AboutToday - Bring RSS Feeds and Daily Events to Your Site!

What is AboutToday?

AboutToday provides a central place to bring daily items of interest to your forum visitors. It includes two main components: an RSS Reader System and Local Events database System.

Please NOTE: This mod has been modified for vb ver 3.6.4. It should work on vb ver 3.5.4 and 3.6.x.

1. An RSS Reader system where the admin can enter RSS feeds that will then be displayed on the page. RSS feeds can be set to AUTOMATICALLY create threads or be set so that users can easily create a thread from a feed.. Feeds can be read via fopen or cURL.
   
   
   
   
   
   The RSS Feeds are fully intergrated with vbAdvanced and could actually be placed anywhere you want!!
   
2. A database system that can hold unlimited categories of "AboutToday" events. For example, you could have a history category (like a Today in History) with sub-categories for different eras in history. Or, you could have a daily joke or software tip of the day, etc.
   
   The "Add Event" feature is intended to help you if you want for example - Sports: Today in History. With the vb calendar, you cannot have categories and you are restricted with how far back the dates can go.
   
   
   
   
   So with the "Add Event" feature, you could have a category tree like:
   • Hockey
     • Professional
     • College
     • High School
   • Football
     • American Football
     • The Rest of the World (Soccer)
   • Baseball
   
   with the normal calendar feature, you cannot have categories. And with "Add Event" you can have any date. So, if you want an event like "Jan 1, 132 B.C. - the first ball was invented", you can do that. But, that isn't possible in the normal calendar. Also, the events in "Add Event" are fully searchable.

Installation

Copy the following files to your server in the forums directory:

abouttoday.php
includes/class.csv.php
includes/class_abouttoday.php
includes/cron/cron_abouttoday.php
includes/xml/bitfield_abouttoday.xml
includes/xml/cpnav_abouttoday.xml
admincp/abouttodayadmin.php

From the admincp, import the product file product-abouttoday.xml (Manage Products - Add/Import Product).

REFRESH your admincp window. You should now see a listing in the left column of the admincp for "AboutToday".

Getting Started

NOTE - if this is a new install, a Yahoo RSS Feed and CNN Entertainment Feed have been automatically added to give you a feel for how the product looks.

If you plan to use the RSS Feeds:

1. From the admincp, select AboutToday - RSS Feeds. Add an RSS Feed.
2. From the admincp, select Usergroups - Usergroup Manager. Add permissions so the Administrator group can use the product.
3. From your forum directory, bring up the file abouttoday.php.
4. If you want the feeds to AUTOMATICALLY create threads, go to admincp - abouttoday - settings. There you must set the userid of the account to use to create the thread. Then, edit the RSS Feed with the forumid of where the threads for that feed should be created!

If you plan to create your own "today in history" type of database:

1. From the admincp, select AboutToday - Categories. Add a category.
2. From your forum directory, bring up the file abouttoday.php. "Add" your first event to the category you have created!

Version Status
I've tested this product extensively but ... use this totally at your own risk!

Credits
I learned a lot about how to code this and used a lot of the code from what Ron1n did with ecDownloads. What I've learned from his code while helping to support ecDownloads has been invaluable.

Sites Using this Product
Visit www.armchairgeneral.com to see this product in action.

Click Install!
Please Click Install if you are using this product. Thanks!

[cddw.ltd]

Originally Posted by westpointer

Yeah, I think having the post counted incremented is basically an all or nothing thing. But, I'll examine it more.

What about setting a variable (would it have to be in the database?)

Called $rssposts or something, and in the same way that the users postcount is incremented for each post to increment the $rssposts variable also?

To account for the threads already posted I can just give the variable the current number to start with?

[Renada]

Hi Westpointer,

Thank you for this upgrade

Could you please tell me which template I need to edit to put "About Today" "Add" "Manage Events" etc into a table - and the same with the "Latest discussions" down the left hand side?

Thank you very much

Regards,
Renada

[Shazz]

forgot to click install :P
________
herbal vaporizers

[oberheimhaven]

XML error: not well-formed (invalid token) at line 83

Ok now what I think I need to delete all othem and find different everytime i force feed its like set to zero is this correct thats what i get for not installing myself and truly understanding the operation of this

[oberheimhaven]

XML error: mismatched tag at line 28 this is on every feed the guy that installed looks lkike he didnt install correctly after all any suggestions and or help

[hypnoticpimp]

He, I just checked my scheduled tasks, and i have 25 tasks.is that too much? is that why its not automatically working

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by oberheimhaven

XML error: mismatched tag at line 28 this is on every feed the guy that installed looks lkike he didnt install correctly after all any suggestions and or help

Sounds like you need to uninstall then do a reinstall making sure you use the ver 2.0.3 files.

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by hypnoticpimp

He, I just checked my scheduled tasks, and i have 25 tasks.is that too much? is that why its not automatically working

After you did the ver 2.0.3 install, do you see a scheduled task titled "About Today"? That's the main item to check for. It's not really a question of having too many; it's a question of how busy your board is. Like a said, if it's a test board or a board with little activity, you will need to simulate higher activity to really get the scheduled tasks to run on time.

[hilfe-forum]

can you help?

Here:

http://www.hilfe-forum.eu/abouttoday.php?do=rss&id=2


i alwas have this Error...

XML error: not well-formed (invalid token) at line 31



The Feed URL=

http://news.google.de/nwshp?tab=wn&n...c=w&output=rss

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by hilfe-forum

can you help?

Here:

http://www.hilfe-forum.eu/abouttoday.php?do=rss&id=2


i alwas have this Error...

XML error: not well-formed (invalid token) at line 31



The Feed URL=

http://news.google.de/nwshp?tab=wn&n...c=w&output=rss

I'm not getting any errors from that feed. Did you install ver 2.0.3 of AboutToday? If you did and our still getting that error, try deleting and re-entering the feed. But ... make sure you have ver 2.0.3 installed.