RSS News Feed Hack

My friend made this hack, he owns http://www.liquidpro.net. Check him out.
You may contact him at liquidpro@neo.rr.com. Or you can IM him on AIM at LiquidPro10.

An example is shown at http://www.xtreme-forumz.net. Go to the Techno forum under the General category. Then the CNET News sub-forum.

RSS News Feed Hack for vB 3.0.0. As long as vBulletin doesn't change the database structure much, this should be good for the next release also, and those to come.

Allows you to have a live RSS news feed (such as one from Google or CNET) in a forum. The user that posts it will basically be a bot, which *should* only be used for posting the news, but you can even make it for a regular user.

Comments are welcome!

Instructons:
Note: DON'T FORGET TO MAKE A BACKUP OF EACH FILE BEFORE YOU MODIFY IT!

Copy the files to your web server... keep the same directory structure as in the zip file.
Run the rss_install.php file to setup the RSS script.
If you're upgrading run the rss_upgrade.php file to setup the RSS script. Don't forget to remove all previous modifications (you can find them by searching for "LiquidPro")

#### open the /index.php script ####
Find this:

PHP Code:

require_once('./includes/functions_forumlist.php'); 


Add below it:

PHP Code:

require_once('./includes/RSS/rss_update.php'); 


#### open the /forumdisplay.php script ####
Find this:

PHP Code:

require_once('./includes/functions_forumdisplay.php'); 


Add below it:

PHP Code:

require_once('./includes/RSS/rss_update.php'); 


#### open the /admincp/index.php script ####

Find this:

PHP Code:

construct_nav_group("$vbphrase[styles] &amp; $vbphrase[templates]", '<hr />'); 


Add below it:

PHP Code:

// Manage Hacks
// by: Andrew Wickham
// LiquidPro Inc.
//
construct_nav_option('RSS News Feed', 'rss_admin.php', '<br />');
construct_nav_group('Hacks');
//
// End Manage Hacks 


You're done, thanks for installing the hack.

Hack by: Andrew Wickham (http://www.liquidpro.net)
Hack for: Xtreme-Forumz (http://www.xtreme-forumz.net)

[sjau]

Originally Posted by raxafarian

I'm pretty sure this is due to the crappy feed I posted above, but mine will not update. If I remove the two 'rss' tables and reinsert them, it pulls new headlines. If not, it doesn't do anything.

Also changing to another feed won't update...I still need to blow those 2 entries away and put them back.... then the new feed works... once.

The same happens for me. I installed it yesterday and it got those news:

Bewertung Thema / Autor Letzter Beitrag Antworten Hits
Free-software guru meets Indian president
News-Bot Gestern 20.53
von News-Bot 0 1
Sun urges Eclipse to unify Java world
News-Bot Gestern 20.53
von News-Bot 0 1
Dutch judge blocks Lindows over trademark issue
News-Bot Gestern 20.53
von News-Bot 0 1
Week in review: Virus king
News-Bot Gestern 20.53
von News-Bot 0 1
Lindows offers software for free over P2P
News-Bot Gestern 20.53
von News-Bot 0 1


But nothing since then.


Maybe instead of making it update when the forum is visited that you can set a cron to do the update like every 15 min.
If you write an admin panel it would be great if you could choose like update when the forum is visited OR every xxx min.

[Xyphen]

OK, v1.1's official out! It's updated as of right now, support for v1.0 is no longer.

[sjau]

*download*

Would it be possible to add the RSS-Bot postings also to the posting counts?

[wolfstream]

hmm, no updates?
Seems that I cant get a single update, no matter how often I visit the forum.
I entered one rss feed in, checked the forum and it was fine. After entering the second in though, it didn't do anything at all.. I thinks this is (almost) a decent hack, but it needs some other method of updating things.
Sure, I could delete and recreate it, but that'd make no sense now. SO, what seems to be the problem here?

[sjau]

Wolfstream, download the version 1.1. With that the update works when you visit the forum.

AddOn:

Some Google RSS Feeds can be found here

http://googlenews.74d.com/

Using right now the one from Google Germany:

http://wsjb78.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=2

[wolfstream]

Originally Posted by sjau

Wolfstream, download the version 1.1. With that the update works when you visit the forum.

AddOn:

Some Google RSS Feeds can be found here

http://googlenews.74d.com/

Using right now the one from Google Germany:

http://wsjb78.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=2

Unless there's ANOTHER version of this floating around somewhere, I've already got it downloaded. It just doesn't work, go figure. I downloaded the zip, nothing is updating at all.
It's not the RSS, it's impossible for every feed I try to actually not work, really. The feeds are great, the hack doesn't work from what I've seen.

[sjau]

When did you download it? Xyphen added this night (for me) the version 1.1... something like 12h ago...
If you've downloaded your version before that you're still using the old one.

Do you have in your Admin CP a new Nav entry for the RSS Feeds? If not you're using the old version.

[wolfstream]

Again,
I know how to read. The file I'm using IS the latest version but does NOT work, no matter what the author claims. I've yet to see the results from the second feed, and the first just hasn't even left the first day (though it's been less than 6 hours ).

[sjau]

Ups, wolfstream you're right. It's not updating for me either.
I was sure this morning when I got up that there were more entries than when I installed it this night.

[Xyphen]

Guys, make sure you have the bots enabled! If they're not enabled they will not update. It works for me on my forum and on my testing forum. I came up with a fix for the single quotes problem, I will update the main post in a little bit for it.

Also, please note that news updates aren't in the exact order that they are on the news feed, this is due to the XML parsing. Anyways, all news updates that are on the news feed, will be on the forum... just in a different order. If all else fails, disable the rss feed. Then delete all news. Then re-enable it.