they have been sent to usenet via control message in accordance with RFC1036.
• binary attachment support
• email to PM gateway

Screeshots:
Main Options
More Options
Configuration of Newsgroups
Add New Newsgroups
Spam Control
What an imported usenet article looks like in vB

The latest version of this hack will always be in this first post of the thread.

Before asking questions in this thread, please read all the posts in this thread. If your question goes unanswered, it will probably be because the question has already been answered countless times in this thread.

This hack was created for use on my forums and will only be supported as time permits.


Links to required Perl Modules

• News::NNTPClient
• Net::SMTP
• MIME::WordDecoder
• Text::AutoFormat
• Mail::Address
• URI::Find
• DBI
• DBD::MySQL
• Date::Parse
• HTML::Entities

Ok it sems to not feel like working...

I get this

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Connecting to news.*****.***... Connected

Pulling alt.php... No new messages.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is not getting anything...... ;(

Any Ideas
-------------------------------------------------------

*yawn*

[fastforward]

Originally posted by DarkReaper
I remember something about allowing users to have a different Usenet signature, but can't find this in the install files...

It's in the control panel. You just create a custom profile field for the sig using the normal vB controls, then enter the name of that field in the usenet control panel. Same method applies to the custom email.

[fastforward]

Originally posted by YourHostSucks
Ok it sems to not feel like working...

I get this



quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Connecting to news.*****.***... Connected

Pulling alt.php... No new messages.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



It is not getting anything...... ;(

Any Ideas
-------------------------------------------------------

*yawn*

If there are no new messages, how can it get anything?

[DarkReaper]

Originally posted by fastforward

It's in the control panel. You just create a custom profile field for the sig using the normal vB controls, then enter the name of that field in the usenet control panel. Same method applies to the custom email.

I did this and it used the default sig instead of my usenet sig.

O come on, lets not be rude... sheesh, you know there are messages... If I use my news reader I get alot.. *sigh*
But from what you say no news groups ever have messages? (lol)

Ok then.. Nevermind......

[fastforward]

Originally posted by DarkReaper


I did this and it used the default sig instead of my usenet sig.

Make sure the Include user signature on outgoing posts?' is set to YES.
As long as that is set and the 'Custom profile field title for usenet email address' is correct, it should work. It works fine on mine. There are no code edits required to get this to work.

[fastforward]

Originally posted by YourHostSucks
O come on, lets not be rude... sheesh, you know there are messages... If I use my news reader I get alot.. *sigh*
But from what you say no news groups ever have messages? (lol)

Ok then.. Nevermind......

I'm not being rude. I'm simply responding in an appropriate way to your *yawns* and *sighs*.

How do I know there are messages? you simply posted output that indicated there were no available messages. I need more information to be able to help you. Is this the only group you are pulling? Do other groups work? How long does it try to download before telling you there are no messages? Which news server is it? Does the message count increase? Have you tried resetting the message count? Are you using the latest newnew.pl? Are you looking at the same server when using your newsreader?

[DarkReaper]

I have them both as they should be...its not working.

[fastforward]

Originally posted by DarkReaper
I have them both as they should be...its not working.

I forgot to mention... the signature on the forum will always show the usual one. It's only the post that gets sent to usenet that has the custom sig on it. It's donle like this for simplicity and to prevent unnecessary vB code changes.

[DarkReaper]

Its showing my forum default sig on the usenet itself through a newsreader.

My ICQ is 34206559...it'll help make things easier