Adding an external news to my main page

[JohnBee]

I am mixing both vBadvance and an external news source to my front
page for various reasons but I cannot seem to get the outside source
to display the data in my adv_portal template.


Can anyone tell me how I sould go about getting this code to work?

<?PHP
include("path/to/show_news.php");
?>

[tomshawk]

Originally Posted by JohnBee

I am mixing both vBadvance and an external news source to my front
page for various reasons but I cannot seem to get the outside source
to display the data in my adv_portal template.


Can anyone tell me how I sould go about getting this code to work?

<?PHP
include("path/to/show_news.php");
?>

Could you post the contents of your template, and just for giggles, what is in this php file.

Normally to get a include statement like what you have there to work, it has to be added to your phpinclude template, then called out into a template, but a little more info on your part would help.

Here is an example of a template

adv_portal_whatever

<table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" class="tborder" width="100%">

<tr>
<td class="tcat">
<span class="smallfont">
<strong>$vba_options[portal_blockbullet] $mods[title]</strong>
</span>
</td>
</tr>

<tr><td class="$getbgrow" width="100%">$content</td></tr>
</table>
<br />

Then in the PHP file, you will call the template with a line like this

PHP Code:

 eval('$home[$mods[\'modid\']][\'content\'] = "' . fetch_template('adv_portal_whatever') . '";'); 


But... Unless your file is using a third party program to pull Data, you need to use the phpinclude template. This is the part of the equation I dont know and am going to need to see what your pulling and how.

Good Luck

[JohnBee]

Wow thanks I will try this ASAP.

the line:

<?PHP
 include("path/to/show_news.php");
?>

Simply calls a template from a small php new script called cutenews.
its a very simple call, the news is very basic title and body plain text
content.

I want to get this in my homepage only for my headlines because
I don't like the limited image and text formating that vBadvance
gives me on my big news story.

If I can get this code to work on my vBadvance page I will be one
happy camper

Let me know if there is anything else you need to help me make
this work.

I will start on the changes in the monrning. thanks for you reply.

[JohnBee]

Okay here is the show_news.php file

<?PHP

error_reporting (E_ALL ^ E_NOTICE);

$cutepath =  __FILE__;
$cutepath = preg_replace( "'\\\show_news\.php'", "", $cutepath);
$cutepath = preg_replace( "'/show_news\.php'", "", $cutepath);

require_once("$cutepath/inc/functions.inc.php");
require_once("$cutepath/data/config.php");

//----------------------------------
// Check if we are included by PATH
//----------------------------------
if($HTTP_SERVER_VARS["HTTP_ACCEPT"] or $HTTP_SERVER_VARS["HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET"] or $HTTP_SERVER_VARS["HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING"] or $HTTP_SERVER_VARS["HTTP_CONNECTION"]){ /* do nothing */ }
elseif(eregi("show_news.php", $PHP_SELF)){
die("<h4>CuteNews has detected that you are including show_news.php using the URL to this file.<br>
This is incorrect and you must include it using the PATH to show_news.php</h4><br>Example:<br>
this is <font color=red>WRONG</font> :&nbsp;&nbsp; &lt;?PHP include(\"http://yoursite.com/cutenews/show_news.php\"); ?&gt;<br>
this is <font color=green>CORRECT</font>:&nbsp;&nbsp; &lt;?PHP include(\"cutenews/show_news.php\"); ?&gt;<br>
<br><BR>// <font size=2>if you think this message shouldn't be shown, open show_news.php and delete it from there</font>");
}
//----------------------------------
// End of the check
//----------------------------------

if(!isset($subaction) or $subaction == ""){ $subaction = $POST["subaction"]; }

if(!isset($template) or $template == "" or strtolower($template) == "default"){ require_once("$cutepath/data/Default.tpl"); }
else{
        if(file_exists("$cutepath/data/${template}.tpl")){ require_once("$cutepath/data/${template}.tpl"); }
    else{ die("Error!<br>the template <b>".htmlspecialchars($template)."</b> does not exists, note that templates are case sensetive and you must write the name exactly as it is"); }
}

// Prepare requested categories
if(eregi("[a-z]", $category)){
        die("<b>Error</b>!<br>CuteNews has detected that you use \$category = \"$category\"; but you can call the categories only with their <b>ID</b> numbers and not with names<br>
    example:<br><blockquote>&lt;?PHP<br>\$category = \"1\";<br>include(\"path/to/show_news.php\");<br>?&gt;</blockquote>");
}
$category = preg_replace("/ /", "", $category);
$tmp_cats_arr = explode(",", $category);
foreach($tmp_cats_arr as $key=>$value){
    if($value != ""){ $requested_cats[$value] = TRUE; }
}

if($archive == ""){
        $news_file = "$cutepath/data/news.txt";
        $comm_file = "$cutepath/data/comments.txt";
}else{
        $news_file = "$cutepath/data/archives/$archive.news.arch";
        $comm_file = "$cutepath/data/archives/$archive.comments.arch";
}

$allow_add_comment                        = FALSE;
$allow_full_story                        = FALSE;
$allow_active_news                         = FALSE;
$allow_comments                         = FALSE;

//<<<------------ Detarime what user want to do
if( $CN_HALT != TRUE and $static != TRUE and ($subaction == "showcomments" or $subaction == "showfull" or $subaction == "addcomment") and ((!isset($category) or $category == "") or $requested_cats[$ucat] == TRUE) ){
    if($subaction == "addcomment"){ $allow_add_comment        = TRUE; $allow_comments = TRUE; }
    if($subaction == "showcomments") $allow_comments = TRUE;
        if(($subaction == "showcomments" or $allow_comments == TRUE) and $config_show_full_with_comments == "yes") $allow_full_story = TRUE;
        if($subaction == "showfull") $allow_full_story = TRUE;
        if($subaction == "showfull" and $config_show_comments_with_full == "yes") $allow_comments = TRUE;

}
else{
    if($config_reverse_active == "yes"){ $reverse = TRUE; }
        $allow_active_news = TRUE;
}
//----------->>> Detarime what user want to do

require("$cutepath/inc/shows.inc.php");
    if($_GET['archive'] and $_GET['archive'] != ''){ $archive = $_GET['archive']; } // stupid fix ?
unset($static, $template, $requested_cats, $category, $catid, $cat,$reverse, $in_use, $archives_arr, $number, $no_prev, $no_next, $i, $showed, $prev, $used_archives);
?>
<!-- News Powered by CuteNews: http://cutephp.com/ -->

Hope this helps

[tomshawk]

Hi JohnBee

I took a close look at Cutephp and I think the easiest way to do it is to scratch what I said before

open phpinclude and paste this at the bottom

ob_start();
require("path/to/show_news.php");
$news = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();

Notice the path to the php file, just like like the one in your original post

Then create you adv_portal_whatever template and paste the below code into it.

$news
<br>

That should get it working.

Let us know if it does or not, k

[JohnBee]

is phpinclude a template?
or a file?

I searched for either I could not find them I did find phpinclude_start
and _end templates though.