8 replies to this topic

[EchelonOne]

Z-Series - RSS IPB3 Reader

About
We are demonstrating this product on here now, it is designed to take any one of the IPB 3 RSS feeds and display the last 10 headers. It functions using just a single flash file, a php file, a javascript file and a small template modification. The feed url is entered within the PHP file, which is then fed in to the flash file where it is completely stripped of all HTML formatting before displaying the output directly through Flash. The version we have running on here is locked to our domain, and requires numerous changes for it to work on another website - all the additional text and images are held within the flash file, so it's not really suitable in it's current state to release.

The full release version works completely different, it will allow you to customize it to your own IP.Board and you can define whichever feed you wish to show within the display. It also allows you to add your own sites logo, site name, and tagline via a small graphic area which must be in a PNG format. This area will be masked to make sure your image stays within the products dimensions.

Upon roll-over the RSS will stop scrolling and allow you to click on the link to the article, download, forum, etc. It will automatically update itself depending on your IP.Board settings, ours is setup to update instantly on any new download made available. It is coded to be the last object to load on any forum page, and be light-weight as possible - the PNG image import size will vary on the number of colors you use.

Available versions
Two versions will be available, to accommodate light or dark skins, the modification is also free and easy to install. Eventhough this RSS Reader is capable of pulling external RSS feeds it is not recommended, because if the external source has issues it may cause your forum to have issues, this is the only issue when using external RSS sources.

This RSS Reader does not support foreign languages due to how Flash functions with other languages. Because we have to embed the fonts, it would not be a viable idea to cater for additional languages due to the file size increase which can easily multiply the file size by 6-7 times - we do not wish for this modification to be a bandwidth hog.

Using on other forums
The userguide shows you how to install it on IP.Board 3.x - this product does work on other forums but we do not offer support or how to code it in to other forums, but you are welcome to use it, if you know simple Strict xHTML coding techniques.

Invision Power Services Copyright Notice Fix
With the IP.Board we did have an issue whereby because we are using a fixed bottom level area it was covering the IPS copyright, this as since been changed and the coding has been updated in the userguide ready for release. The actual RSS feed url will vary according to what area you want to display, and also what type of url rewriting is enabled in IP.Board.

Availability
Release is scheduled for this week under in our Download Zone, we will also add a link to this post so you can find it easily.

Attached Files

•  Changelog1.jpg   13.59K   4 downloads

[Bryan]

I am eagerly looking forward to the release...thank you!

[EchelonOne]

Hi Bryan,
This will be released hopefully very soon. I hit a snag with a javascript conflict whereby the flash fails to display on forum or topic pages using a multiple object embed - at first it only affected Firefox because of a bug in the browser, then another was found in a Google API. At the moment, I am swapping the embed methods to using an Adobe embed instead which will hopefully be a workaround for this issue. I spent the last 2 days altering code but when I think I get somewhere I end up with conflicts in when applied to IPB. I have a working demonstration with swfObject embed but it looks like this will be changed to using AC_RunActiveContent by Adobe.

There seems to be a lot of contradicting information regarding using swfObject from Google - which is why I think we should drop it in favor of Adobe's workaround.

As soon as this is done, then I can finish this documentation for this modification, which is nearly done anyway.

We will get there in the end, never let anything beat me yet.

[Bryan]

ouch...sounds like a pain in the butt...

sounds like you have a good plan or direction to go and I am very confident that you will get it resolved quickly. I am using Opera for my browser so I hope it works ok...lol

thanks for the update!

[EchelonOne]

Bryan, on 09 April 2011 - 02:05 PM, said:

ouch...sounds like a pain in the butt...

sounds like you have a good plan or direction to go and I am very confident that you will get it resolved quickly. I am using Opera for my browser so I hope it works ok...lol

thanks for the update!

Hi Bryan,
After trying so many ways and configurations, and even posting about the issue on several IPB modification forums I still ended up with hitting my head against a brickwall (so to speak). No one could understand why it should not work with the various methods I had tried. I even got very close to the point today of contacting IPS via a Support Ticket, but I had an idea which I had not implemented before, and as you can see that idea worked at last. The stupid thing is it was the original code I was using, but I made a slight change to where the javascript was called in to IPB. I have just checked it on FF 3.6, IE 9.0 and Opera - Chrome I have not looked at yet, but in theory it should work since the code is from the Google Codebase.

So, it looks like it is an all go now - everything is working as it should be, the only difference now is the javascript is using absolute url paths to all files so it will not fail from a call to an incorrect directory. I was hoping to get around this and use an IPB string method, but it would mean trying to parse the string within a javascript function which would be more of a headache than anything else.

What I did not want to do was use the iframe tag which would break the Strict xHTML code of IPB, even though many users do this using other tags that do not comply with the standard. The other tag I see used a lot on IPB forums is the marquee tag, again not Strict xHTML either. I have a new modification that will do exactly the same as what these scrolling affiliate linking hooks do that complies to all standards, but in a unusual and unique way... I got to get the Facebook application finished first though, and I have quite a few modifcations that will benefit IPB users in many ways.

Took awhile but I got there in the end!

EDIT: I just redone the javascript code to use IPB url strings, therefore making it much easier to install than typing in domain paths everywhere. I did not think it would work within a js function but it seems to be fine.

[Bryan]

awesome!! thanks for the update Echelon...can't wait for final release as I will certainly try it out

[MissLED]

Hi Echelon

Do you have any ETA on this modification yet?

I am very interested in this and I would guess it would be quite popular with IPB users.

You have some great image work on this site, I only found you from a Pip Panel you released on IPS.

MissLED

[EchelonOne]

Hi MissLED,

At the moment I have been looking at coding this modification to work with the 3.1.x hook system, however by the time it takes to actually code in the hook locations IP.Board 3.2 will not be far behind. Coding of hooks in 3.1.x is a bit of a pain since they have to be exported using an IP.Board that is in Development Mode, I do have one setup but with the current timescale of 3.2 it would mean updating the hooks again to work. 3.2 brings in a new system for exporting hooks easier, and also setting IPB in to DEV_MODE.

What I will probably do is release it and use standard template edits in the Installation guide to get around the aforementioned issue. The modification itself requires only 2 template edits and they are very simple to add anyway.

With regards to the release, this will be very soon - since I have been coding hooks all weekend for the IP.Tweetz which again uses a very similar hook location.

Thanks for the comments on the site, not quite finished yet as I have other areas to open publicly.

Regards,

E1

[pipat4]

thank for the info