vBISpy - AJAX real-time feed of new posts/threads (for vB3.5)

After seeing the http://www.digg.com/spy application; I wondered if this could be done for vBulletin as well. I came across this webpage which had a "how to" on how they built a similiar application to do the same thing. Taking a page from their book (i.e. the code), I modified it for use with vBulletin.

During development, I also came across this post here on vBulletin.Org where the very subject had already been discussed.

So I put this together; a simple ZIP file with a single PHP script, three javascript files and 4 images.

Installation

. UNZIP the file into your forums directory
. That's it!

Virtually all the code to customize the page is in the vaispy.php script; there are no plugins, no templates and no phrases. You do not need to do anything further; this should work right out of the box.

In your browser, open the URL:

http://www.yourforum.com/forum/vaispy.php

You can see examples of this at:

http://www.viperalley.com/forum/vaispy.php
http://www.extremefitness.com/forum/vaispy.php

Note: I claim no ownership of this code except for the file vaispy.php - the rest of the files were using 'freely distributable' sources. As such, you may use these files as you wish, but please do not remove the copyrights.

This version is for vBulletin 3.5 users only, for vBulletin 3.6 you will need to download the 3.6 version located here.

JOIN THE vBIspy Network!
Once you have this mod installed, you can join the vBIspy network to have your threads appear on this site; the vBIspy Network is a great way for people to see what's going on in various vBulletin communities and for forum owners to promote their sites and generate new traffic.

Optional add-ons

Who's Online mod for this: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=126209

vBAdvanced Module: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=126421

UPDATES
1.0.2
Added buro9's code from here

1.0.3 - 9.9.06
Modified some JavaScript in va_spy.js to remove split strings

1.0.4 - 9.10.06
Added date cuffoff code from here and changed init() to spyinit() - changed vaispy.php and va_spy.js files.

1.0.5 - 9.11.06
I've changed the query to grab the preview text from the last message; the downside to this change is that people with very large "post" tables will want to add an index to their table to significantly improve the performance on this script.

ALTER TABLE `vb_post` ADD INDEX ( `dateline` )

1.0.6 - 9.12.06
va_spy.js: Added a forum url variable to allow for integration with portals or other products outside the forum directory
va_spy.js: Added xmldelay variable at top of script for easier configuration or repolling
Updated files: vaispy.php, vb_spy.js

1.0.7 - 9.13.06
vaispy.php - changed code for checking for forum permissions to include password protected forums, added javascript tag for script code
va_spy.js - changed link to use goto=lastpost to fix links

1.0.8 - 9.16.06
vaispy.php
va_spy.js
va_effects.js
- modified to allow for proper display in Opera browsers and moved more html into vaispy.php to allow for stylevars, trimmed va_effects.js to remove unused code (ForumDog's suggestions, except not using templates yet), changed way threads are parsed (removes html as well)

1.0.9 - 9.17.06
va_prototype.js - removed 20kb of unused code

[The Chief]

For some reason, Ajax is not working...

When there is a new post it doesn't automatically updating...did I miss something?

[djwins]

Originally Posted by MPDev

I'm not sure - can you give me a link to look at?

In case you were talking to me:
http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/vaispy.php


Also, I really like the idea of vbispy.com network and website. I think the key here will be to make this mod as server load friendly as possible, so you can have lots of good forums feeding your vbispy page.

[MPDev]

djwins,

Update your clientscript/va_spy.js file from the download - you still have the "old" one that has init() defined and the new code uses spyinit() to prevent any conflicts with other JavaScript.

[Gizmo5h1t3]

Originally Posted by MPDev

Some people are suing rewrites of URLs and the links wont always work to take you to the last post. In these cases, you might try rewriting line 262 in va_spy.js to:

		post_url = 'showthread.php?t=' + threadid + '&goto=lastpost';

Which tells the link to take you to the last post in the thread and seems to get rewritten correctly on the system I tested it on.

thats working fine now m8...nice work!!

[djwins]

Originally Posted by The Chief

For some reason, Ajax is not working...

When there is a new post it doesn't automatically updating...did I miss something?

Mine also pulls the 10 latest threads and then doesnt update (unless I refresh the browser).

[MPDev]

I'll take a look.

[MPDev]

The problem is in your postid's - for some reason your post ids are all over the place - <id>393555</id> in the last post made, but <id>2182585</id> the post just before that.

So what I do not understand is, why are the postids so out of whack? They should be incremental given they are new posts added to the post table.

[MPDev]

You can try the change from this post:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....8&postcount=42

And see if that makes a difference.

[djwins]

Really? Seems ok to me...

Could it have somethingt o do with people editing old posts?

[MPDev]

No, must be the query I am using; I only have one 3.5 site to test on and the query works using the moficiation in the link above.

I use the postid as a marker for the last post I grabbed; but when those number are so out of whack, then it never sees anything else because that first record id was so high. We might need to switch to using a datestamp variable.