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!

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by thenetbox

I removed that block of code
and then where ever it was looking for TITLE in cron I changed title to varname.

and it installed and it's running. I have no idea if everything will blow up now I'll test it and post results hehe

edit: Works great

edit edit: Should I paste it as an attachment? It's only been tested for about half an hour though.

Yes, if you can give me more details about the changes I'll give it a try.

[tim99]

Thank you very much for your help.

This is a really nice tool.

Two suggestions I'd have are-

1) ability to annotate before posting a feed item. That way you could add comments.

2) ability to select the forum when creating a thread. An item from Yahoo Entertainment for example could go in any number of forums on an entertainment based site.

Again thanks for sharing such a nice app.

peace . . .

Originally Posted by westpointer

When the feed is created into a thread, any html img tags are converted into bbcode IMG tags. I find that the feed image tags tend to contain dynamic url's. Unless you have set vbulletin to allow dynamic img tags (admincp -> vbulletin options -> Message Posting and Editing Options -> Allow Dynamic URL for IMG Tags), vbulletin will convert the dymanic bbcode IMG tags to bbcode URL tags. The bad thing is ... that converion from an <img> tag to the bbcode url tag doesn't seem to work well.

[jgommel]

Originally Posted by westpointer

Give this a try. This is the unofficial version 2.0.4 that should fix that problem. Please let me know if it does.

TWO THUMBS UP TO YOU!!!! This release fixed the Description not showing or being able to be updated.

Thanks You!

[CyberRanger]

Version 2.0.4 added Jul 21, 2006

• Added an option that will hide threads auto-created from the "New Post" and "Today's Post" searches.
• "Guest" will be displayed properly if a guest is allowed to start a thread from an RSS Feed.
• Fixed problem with description displaying in "Today in History" module.

What's next?

• Option to force users to add a comment when creating a new thread.
• Option to allow users to pick the forum when creating a new thread.
• Option to delete auto-created threads after a defined time period if they have no replies.

[G_Man]

Originally Posted by westpointer

What's next?

• Option to force users to add a comment when creating a new thread.
• Option to allow users to pick the forum when creating a new thread.
• Option to delete auto-created threads after a defined time period if they have no replies.

That is some GREAT STUFF!!

I already love this hack, those options are too awesome! Thanks for all the work you're doing on this, westpointer.

[rantrave]

Excellent MOD by the way! Installed, Updated, Works Great.

One question, In the automated created thread there is an image atop of the summary that's not showing up. When properties are clicked, I get:

Protocol: HTTP

Address: /forums/admincp/

Dimensions: 28 x 30

Is this a missing image? Why does it call for my admincp folder?

Please see here: http://rant-rave.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8124

[thenetbox]

Originally Posted by westpointer

Yes, if you can give me more details about the changes I'll give it a try.

I have the xml file that I used on another computer which I won't have access to till Monday.

Does Vbulletin store the xml plug in files on the server?

[dacho]

Unable to add cookies, header already sent.
File: includes\class_core.php
Line: 2984

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by dacho

Unable to add cookies, header already sent.
File: includes\class_core.php
Line: 2984

I'm going to need more info than that. When do you see that? What's your url? What version of vbulletin?

[Stanesq]

can you tell me how i would add rss feeds from this:

http://sportsline.com/xml/rss

I would like to have specific ones update on my site, for example the fantasy baseball and fantasy football. Can I direct both into one forum folder called FANTASY SPORTS?