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.

[NxTek]

Originally Posted by vfxtalk

Is there any possibility to have the ability to include images if they are available ?

Anyone?

[weallgoboing]

Status: 404
Content-type: text/html
X-Powered-By: PHP/4.3.11

No input file specified.

My cronjob email is this. Any ideas?

[weallgoboing]

Solved it!

If you know this apologies, if you don't hope it helps!

/path/to/forums/articlebot is where I installed AB

/path/to/forums/cache

I created the cache directory and chmod 777 and voila it works.

Blindingly obvious, but took me a while to work out!

[jluerken]

Will there be a version for vB 3.5?

[BioVader]

Is there a way to edit the way the rss feed is displayed? Meaning is there a way to get rid of the full link to read the full article and change it to a [read more] type link.. Also is there a way to see more of the article or is it preset by the provider as to what is shown via the feed?

I'm new at with the whole rss thing.

[Cyburbia]

Originally Posted by jluerken

Will there be a version for vB 3.5?

I was going to ask the same thing. A lot of work seems to be going into the 3.0.* version. That's great, but you know what when 3.5 is gold, many will make the switch within weeks.

This is a great hack, and even if it's not available for 3.5, I gotta' offer my respect.

[popowich]

Hello,

My article bot constantly posts duplicate threads. I have no other problems except for the posts that are reposted even though they appeared hours, days, or weeks earlier. I already updated my MySQL with the change to make the cache title be text instead of varchar as noted earlier in this thread. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thank you,
-Raymond

[Mr.D]

when will this be for 3.5

[popowich]

Originally Posted by popowich

My article bot constantly posts duplicate threads. I have no other problems except for the posts that are reposted even though they appeared hours, days, or weeks earlier. I already updated my MySQL with the change to make the cache title be text instead of varchar as noted earlier in this thread. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Does the article bot use the mysql history or the file cache or both?

I have increased the $MAX_AGE to 2 years.

If the file cache is my problem why keep a second history in mysql?

-Raymond

[jcbatchelor]

I am having a problem with articlebot only posting the thread title but nothing in the description (body of the thread). I have it set to skip the articles with no description. Any fixes?