Any-forum News hack

We've all seen plenty of news hacks here before. I'm talking about a hack that gets all new threads in a specific forum and shows the first post from the new threads on a separate, non-vB page. These hacks usually show a specific number of threads that you specify, or all threads from the past number of days that you specify. The forum that these threads come from is setup by you, by putting the forumid numbers in a variable in the hack's code file.

I feel that this is a limited system. You are limited to posting news items only in the one or few threads that you specify up front are to be used to get news items from, and then those forums are limited to only posting news items in (because every new thread in it becomes a news item). This just didn't seem like the best solution to me, because if I wanted to cover a particular topic, for example, computer hardware, I would have to have two separate forums: One to post hardware news, and one for non-news items like help and tips.

So what makes my hack different is that you can now post news items in ANY forum. When you post a new thread, there will be a new option in the same area as "parse urls" and "disable smilies"; this new option is called, "make a news item?" If you leave that box unchecked, the thread gets posted as normal. But if you check it, then not only does the thread get posted, but it will also show up on a separate page. So now, you can post news items and non-news items in the same forum, in any forum, and only the threads you want to be news items will show up as news items.

I have set up a permission for this checkbox, so it will only appear for the usergroups you want it to appear for. Setting this permission is just like setting any other usergroup permission, like the ability for the usergroup to post new threads, move threads, download attachments, etc.

You can change the news status of a thread, in other words, change a thread from being a news item to not a news item, or vice-versa, via a new option that appears on the Edit Thread screen from the Admin Tools.

This hack also includes a simple "latest threads" feature, that on the same page as the news items will show the most recently-replied to threads (the most recently active threads). I did these two things together because I knew they would be very similar to code, and would appear on the same page. However, each part is completely separate from the other part, and it is very easy to only use one part of the hack or the other.

Here is an image of the checkbox:


Here is the new permission setup (by default, for any new usergroups you create, this permission will be set to 'NO'):


There is a working demo of this hack. The test forums is located here, and the news page is located here. You can use the test forums as an unregistered user; I have set up the unregistered usergroup to have Super Moderator powers, so you should be able to play around with the Edit Thread admin tool, etc.

I'm posting this in the Beta forums because I'd like for some other people to let me know it works OK for them. It works fine for me, on two boards; I originally wrote it and developed it for my regular board, which was heavily hacked to begin with. I then setup a clean, unhacked, totally stock board as a testing grounds, and recreated the hack, and again, it worked fine. I want to confirm that it works fine for at least one other person, but I'm also hoping that someone more experienced than myself can take a look at it to see if I've coded it the best way possible.

The other issue I hope to address here in Beta relates to how the text from news item threads is formatted to appear on the news page. Currently, this hack gets the entire contents of the first post of a thread, and it is run through the bbcode parser, so what you see on the news page is just like what you see in the thread itself, including smilies, all vB Code tags converted, etc. Also, the entire post is used; it is not run through any process that limits it to a certain number of characters. The reason I did not set up a character limit was mainly so that the bbcode parser would not get confused if a closing tag was completely or partially cut out. I figured that since I included a permission system, that at least for me would limit the ability to make a thread a news item to Admins and Mods, I could teach my staff to keep news item threads short.

However, I have toyed with the idea (in my mind) of changing the hack so that if you check a box to make a thread a news item, when you submit the thread, instead of the thread being posted straight away, instead, first you are taken to another page with a textarea containing the contents of the post. In this second textarea, which contains what you just typed in the normal newthread screen, you can edit or change what you typed, and what you do here would get stored in an additional field added to the thread table, and this is what would get shown on the news page. That way, you could start a thread, put an entire news article in it or whatever, mark it to be a news item, submit it, then pare down the contents of the post to just a little blurb suitable for a news item display on the news page, while the original bit you typed gets saved as a post and shown in the thread as normal. (Hope that makes sense.) If I hear enough of a demand for something like this, or get any other ideas, I may consider it. The downside to this is it becomes a little more complicated to post a news item thread.

OK, so install it or play with the demo, and let me know if it's ready for a full release!

Edit on Jan. 1, 2002: This hack has been updated to Version 2, with new features as discussed throughout this thread. Please go to this post: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...281#post210281

[slideboxer]

Is there a way I can call the news from another page, a non-vb page?

[JJR512]

slideboxer, possibly, but I'm not sure what the results would be if you just used a simple include statement...you might need to reformat the templates.

***

After having this hack in operation for a day or so on my real board, I've fixed a few minor little details that escaped me earlier. Most critical, though, is an entire group of instructions that I forgot to include, that without doing, would leave some of the features of this hack unusable. This section of the instructions adds settings to your Admin CP (in the vBulletin Options section as a new group of settings) that allow you to turn on or off vB Code support in news items, the img tag, post icons, etc. It also allows you to set the maximum length of an article, as well as how many appear on the page.

Because there were some minor modifications to the two main code files (newspost.php and homeindex.php), I have attached a new ZIP file to this post. If you have already installed the second version of this hack (posted a day ago), please upload the two main files, and follow Part 5 in the Instructions (the first four Parts are the same and can be skipped). If you have installed the original version (from the first post), please uninstall it by reversing the directions, then just start with the new version from scratch.

EDIT: Hack updated; see Post #69

[The Realist]

How can I make a already made post a news Item, I see the option when you first make a post but when I go and edit a post an option is not there?

Other than that, great hack.

Owe, the second part worked well.

[JJR512]

On the news page (homeindex.php), to only people that have permission to post news, there should appear a link that says "Create New News Item" just above the list of news items (just above the first item). You should copy the URL to the thread you want to make a news item from, then click that link, and paste the URL into the form. From there, the process is just like if you did it when you posted the thread. Please note, this only allows you to make a news item from the first post in the thread...this is a limitation that just ocurred to me, and something I may work on for a future version.

[The Realist]

Regarding the below, Ummmmmm NO!

I dont know if Im doing something wrong but the link "Create New News Item" does not appear (see attached pic)

????? Lost




[QUOTE]Originally posted by JJR512
On the news page (homeindex.php), to only people that have permission to post news, there should appear a link that says "Create New News Item" just above the list of news items (just above the first item).

[slideboxer]

I'm having the same problem. No linkie

[JJR512]

In homeindex.php, please find:

PHP Code:

  $permissionssql=$DB_site->query_first("SELECT canmakenews FROM usergroup WHERE usergroupid=$bbuserinfo[usergroupid]");
  $permissions=$permissionssql[canmakenews];
  if ($permissions==1) {
    eval("\$showcreatelink = \"".gettemplate("main_news_showcreatelink")."\";");
  } else {
    $showcreatelink="";
  } 


And change this to:

PHP Code:

  $permissions=$DB_site->query_first("SELECT canmakenews FROM usergroup WHERE usergroupid=$bbuserinfo[usergroupid]");
  if ($permissions[canmakenews]==1) {
    eval("\$showcreatelink = \"".gettemplate("main_news_showcreatelink")."\";");
  } else {
    $showcreatelink="";
  } 


Also, please make sure that you installed the template main_news_showcreatelink with the contents from the text file of the same name, and that your usergroup permissions are set to allow posting news items.

The corrected homeindex.php is also in the ZIP file in the previous attachment.

[The Realist]

main_news_showcreatelink

I cannot find this template in my downloaded version?

[JJR512]

OK, sorry about that! That was a change I made to homeindex.php, to use a template for the link rather than having it hardcoded in the file. But I forgot to include the new template.

The new template is in the attached ZIP. Please add the new template, also please UPDATE the template main_newindex because it has changed as well (I moved the link to below the news items rather than above it, for cosmetic reasons; you do not have to make this change if you'd rather have the link above). May as well also re-upload the two .php files, too.

UPDATE: This hack has been updated, as mentioned below in Post #81, where the attachment is now located.

[The Realist]

I have another problem.

When I say yes to "Can post news items" the option called "Can post news items" changes to No and does the opposite if I say No it chages to yes.

Is this suposed to happen?

Also the option "Can post news items" never stays ticked when saved.

Strange?