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

[JJR512]

You must have something backwards in your usergroup.php file...I'll take another look at it for you, if you want.

[The Realist]

Sent email asking for your addy M8.

Thanks again.

Brian

[QUOTE]Originally posted by JJR512
You must have something backwards in your usergroup.php file...I'll take another look at it for you, if you want.

[JJR512]

Your direct email address doesn't seem to be working...so: webmaster@jjr512.com

[JJR512]

I have the file fixed for you, but am unable to send email to either of your two addresses; they're getting returned.

[The Realist]

Sorted the templates out and all seemed fine. I started to install a few news pages for members and in fact did 8 all 100%.

Here: http://www.skytronic-forums.com/homeindex.php

The problem I have now is it will not let me enter a 9th news post, coming back with a mysql error:

Database error in vBulletin 2.2.1:

Invalid SQL: SELECT forumid FROM thread WHERE threadid=
mysql error: You have an error in your SQL syntax near '' at line 1

mysql error number: 1064

Date: Friday 04th of January 2002 03:13:35 AM
Script: http://www.skytronic-forums.com/newspost.php
Referer: http://www.skytronic-forums.com/news...on=makenewnews

And now regardless of what post I try it comes back with the same error?

[JJR512]

1. How were the first eight news items created...did you do it when you posted the threads, or afterwards using the Create New News link and a pre-existing thread URL, or a mix of both methods?

2. Which method were you using when this error first ocurred?

3. Does the method now happen all the time, regardless of which method you use, or are you able to post news items one way but not the other, and if so, please say which method works and which doesn't.

[The Realist]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by JJR512
1. How were the first eight news items created...did you do it when you posted the threads, or afterwards using the Create New News link and a pre-existing thread URL, or a mix of both methods?

[slideboxer]

Also getting an error when posting polls. I added the following code to newthread.php

PHP Code:

            // redirect
      if ($postpoll) {
        $goto="poll.php?s=$session[sessionhash]&threadid=$threadid&polloptions=".intval($polloptions);
      } elseif ($visible) {
        if ($makenewsitem) {
          $goto="newspost.php?s=$session[sessionhash]&action=createnews&threadid=$threadid";
          eval("standardredirect(\"".gettemplate("redirect_postnews-create")."\",\"$goto\");");
        } else {
          $goto="showthread.php?s=$session[sessionhash]&threadid=$threadid";
          eval("standardredirect(\"".gettemplate("redirect_postthanks")."\",\"$goto\");");
        }
      } else {
        $goto="forumdisplay.php?s=$session[sessionhash]&forumid=$forumid";
        eval("standardredirect(\"".gettemplate("redirect_postthanks")."\",\"$goto\");");
      }
    }
  }
} 


As per instructions but when I post a poll in the forums I get the standard "You will now be redirected, etc...) message and then the screen goes blank and sits at newthread.php

[JJR512]

The Realist, after the last time the link worked for you, but before it stopped working, did you do anything like re-upload the files, apply any other hacks, etc.? Just trying to figure out what would cause it to suddenly stop working, so I know where to look to fix it.

slideboxer, yes, it does not work with polls right now. I already pointed that out, and said that for now, you probably shouldn't check both boxes at the same time.

[The Realist]

No........

I was posting news and finished the 8th post and it would not let me do the 9th, thats it?

Simple!




[QUOTE]Originally posted by JJR512
The Realist, after the last time the link worked for you, but before it stopped working, did you do anything like re-upload the files, apply any other hacks, etc.?.