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vBulletin to Twitter, live tweets of new threads · **Released**: 01-26-2010

This should work on all 4 and 3 versions of vBulletin as it's trivial.

Description:

You start a new thread, this hack makes a tweet about it on your twitter account.

This are live updates... not delayed, not based on RSS... the instant the thread is started, a tweet is made. This is how this hack differs from other hacks.

Why:

Mostly for SEO, but also as an alert system.

For SEO the idea is simply that search engines are drinking from the Twitter firehose and are indexing the links that are tweeted. Faster and increased indexing of your site benefits you by helping it be found.

For alerts it means that users are able to use whatever twitter client they wish to obtain updates. A lot of these provide filtering capabilities, so they're able to get a live filtered stream of updates that interest them. This works very well when you also use thread prefixes.

Pre-requisites:

You should have an account on bit.ly for URL shortening, and you should have an account on Twitter.

Go and register if you haven't yet:
http://bit.ly/
http://twitter.com/

Installation:

NOTE: Most problems are related to not putting your bit.ly or twitter user details in the plugin. Follow the instructions carefully!

Upload the two attached files to your forum root. These are twitter and bitly classes that enable the hack to work, you can also download these from the author:
http://classes.verkoyen.eu/bitly
http://classes.verkoyen.eu/twitter/

Go to the plugin manager and create a new plugin with the following details:
Product: vBulletin
Hook: newthread_post_complete
Title: Tweet to Twitter

PHP Code: [See below]

To configure the PHP code you need to know your bit.ly API key (go get it from bit.ly/account) and your username and password for twitter.

You also should make a list of the forumIds that are non-public as you will want to put these in the array provided.

i.e. if your admin forum is forumId = 7 and you also have a private forum for regular members which is forumid = 12, then you will want this:
$excludedForums = array(7, 12);

The PHP code should be this, with all of the relevant values for your forum inserted (replace everything bolded, including the < and > bits):

PHP Code:


			
// The array below are the ids of non-public forums, update these to be your admin forum ids or anything non-public by default
$excludedForums = array(0);

// If you are having trouble getting bitly URL shortening to work... disable it!
$useBitly = true;

if (!in_array($foruminfo[forumid], $excludedForums)) {
    $shortUrl = 'http://www.yourforumsdomain.com/showthread.php?t='.$newpost[threadid];

    if ($useBitly) {
      // http://classes.verkoyen.eu/bitly
      require_once 'bitly.php';
      $bitly = new Bitly('<bit.ly username>', '<bit.ly API key>');
      $shortUrl = $bitly->shorten($shortUrl);
    }

    $tweet = '';
    if (isset($newpost['prefixid']) && $newpost['prefixid'] != '') {
        $tweet = $vbphrase['prefix_'.$newpost['prefixid'].'_title_plain'].' ';
    }
    $tweet .= $newpost['title'].' '.$shortUrl;

    // http://classes.verkoyen.eu/twitter/
    require_once 'twitter.php';
    $twitter = new Twitter('<twitter username>','<twitter password>');
    $twitter->updateStatus($tweet);
}

So the bit.ly line might look like this after you've put your values in:
$bitly = new Bitly('testUser', 'R_hj3456hgf3hig56hi2gf6');
NOT
$bitly = new Bitly('<testUser>', '<R_hj3456hgf3hig56hi2gf6>');
See? Remove those <> bits, they just show what to replace.

The shortUrl line might look like this:
$shortUrl = 'http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t='.$newpost[threadid];

The Twitter line might look like this:
$twitter = new Twitter('stephenfry','op1umisn1ce');

All make sense?

And that's it. Save and activate the plugin and create a test thread.

Now whenever a new thread is started, a tweet will be made to twitter instantly.

You can see this in effect here:
http://twitter.com/lfgss

That is being pushed new threads for http://www.lfgss.com/ and it's working perfectly.

Any questions?

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Q: It doesn't work!

A: That's not a question, however if it doesn't work then it's extremely likely you got your username and passwords wrong or left the < > signs in there. Double-check and do it again.

Q: I see an "INVALID_JSON" error

A: Disable bitly by setting $useBitly to false.
Q: I see an "You must be authenticated to access shorten" error

A: The credentials that you entered are either wrong, or you made a mess of the syntax. You did remove the < > when you put your values in right? Did you check the example given above?

Q: I see an error that says "Warning: curl_setopt_array() [function.curl-setopt-array]: CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION cannot be activated when in safe_mode or an open_basedir is set in [path]/bitly.php"

A: Wow, that's a good one... but easily fixable. Insert this at line 136 (just after the CURL options) in bitly.php:

PHP Code:


			
$no_hack_needed = (ini_get('safe_mode') !== '1' && ini_get('open_basedir') === false);
if ($no_hack_needed) {
  $options[CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION] = true;
} else {
  $options[CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION] = false;
  $options[CURLOPT_HEADER] = true;
}

Dragonsys · #**442** 06-22-2010, 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vilhiem

One more question ...

Not sure if anyone else here has noticed this ... but it doesn't seem to work if the new thread is "auto-generated". For instance, I'm using a couple mods that make new threads, yet no "twits" are generated:

(1) "BBR - Welcome Thread Upon Registration"; and
(2) "auto-reply"

I believe those mods submit the new auto-post straight to the DB, so they do not use the normal submit post method, and therefore they bypass this tweet mod all together.

vilhiem · #**443** 06-22-2010, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dragonsys

I believe those mods submit the new auto-post straight to the DB, so they do not use the normal submit post method, and therefore they bypass this tweet mod all together.

Thanks Dragonsys ... but can you imagine any way around this to get it to work ...?

Thanks and great mod!!!

Dragonsys · #**444** 06-22-2010, 06:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vilhiem

Thanks Dragonsys ... but can you imagine any way around this to get it to work ...?

Thanks and great mod!!!

All i can really suggest is to ask the author's of those mods if they can make them work with this one (or vice versa)

mimocherry · #**445** 06-23-2010, 05:33 AM

I got a headache reading through all the posts, and still can not resolve my issue...
I really would like to use bitz.ly, and I think that I have setup the API Key correctly.

however, I still get the following errors..according to other posts, I should use is.gd, but can I use bitzly, and resolve the following issue??

nvalid JSON-response on line 203 in /var/www/vhosts/website/httpdocs/forum/includes/bitly.php
#0 /var/www/vhosts/website/httpdocs/forum/includes/bitly.php(414): Bitly->doCall('shorten', Array)

thanks so muchhhh

Dragonsys · #**446** 06-23-2010, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mimocherry

I got a headache reading through all the posts, and still can not resolve my issue...
I really would like to use bitz.ly, and I think that I have setup the API Key correctly.

however, I still get the following errors..according to other posts, I should use is.gd, but can I use bitzly, and resolve the following issue??

nvalid JSON-response on line 203 in /var/www/vhosts/website/httpdocs/forum/includes/bitly.php
#0 /var/www/vhosts/website/httpdocs/forum/includes/bitly.php(414): Bitly->doCall('shorten', Array)

thanks so muchhhh

As stated in the OP:

Q: I see an "INVALID_JSON" error

A: Disable bitly by setting $useBitly to false.

This is probably due to JSON being limited or not installed by your webhost. Check you phpinfo and make sure JSON is installed.

mikeo9043 · #**447** 06-23-2010, 01:28 PM

Can we add more then 1 twitter account?

mimocherry · #**448** 06-23-2010, 02:32 PM

thanks for your kind reply.

1. I do have JSON enabled.
json
json support enabled
json version 1.2.1

2. how do I set $useBitly to false? which file?

thanks!

mimocherry · #**449** 06-23-2010, 02:56 PM

And that's it. Save and activate the plugin and create a test thread.

Now whenever a new thread is started, a tweet will be made to twitter instantly

#okay, I see it now..my god, it is a plugin......I was looking into the bitly.php and twitter.php forever....

sorry, I am new to this..

Dragonsys · #**450** 06-23-2010, 04:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mimocherry

And that's it. Save and activate the plugin and create a test thread.

Now whenever a new thread is started, a tweet will be made to twitter instantly

#okay, I see it now..my god, it is a plugin......I was looking into the bitly.php and twitter.php forever....

sorry, I am new to this..

you get it working?

mimocherry · #**451** 06-23-2010, 04:52 PM

Okay, I pasted the code as a hook, do I choose new_post_complete as the hook location?

no error message, but nothing happened as well :-(

X vBulletin 3.8.12 by vBS Debug Information
Page Generation 0.06602 seconds Memory Usage 2,330KB Queries Executed 25 (?)
More Information
Template Usage: (1)SHOWTHREAD (1)ad_footer_end (1)ad_footer_start (1)ad_header_end (1)ad_header_logo (1)ad_navbar_below (1)ad_showthread_beforeqr (2)bbcode_php (5)bbcode_quote (1)footer (1)forumjump (1)forumrules (1)gobutton (1)header (1)headinclude (1)modsystem_post (1)navbar (4)navbar_link (120)option (1)pagenav (1)pagenav_curpage (4)pagenav_pagelink (2)pagenav_pagelinkrel (11)post_thanks_box (11)post_thanks_button (1)post_thanks_javascript (1)post_thanks_navbar_search (11)post_thanks_postbit_info (10)postbit (11)postbit_onlinestatus (11)postbit_wrapper (1)spacer_close (1)spacer_open (1)tagbit_wrapper Phrase Groups Available: global inlinemod postbit posting reputationlevel showthread	Included Files: ./showthread.php ./global.php ./includes/init.php ./includes/class_core.php ./includes/config.php ./includes/functions.php ./includes/class_hook.php ./includes/modsystem_functions.php ./includes/functions_bigthree.php ./includes/class_postbit.php ./includes/class_bbcode.php ./includes/functions_reputation.php ./includes/functions_post_thanks.php Hooks Called: init_startup init_startup_session_setup_start init_startup_session_setup_complete cache_permissions fetch_threadinfo_query fetch_threadinfo fetch_foruminfo style_fetch cache_templates global_start parse_templates global_setup_complete showthread_start showthread_getinfo forumjump showthread_post_start showthread_query_postids showthread_query bbcode_fetch_tags bbcode_create showthread_postbit_create postbit_factory postbit_display_start post_thanks_function_post_thanks_off_start post_thanks_function_post_thanks_off_end post_thanks_function_fetch_thanks_start post_thanks_function_fetch_thanks_end post_thanks_function_thanked_already_start post_thanks_function_thanked_already_end fetch_musername postbit_imicons bbcode_parse_start bbcode_parse_complete_precache bbcode_parse_complete postbit_display_complete post_thanks_function_can_thank_this_post_start pagenav_page pagenav_complete tag_fetchbit_complete forumrules navbits navbits_complete showthread_complete
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