Author: Gizmo (James of VNC Web Design)

Requirements:
Valid UBB.Threads 7.4 install and license



About:
This mod will import RSS feeds as new topics. You can specify which forums the topics are posted to, and who posts them.

Installation instructions are included in the attached archive. Upload the files following the structure created in the archive.

Demo:
You can see this script in action on: My Dev Site and UGN Security.

File History
2600 - Initial 7.4+ cleanup.

Known Bugs

• Will, at times, create duplicate topics; at times these are editorial revisions on some sites (Reuters for example) however.

NOTE
This mod is a port of an older UBB.threads7 mofification by Ian Spence which you can find here.

I have thanked you already but ile say it again thankyou lol.

I have just added a rss feed but i put the wrong member to show who has posted the feeds so i had to delete the feed posts on my forum and i have now re added another feed but now its not reposting what i have deleted.

Also when it posts it says

A TORY councillor who defected from Labour was today suspended from his new party after making a homophobic comment on his Facebook website.

Source: [url=http://www.wirralnews.co.uk/wirral-news/local-wirral-news/2010/03/31/wirral-councillor-suspended-for-anti-gay-facebook-update-100252-26144094/]Wirral councillor suspended for 'anti-gay' Facebook update[/ url]

Instead of putting a link.

Well, that's expected behavior, it should try NOT to repost anything; there is a field in the database that holds the timestamp of the last time it "grabbed" the feed and it'll attempt not to repost anything before that timestamp.

You could try this query:


As for the link, on what you posted it has a space before the end tag at the end, is that what it's doing on your site? could you link me to a story?

No i had to leave a space or it would of posted correctly lol.
Its just posting on my website like that instead of the proper link.

Also just tried that code above and it says SQL Error: Table 'web180-forum-2.prefix_TOPIC_FEEDS' doesn't exist

prefix_ needs to be changed to whatever your db prefix is

Ok thanks.
The other problem as above is like i havnt got html activated for users on the forum but i have the feed isnt coming out as a link

I need to see it... it should parse out regardless of your html setting... on my test forums the aggregator is a standard user account

Be sure you have "Parse BBCode in feed" selected in the feed

I have a problem.
Its not checking for more feeds every 15 minutes like i have set it. It updates once a day.

Is the source feed updating more than once a day? I know a lot of sites cache out their feed in the early morning and only do it once a day...

Its doing it once a day and thats it but when i look at the feed there is more news which could be added.
When i had Vbulletin it updated every 10 mins

(SORRY CAN THIS BE MOVED TO THE RSS FEED, I POSTED IN WRONG THREAD.)

I don't receive any feeds. I added the lines in the source as described and added the files but nothing happens. Any idea how to check whether it is working right?

Hi Gizmo,

I installed it, but its not making any new posts.

I am trying to post earthquake updates from USGS. the feed is live, so at 15 minutes I should be seeing posts, but nothing.

Its now started working

Is there a way it can post some of the data from the source, rather than a link just to it? The link is good at the bottom, but I want some of the data on the post rather than just a link.

It's supposed to display data from the feed, could you provide me the URL so I can take a gander?

Well, your problem from your feed is that they're using the description tag to roll out the date versus providing data on the page itself; the description tag is what gets parsed by this script.

They should be using the pubdate variable to publish the date, and the description variable to provide data on the link.

Is it possible to tweak the scripts to parse the feed?

Also the atom feed just gets ignored..

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/catalogs/7day-M2.5.xml

Its got more info showing and a map, but nothing happens

Its NASA as well, all the feeds we need

http://www.aus-city.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=52828&gonew=1#UNREAD

Shows a date as the topic and info


It won't work with any feed from NASA:

http://www.nasa.gov/rss/

Also there is a bug. Any posts made by the fetching, keep the date of where the source is. This means twitter never picks them up as they are old as my forum is UTC+11.

The posts need to have the current time and date just like they were posted by a person.

The RSS feed parses what it's supposed to; their feed displays data in a manner that isn't what the RSS spec says it should.

As for the ATOM feed, this script isn't designed to parse that at all... That's why it's politely ignored.

Basically it reads the title, description, and pubdate; description should hold data about the link, the title is the title of the story, and the pubdate should be the date associated with it.

I'm not sure why the nasa rss feed is all on one line, kind of interesting...

Can the topic creator me modified to accept ATOM feeds?

A lot of sites offer them.