Article Bot

Article Bot
by velocd


Article Bot is a script that allows you to assign a user account (preferably an exclusive one) to an article bot that will post RSS feeds in select forums at designated intervals. These articles are derived from RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds.

RSS files are assigned to article bots, as well to individual forums, which in turn directs what, when and where your article bot will post.

Features

• Works with RSS versions: 0.9x, 2.0, 1.0, and Atom 0.3
• AdminCP interface for adding/modifying/deleting article bots & rss feeds
• Designate intervals (in minutes) to each RSS feed for when your article bot will post them.
• Requires only 1 file edit (admincp/index.php), allowing ease of upgrading your vBulletin
  without having to remodify files.
• Easy to install. Works best in conjunction with crontab (contab help is inside install.html)

News

• 7/25/04 - Version 1.1 Released
  • Bug Fixes
    • Replaced htmlspecialchars() with htmlentities() in articlebot.php to fully convert special entities from descriptions.
    • Added trim() to thread titles, to prevent double threads from being posted that are merely off by whitespace.
    • New table articlebot_rss_cache for storing a copy of article bot threads, for quicker checking of doubles when posting new threads.
    • Threads are checked in articlebot_rss_cache, so you can permanently remove them from the thread table (you don't have to "soft delete") without worrying about the bot replicating them.
    • Other minor bugs.
  • Features
    • New installer/upgraders for doing the SQL part automatically.
    • Added "label" field to add/modify RSS interface, that allows you to tag a label, e.g. [yahoo], to the beginning of threads, unique to each RSS feed. This might help for better distinction of RSS feeds.
    • Added an option to toggle on/off of building similar threads per RSS feed. Some RSS feeds could hault the script if the building of similar thread results for that feed takes too long (maybe the article thread title is too vague, and matches a lot of results--my guess is it's only a problem on large forums).
    • Added an option to toggle on/off skipping of articles that don't contain descriptions.
    • Regular expression search and replace for article titles and descriptions. This grants you much flexability to filter out things you don't want in your titles or descriptions (given you have some regex experience, I will try to post some patterns in due time.. feel free to add yours )
• 7/11/04 - Version 1.0 Released

Upgrading

• To upgrade, reupload the new PHP and MagpieRSS parser files to their places on your server. Upload upgrade_vx-x (replace the x's with the version you are upgrading to) to /path/to/forums/admincp/, and then execute that script.

Files

• 3 screenshots attached
• articlebot_v1.zip
  • install.html, logo.gif
  • articlebot_admin.php
  • articlebot/
    • rss_cache.inc
    • rss_fetch.inc
    • rss_parse.inc
    • rss_utils.inc
    • extlib/
      • Snoopy.class.inc

RSS Feeds

There are several in the install.html, but if you're looking for more than you could ever want, check out NewsIsFree's directory:

http://www.newsisfree.com/sources/bycat/


Remember to click install if you use this hack.

Also be sure to read through the what you haven't of the thread before asking a question, for it may have been answered.

[poolking]

Originally Posted by kadafi_alive

Come on,

there has be to someone out there who knows how to un-install this hack. I'd greatly appreciate it!!!!!!!

There are no automatic uninstall scripts, you have to undo every step you did.

[seidel]

when run articlebot.php receive this message:

Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to parse RSS file. (not well-formed (invalid token) at line 3890, column 23) in /home/nutripac/public_html/yugioh/vbulletin/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc on line 237

Warning: array_reverse(): The argument should be an array in /home/nutripac/public_html/yugioh/vbulletin/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 137

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/nutripac/public_html/yugioh/vbulletin/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 141

Please helpme!

[poolking]

Originally Posted by seidel

when run articlebot.php receive this message:

Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to parse RSS file. (not well-formed (invalid token) at line 3890, column 23) in /home/nutripac/public_html/yugioh/vbulletin/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc on line 237

Warning: array_reverse(): The argument should be an array in /home/nutripac/public_html/yugioh/vbulletin/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 137

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/nutripac/public_html/yugioh/vbulletin/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 141


Please helpme!

I get that sometimes, don't think it has anything to do with the article bot itself but the feed its receiving.

[poolking]

Originally Posted by kadafi_alive

Come on,

there has be to someone out there who knows how to un-install this hack. I'd greatly appreciate it!!!!!!!

Do you know how to use phpmyadmin? It should be available from your site's control panel.

Run the following queries:

DROP TABLE articlebot
DROP TABLE articlebot_rss
DROP TABLE articlebot_rss_cache

then go into the 'thread' table and remove this field:

is_rss

Then look at the installation instructions that came with the hack and reverse everything that you have done.

Simplest way if you don't have too many hacks would be to re-upload un-hacked versions of the files changed in the hack.

Then re-apply any other hacks.

REMEMBER TO BACK UP YOUR DATABASE BEFORE ATTEMPTING ANY OF THE ABOVE.

[rajc007]

I know I am missing something small but I can't seem to figure it out. I'm getting the following error when trying to add a new articlebot:

Error: There is no user with ID of 0.

Thx

[poolking]

Originally Posted by rajc007

I know I am missing something small but I can't seem to figure it out. I'm getting the following error when trying to add a new articlebot:

Error: There is no user with ID of 0.

Thx

For a start you cannot have a user id of 0.

You have to create a user first then assign the bot to the user you've just created.

[rajc007]

Originally Posted by poolking

For a start you cannot have a user id of 0.

You have to create a user first then assign the bot to the user you've just created.

I have a registered user that I tried to assign the bot to, but I am getting the same error.

[poolking]

Originally Posted by rajc007

I have a registered user that I tried to assign the bot to, but I am getting the same error.

What is the id of the user?

[rajc007]

Originally Posted by poolking

What is the id of the user?

Do you mean just the name of the user? It's just Hotel News.

[Tenny]

Not sure if this has been posted yet, i'm pretty sure it has, but I don't have time to read 34 pages of messages...

Is there anyway to change it so that the forum the RSS Bot posts in, doesn't come up in the "New Posts" and stuff like that? Becuase the bot is spamming soo much, it's hard to see what has been posted by actual members of the community.