External JS Feed Format Question

[mark99]

I have a bit of a problem, essentially I'm using the External Java feed from vBulletin to output all my most recent topics onto non-vB pages, but I can't find a WORKING way to limit text length without cheating.

Presently I cheat by using a little CSS and NOBR to do this:

   <script type="text/javascript" src="USUAL PHP FILE"></script>
   <script type="text/javascript">
   <!--
   for (i = 0; i < 4; i++)
   {
   document.writeln("<tr><td width=\"90\" bgcolor=\"#ECECF2\">"+threads[i].threaddate+"</td><td width=\"305\"><a href=\"SITE/FORUM<A href="forum/showthread.php?threadid="+threads[i].threadid+"\"><div">forum/showthread.php?threadid="+threads[i].threadid+"\"><div style=\"width:305px; overflow:hidden\"><NOBR>"+threads[i].title+"</NOBR></div></a></td></tr>");
   }
   //-->
   </script>

Sadly this method doesn't make the links look right when hovering the cursor over them and won't work with some external search providers (they can not index the links). It's also a cheat and I hate cheating to make something work.

I've tried other code I've found on here, like this:

<script type="text/javascript" src="USUAL PHP FILE"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
for (i = 0; i < 4; i++)
var titleAsString = new String(threads[i].title);
if (titleAsString.length > 27)
{
var newTitle = titleAsString.substring(0,27);
document.write("<a href=\"forum/showthread.php?threadid="+threads[i].threadid+"\">"+newTitle + "..."+"</a><br />Poster: <a href=\"forum/member.php?u="+threads[i].poster+"\">"+threads[i].poster+"</a><br />"+threads[i].threaddate+" "+threads[i].threadtime+"<br />");
}
else
{
document.write("<a href=\"forum/showthread.php?threadid="+threads[i].threadid+"\">"+titleAsString+"</a><br />Poster: <a href=\"forum/member.php?u="+threads[i].poster+"\">"+threads[i].poster+"</a><br />"+threads[i].threaddate+" "+threads[i].threadtime+"<br />");
}
//-->
</script>

But all that seems to do is output only one topic (even when others can have shorter titles, adjusting the characters up from 27 makes no difference), while I want to display all topics, but cut them off with a ".." after say 100 characters. Help?