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.

[KevinL]

Thanks guys I get what youre saying now

[Romeos Tune]

I have found several rss feeds that work..... the problem is most all of them I found only give you 2 or 3 lines of a story and then a link..... Does anyone know of some good links that will post the entire story? Preferably sports related...... Thanks!

[RichieBoy67]

I would also love a feed that actually puts more content on the site and not 3 lines................... I would also like to be able to remove the bot from adding to post counts...lol

[kyouens]

Originally Posted by RichieBoy67

I would also love a feed that actually puts more content on the site and not 3 lines................... I would also like to be able to remove the bot from adding to post counts...lol

The content of the feed has absolutely nothing to do with ArticleBot and everything to do with what the content providers choose to include.

[KevinL]

Originally Posted by Romeos Tune

I have found several rss feeds that work..... the problem is most all of them I found only give you 2 or 3 lines of a story and then a link..... Does anyone know of some good links that will post the entire story? Preferably sports related...... Thanks!

Reuters usually gives a good description.

[Layne SMith]

I know I'm beating a dead horse here but the answer eludes me still.

Just got it all set up to feed the link below (the one recommended) into a forum. Works fine, feeds it in. BUT, it feeds only into the title. It doesn't post any of the lines or the link into the body of the post. Just a title.

http://www.bonsai-today.com/rss/bonsai-today-rss.html

I've checked this whole board and the one fella who seemed to figure it out was happy to tell us of his triumph, BUT NOT HOW HE DID IT!!! ugh.

Help is appreciated!

Thanks,
Layne

[kyouens]

Originally Posted by Layne SMith

I know I'm beating a dead horse here but the answer eludes me still.

Just got it all set up to feed the link below (the one recommended) into a forum. Works fine, feeds it in. BUT, it feeds only into the title. It doesn't post any of the lines or the link into the body of the post. Just a title.

http://www.bonsai-today.com/rss/bonsai-today-rss.html

I've checked this whole board and the one fella who seemed to figure it out was happy to tell us of his triumph, BUT NOT HOW HE DID IT!!! ugh.

Help is appreciated!

Thanks,
Layne

Layne

I just added that feed to my test installation, and it appears to work correctly on mine. I would recommend doing a fresh install of articlebot and using the updated MagpieRSS files (Which I linked to in a previous post.)

Also, you might want to take a look at your template (if it's customized for your articlebot) to make sure you haven't left something out. You could look diretly at your database (phpmyadmin) to see if the article descriptions are coming through and being inserted or not.

Good luck

Kenny

[Layne SMith]

Originally Posted by kyouens

I would recommend doing a fresh install of articlebot and using the updated MagpieRSS files (Which I linked to in a previous post.)

Kenny,

I downloaded the most recent version of Magpie and am not sure what to do with it or where to put it. Or, even if I should do anything with it. I'm not sure which MagpieRSS files you're talking about. Which files in the Article Bot download need to be updated?

Thanks,
Layne

[kyouens]

There are four files in the articlebot directory that you should have uploaded to your server. The file names are rss_cache.inc, rss_fetch.inc, rss_parse.inc and rss_utils.inc I believe. If I recall, the MarpieRSS tgz file has those files inside it, and you should upload and replace the ones in your articlebot directory with the new ones from the magpie tgz.

I don't know if this will fix your problem, but it might. Good luck.
Kenny

[Layne SMith]

Kenny, thanks for helping me out with this.

Originally Posted by kyouens

I just added that feed to my test installation, and it appears to work correctly on mine. I would recommend doing a fresh install of articlebot and using the updated MagpieRSS files (Which I linked to in a previous post.)

Did this. No dice.

Originally Posted by kyouens

take a look at your template (if it's customized for your articlebot) to make sure you haven't left something out.

Doublechecked, looked fine. Did a copy and replace right out of instructions to be sure. Still nada.

Originally Posted by kyouens

You could look diretly at your database (phpmyadmin) to see if the article descriptions are coming through and being inserted or not.

Here's where we have a lead. When I use phpMyAdmin to check the contents of articlebot_rss_cache the last thing in the table says...

rsschacheid=91
title=...And We're Back
dateline=1114918800

That's it. I see no descriptions.

This looks fishy.

On a different note...

Before checking the database, I tried to do a reinstall, went through the steps and got this database error. Have no idea what I've messed up, if anything. Thoughts?

Database error in vBulletin 3.0.7:

Invalid SQL: 
        CREATE TABLE articlebot (
            articlebotid smallint(5) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
            userid int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
            regex_title_search varchar(100) NOT NULL,
            regex_title_replace varchar(100) NOT NULL,
            regex_desc_search varchar(100) NOT NULL,
            regex_desc_replace varchar(100) NOT NULL,
            enabled tinyint(1) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
            dateline int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
            PRIMARY KEY (articlebotid)
        )
    
mysql error: Table 'articlebot' already exists

mysql error number: 1050

Again, thank you.