RSS Feeds

**Steve Machol** · Sat 20 Nov '04, 5:32pm

Here's a thread explaining the built-in external feed system:

vBulletin Community Forum

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=476059&postcount=7

And here's the online documentation:

vBulletin Manual - External Data Provider

http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/main/vboptions_group_external

**TheMusicMan** · Tue 23 Nov '04, 3:45am

Thanks Steve, very useful indeed.

What is it I need to do to get these to display on another www site? How do I display the output from external.php on another site?

**Steve Machol** · Tue 23 Nov '04, 9:21am

They would just use the links in Wayne's post:

vBulletin Community Forum

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=476059&postcount=7

Of course, they will need to format this output into their own page.

**TheMusicMan** · Sat 27 Nov '04, 12:59am

I tried that Steve to no avail.

I enabled the External Java on my site and when I call the external.php?type=js, I get sonething returned but it looks like code. How do I get this code to display?? If I want to allow my members to have say the latest 'n' topics from my site displayed on their site, what code do they have to put into one of their browser pages...? Is it a direct link somewhere in one of their html pages to my sites external.php?type=js pahe, or is it the output of what that php page actually generates/delivers...?

Sorry if I don't quite grasp it yet, I'm sure I will soon with some more help. Cheers.

**daemon** · Sat 27 Nov '04, 4:43pm

Here's a sample way to use JS feeds:

HTML Code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
        "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
	<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
	<title>External JS Printing</title>
</head>

<body>

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.iris-studios.com/gkwc/external.php?type=js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
	for (var i = 0; i < threads.length; i++)
	{
		document.write('<a href="http://www.iris-studios.com/gkwc/showthread.php?t=' + threads[i]['threadid'] + '">' + threads[i]['title'] + '</a> <em>Posted on: ' + threads[i]['threaddate'] + ' by ' + threads[i]['threadtime'] + '</em><br />');
	}
//-->
</script>

</body>
</html>

The first bit is the source to your external JS feed:

HTML Code:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.iris-studios.com/gkwc/external.php?type=js"></script>

The second bit cycles through all the syndicated threads and prints out the information. It's just a little simple bit of JavaScript:

HTML Code:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
	for (var i = 0; i < threads.length; i++)
	{
		document.write('<a href="http://www.iris-studios.com/gkwc/showthread.php?t=' + threads[i]['threadid'] + '">' + threads[i]['title'] + '</a> <em>Posted on: ' + threads[i]['threaddate'] + ' by ' + threads[i]['threadtime'] + '</em><br />');
	}
//-->
</script>

**Martell** · Sat 29 Jan '05, 4:03pm

Thanks for this example.

How can we:

A) limit the subject length?
B) specificy a forum id (to pull only content from that forum)
C) Can I build in a a time factor? (eg. last thirty, sixty days etc).

The VB manual is SERIOUSLY lacking in how to specify and distribute JS or even RSS feeds.

With infopoop I created a content island and poof ... done ... here all you get is:

vBulletin Community Forum

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=476059&postcount=7

Don't get me wrong VB rocks infopoop to the stone age, but I'm surprised that the documentation is sooo limited on java or RSS feed syndication.

**Torqued** · Sat 29 Jan '05, 5:03pm

Originally posted by TheMusicMan

I would like to be able to have users show the last 'n' posts from my www site on their own www sites. How would I go about enabling this and how can I test to see if this works by installing on another of my own sites...?

What would I need to do on my test site to have this show... how do I do it?

Cheers

Have a look at this mod - it allows for more options for exporting your RSS feeds:

FPS_EXTERNAL.PHP -- New options added & RSS compliant version of external.php

vBulletin.org Forum

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=69834

This is a discussion forum powered by vBulletin. To find out about vBulletin, go to http://www.vbulletin.com/ .

Also, for distributing your RSS, you may want to consider running through www.feedburner.com and enabling the "SmartFeed" function... you can also get some statistics on your feeds..

Also, you can include auto-discovery language in your header and it will turn on the RSS icon in the lower corner of Firefox...

Have a look @ my RSS post on my forum @ http://www.informaticsnurse.com/foru...=1591#post1591

**Totem** · Fri 1 Apr '05, 7:05am

Following the above scripts, how do i limit the displayed length?
How do i limit displayed threads?

How do i have the dates in front instead?
Can i make a table to seperate the date and thread?

Sorry, not so familiar with JS

**PcosKat** · Tue 5 Apr '05, 8:55am

I have to admit, I still do NOT understand a simple way to do this

**jayk** · Sat 23 Apr '05, 2:57pm

Originally posted by PcosKat

I have to admit, I still do NOT understand a simple way to do this

Because I dont have enough time right now to go through and do all the steps in this thread, I just got ghetto and went here http://www.rss-to-javascript.com/p/138.html

plugged in the link and it links it perfectly

**bigTex** · Tue 26 Apr '05, 10:30pm

Feed Per Forum code here

I tried a solution for the javascript feed provided by Mirical Bernd (thanks!) and it works perfectly and I am able to move things around, add space, html, etc. with success all around:

Code:

 <b>15 Last Posts in the YOUR_FORUM Forum:
 <ul> 
 <script type="text/javascript" src="http://YOUR_FORUM_URL/external.php?type=js&forumids=44"></script>
 <script type="text/javascript">
 <!--
  var max = 15;
  if(threads.length < max) max = threads.length;
  for(i = 0; i < max; i++)
   { 
	if (threads[i].title.length > 20)
	 { threads[i].title = threads[i].title.substring(0, 30) + '...'; }
	document.writeln("<li><a href=\"http://YOUR_FORUM_URL/showthread.php?t=" + threads[i].threadid + "\">" + threads[i].title + "</a> (" + threads[i].poster + " - Posted on: " + threads[i].threaddate + ") </li>");
   }
 //-->
 </script>
 </ul>

I was able to insert this into a php driven page with Smarty {literal} tags and if it works there, it should work elsewhere. I didn't invent this, but there certainly is a lot of bad info regarding JS feeds and using them.The 44 is the forum ID that you want to show the headers for or just drop the &forumids=44.

The documentation on external feeds in only worth accessing the data, but what you DO with the feed should also be relevant and discussed in the docs. At least base html examples to get data to show ...

- bT

**aggiefan** · Tue 17 May '05, 7:44pm

Is there a way to use the code above and make the background of each post alternate (like a forum). That would probably involve tables....and I'm pretty dumb. So can somebody help me out?

Also, instead of showing the original poster, how can I show the last person who posted?

**VoltageGS** · Wed 18 May '05, 8:06am

Originally posted by aggiefan

Is there a way to use the code above and make the background of each post alternate (like a forum). That would probably involve tables....and I'm pretty dumb. So can somebody help me out?

Also, instead of showing the original poster, how can I show the last person who posted?

Not sure how efficient this is, but this is what I used to have alternating colours (you do need to have them in a table). This is using the code supplied by bigTex:

HTML Code:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://URL/forums/external.php?type=js&forumids=8"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
  <!--
	var max = 5;
	if(threads.length < max) max = threads.length;
	for(i = 0; i < max; i++) {
	  test = i % 2;
	  if (threads[i].title.length > 40) {
		threads[i].title = threads[i].title.substring(0, 30) + '...';
	  }
	  if (test == 0) {
	 document.writeln("<tr><td class=\"main_cell\"><a href=\"http://URL/forums/showthread.php?t=" + threads[i].threadid + "\">" + threads[i].title + "</a> (" + "Posted on: " + threads[i].threaddate + " at " + threads[i].threadtime + ") </td></tr>");
	  } else {
		document.writeln("<tr style=\"background-image: url(/resources/images/interface/shading/grey_pixel.gif);\"><td class=\"main_cell\"><a href=\"http://URL/forums/showthread.php?t=" + threads[i].threadid + "\">" + threads[i].title + "</a> (" + "Posted on: " + threads[i].threaddate + " at " + threads[i].threadtime + ") </td></tr>");
	  }
	}
  //-->
</script>

You could also replace background-image: with background-color: and use a hex value. I used an image to get a specific shade of grey. All it's doing is checking if [i] is an even number (test = i % 2) if it's 0 it's odd, 1 it's even.

On another note...this seems to work perfectly in Firefox and IE when in XP SP1 (IE version 6.0.2800.1106), but in XP SP2 (IE version 6.0.2900.2180), it's producing a JavaScript error saying that 'threads' is undefined. Is anyone else seeing this problem or have a fix for it?

**dwjngs** · Sun 5 Jun '05, 9:02pm

Originally posted by daemon

Here's a sample way to use JS feeds:

Ok, I've been trying to get this to work and it's making me nuts.

Here's what I've got going:

The javascript external thing is enabled via admin cp. I have a test page here http://www.bccymca.org/javaRSStest.htm with the following code:

Code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "[url="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"]http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd[/url]"> <html xmlns="[url="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"]http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml[/url]"> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /> <title>External JS Printing</title> </head> <body> <script type="text/javascript" src="<A href="http://www.bccymca.org/forums/external.php?type=js"></script">http://www.bccymca.org/forums/external.php?type=js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> <!-- for (var i = 0; i < threads.length; i++) { document.write('<a href="[url="http://www.bccymca.org/forums/showthread.php?t='"]http://www.bccymca.org/forums/showthread.php?t='[/url] + threads[i]['threadid'] + '">' + threads[i]['title'] + '</a> <em>Posted on: ' + threads[i]['threaddate'] + ' by ' + threads[i]['threadtime'] + '</em><br />'); } //--> </script> </body> </html>

When I call the page I get a blank. It loads alright, and takes a sec to do it, but nothing. I'm trying to insert forum info on the front page of the site, here: http://www.bccymca.org.

I'm using XP SP2, IE latest version, FTPVoyager to upload. Any ideas?

Thanks.

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