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Article Bot · **Released**: 07-10-2004

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.

OrangeFlea · #**512** 02-01-2005, 07:38 PM

Great hack.

I looked on the rss feed lists (both in the zip and link). Anyone know of a good one that focuses mainly on fantasy (games, movies, literature, etc.)?

yellow281 · #**513** 02-02-2005, 01:46 PM

Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to parse RSS file. (not well-formed (invalid token) at line 1, column 274) in /articlebot/rss_fetch.inc on line 230

Warning: array_reverse(): The argument should be an array in /articlebot/articlebot.php on line 137

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /articlebot/articlebot.php on line 141

Thank you

yellow281 · #**514** 02-02-2005, 02:11 PM

Okay I have resolved this issue, however I am only getting titles in my feed? Anyone know how to get the bot to post the entire article?

Thanks

yoyoyoyo · #**515** 02-02-2005, 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yellow281

Okay I have resolved this issue, however I am only getting titles in my feed? Anyone know how to get the bot to post the entire article?

Thanks

It all depends on the feeds. The point of the RSS feeds is usually to draw someone to the site where the news is posted, not to provide content to other sites for free. Some RSS Feeds are very thorough, but for the most part they are simply the headline, and a short blurb and a link to the article. If you are continually getting broken feeds, or partial posts then it is a bad news feed, and that is another issue, and it can be fixed by getting a different/better RSS feed

yellow281 · #**516** 02-02-2005, 03:03 PM

Well all my feeds from various places (yahoo, blizzard etc.) display an initial title and nothing to click at all. I checked the feeds and many have descriptions too as well as links but my board is displaying nothing but one line of text and thats it.

I also wanted to import the World of Warcraft feed that displays posts from their boards but that doesnt display at all, though it doesnt display an error either.

Any ideas?

Thanks! :surprised:

Torqued · #**517** 02-02-2005, 03:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yellow281

Well all my feeds from various places (yahoo, blizzard etc.) display an initial title and nothing to click at all. I checked the feeds and many have descriptions too as well as links but my board is displaying nothing but one line of text and thats it.

I also wanted to import the World of Warcraft feed that displays posts from their boards but that doesnt display at all, though it doesnt display an error either.

Any ideas?

Thanks! :surprised:

Check the feeds in another RSS reader to see how much of the post is being delivered......

Or run them through www.feedburner.com and see how they are displaying.

dfdems · #**518** 02-02-2005, 04:29 PM

I keep getting this error when trying to add abot, any clue what the fix is or reason for it?

Error: There is no user with ID of 0.

Its a member I created just for this

Torqued · #**519** 02-02-2005, 04:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dfdems

I keep getting this error when trying to add abot, any clue what the fix is or reason for it?

Error: There is no user with ID of 0.

Its a member I created just for this

It's the numeric userID, not the user name.

dfdems · #**520** 02-02-2005, 05:05 PM

Firgured it out, user ID (#), not the user name..

Beermonster · #**521** 02-02-2005, 05:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dfdems

I keep getting this error when trying to add abot, any clue what the fix is or reason for it?

Error: There is no user with ID of 0.

Its a member I created just for this

You need to add article bot then give it the user id number of the user you created.

And now for me

I had it working fine but since I've upgraded to 3.0.6 and reinstalled it all I get is
Error: There is no file located at http://www.wired.com/news/feeds/rss2/0,2610,31,00.xml
when trying to add article

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