BNS SMF Feeds

Plugin with multi-widget functionality that builds an SMF Forum RSS feed url by user option choices; and, displays a SMF forum feed. The widget includes the additional option to include in the feed: specific boards and/or specific categories. There are also check boxes to include the feed item date and the item summary, too.

NB: If updating from a version before 1.1 please make sure to re-save your widget options (check your feed type) for each instance after upgrading. This will set the feed type correctly using the new feed drop-down selection option. Thanks! ~cais

Download

Latest version: Download BNS SMF Feeds v1.5 [zip]

Installation

This section describes how to install the plugin and get it working.

Upload bns-smf-feeds.php to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
Activate through the ‘Plugins’ menu.
Place the BNS SMF Feeds widget appropriately in the Appearance | Widgets section of the dashboard.
Set options to personal preferences:

Widget Title
Specify the full URL to the SMF Forum (e.g.: http://www.simplemachines.org/community/)
Choose feed type from drop-down menu (RSS, RSS2, Atom, RDF)
The default is by recent Topics, or choose to display recent posts
The default displays all items able to be seen by a “guest”.
Choose specific boards (or categories of boards) to include only.
Choose the maximum quantity of items to display (varies by SMF user permissions)
Choose to display the item date and/or item summary

– or -

Go to ‘Plugins’ menu under your Dashboard
Click on the ‘Add New’ link
Search for BNS SMF Feeds
Install.
Activate through the ‘Plugins’ menu.
Place the BNS SMF Feeds widget appropriately in the Appearance | Widgets section of the dashboard.
Set options to personal preferences:

Widget Title
Specify the full URL to the SMF Forum (e.g.: http://www.simplemachines.org/community/)
Choose feed type from drop-down menu (RSS, RSS2, Atom, RDF)
The default is by recent Topics, or choose to display recent posts
The default displays all items able to be seen by a “guest”.
Choose specific boards (or categories of boards) to include only.
Choose the maximum quantity of items to display (varies by SMF user permissions)
Choose to display the item date and/or item summary

Reading this article for further assistance: http://wpfirstaid.com/2009/12/plugin-installation/

FAQ

Q. Can I use this in more than one widget area?
A. Yes, this plugin has been made for multi-widget compatibility. Each instance of the widget will display, if wanted, differently than every other instance of the widget.

Q. How can I style the plugin output?
A. The plugin uses a variation of the WordPress RSS Output that assigns several rss related classes, such as: rssSummary, rss-date, and rsswidget. A wrapping class of ‘bns-smf-feeds’ has also been added to the widget for more fine tuning.

Q. How can I get the RSS feed url?
A. Once the widget is activated and placed into a widget ready area, there will be a standard RSS icon displayed beside the feed title. This icon will have the url anchored to it, simply click on it to subscribe to the feed directly.

Changelog

1.5

released: June 13, 2010
code clean up to meet WP Standards
corrected error with setting quantity of items displayed from the RSS feed

1.4

compatible with WordPress version 3.0
updated license declaration

1.3.1.2

compatible with WordPress version 2.9.2
updated license declaration

1.3.1.1

clarified the plugin’s release under a GPL license

1.3.1

tied all links in the widget to use the “option to open links in new window”

1.3

removed unnecessary (commented out) code
added option to open links in new window as suggested
added new screenshot of option panel

1.2

added feed refresh frequency (in seconds) option
added new screenshot of option panel

1.1.1

compatibility check for 2.9.1 completed

1.1

added drop-down menu to option panel to choose feed type, default set to RSS2
updated the Option Panel screen shot

1.0.1

minor corrections to description and screenshot

1.0

Initial Release.

42 Comments

Azari says:

January 29, 2010 at 11:35 am

Hi, I just installed your plugin on my site and it works great. Only one thing though, it doesn’t seem to update as soon as the a post is made on SMF. I was wondering if there’s a way around this, or to increase the frequency of the feed made from SMF? Is there any disadvantage of increasing the frequency? Thanks!

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  January 29, 2010 at 2:43 pm
  
  @Azari – Thanks for choosing BNS SMF Feeds. I have not reviewed any sort of feed polling, yet. The frequency of updates is also generally related to where and how the feed is being generated. Increasing the frequency via SMF would be fine, I see no reason or potential disadvantages except possibly a small server resource usage increase.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Azari says:

January 29, 2010 at 3:19 pm

Hello again, thanks for your reply.

Website: http://www.tanggam.com

How do I control where and how the feed is being generated? Currently I’m using WordPress as the frontpage of my community forum (SMF), and I have full access to both. I’m not particularly fluent in programming, as I’m learning this on the go. So excuse me if I don’t quite catch certain terms that you use .

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  January 29, 2010 at 3:28 pm
  
  @Azari – The plugin creates the feed link, but as to the frequency of the feed being generated I cannot say. I have not looked that deep into the SMF code in some time; and, I mostly only manage SMF sites now. You may be able to find an SMF modification that can control the feed frequency at http://simplemachines.org
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Azari says:

January 29, 2010 at 3:38 pm

Thanks again for your reply and for pointing me in the right direction.

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  January 31, 2010 at 9:27 pm
  
  FYI … I have just added a new option that allows you to set the feed refresh frequency. I hope this will better fit yours and others needs with this plugin. Enjoy!
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Azari says:

January 31, 2010 at 9:53 pm

You know what, that is EXACTLY the thing I need. I’m sure others will to!

Rep up!

» Reply to this Comment «
Manu says:

February 1, 2010 at 12:37 pm

Hi,

I have just installed your plugin and it works like a charm!!!! I just want to ask one question.
Is there a way to open the forum in a new window instead of the same, when the links will be clicked?

Thx in advance for your help

Greetings from the snowy Germany
Manu

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  February 1, 2010 at 5:55 pm
  
  @Manu – Thank you for choosing BNS SMF Feeds! I will look into what you are asking and reply back here.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  February 1, 2010 at 6:10 pm
  
  @Manu – If you delve into the heart of the plugin code … around line 151 … change:
```
echo "<li><a class='bns-smf-feeds rsswidget' href='$link' title='$desc'>$title</a>{$date}{$summary}{$author}</li>";
```
  … to:
```
echo "<li><a class='bns-smf-feeds rsswidget' href='$link' target='_blank' title='$desc'>$title</a>{$date}{$summary}{$author}</li>";
```
  This will cause the post/topic links to open in a new window/tab via the target=’_blank’ parameter. I may add this as an option to a future update, until them please make note of this change as it will be over-written otherwise.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
  - Edward Caissie says:
    
    February 1, 2010 at 8:04 pm
    
    FYI … version 1.3 adds this option.
    
    » Reply to this Comment «
Manu says:

February 2, 2010 at 7:32 am

Thx a lot for your help and the update of the plugin!
Just a little note, is there a way to open the the link of the wiget-title in a new window too?
For example at my site the title is “Recent Forum Posts” – I don’t know to explain it better. :-s

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  February 2, 2010 at 10:16 am
  
  @Manu – I will look into it …
  
  PS: After further review it made sense to make all links within the widget follow the same rule to open in a new window or not. Version 1.3.1 will now have the widget title and the RSS icon follow the same “open in new window” option as the feed items.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Phat^Trance says:

February 4, 2010 at 11:44 am

Just installed this plugin and it works great!

on thing tho! im running two wordpress blogs (with the same SMF forum), My blogs url is: http://dailymobile.se/ and http://dailyiphoneblog.com/ this plugin works fine on dailymobile and it shows the latest 10 posts, but the same plugin wont work on the iphone blog. it doesnt display any of the feed url / latest posts. its just empty.

Any idea on how i can fix this? would be nice to use this plugin on both my blogs.

thx

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  February 4, 2010 at 3:02 pm
  
  @Phat^Trance – Thank you for choosing the BNS SMF Feeds plugin. I recreated your RSS feed URL with the plugin on one of my test servers and it is showing the items from your forum. I cannot see what would be causing it to “not work” on your specific blog.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Andrea says:

February 21, 2010 at 2:35 pm

Hi,
very good pluginf. After same problem with RSS i have solved and now work fine.

Thank you. The only plugin wich work fine!

Andrea.

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  February 22, 2010 at 12:03 am
  
  @Andrea – You are welcome! I am glad the plugin is working fine for you.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
JennyD says:

February 27, 2010 at 12:37 am

Hi, Edward! I’m presently testing an SMF/WordPress solution on a “dead” site belonging to a friend. I’m using your great plugin (love it!) and the WordPress Post to SMF(I’ll call it WP2SMF) plugin (also works!).

With WP2SMF, when I add a new WP post, a new SMF topic/post is automagically added, in the category I specify. The SMF post has an excerpt of my WP post (as long as I want it to be, up to full text) and a link back to the WP post.

I can add a link to the WP template which suggests commenting in the forum, and which takes the user directly to that WP post’s thread in SMF.

Problem: If users can’t see the SMF comments for that post, they likely won’t want to go exploring the SMF forum. They’ll use the WP commenting if it’s available, or not comment at all.

Your plugin pulls the most recent posts from all or specified topics or boards in SMF.

I’m after a slight modification, which would require me to insert code in my template to replace the existing comments section. Here’s what I’m looking to do:

Once I publish my new WP post and it has been created in SMF, I find at the bottom of my post a link to the topic with the number of comments (that is, number of SMF posts) on that specific topic. Below this, a modification of your plugin provides excerpts (or full text) of the first, say, 5-10 comments on that specific topic. (Dynamically generated variable.)

All commenting would be carried out in the SMF, but there would be visible “commenting action” shown on the individual WP post pages, enough to draw users into the discussion and leave them wanting more.

Any thoughts on how to get there?

I tried doing this with bbPress (WordPress’s integratable forum software) but it just doesn’t get adequate development attention, and there’s nothing that works to get where I want to be (there once was, but now it’s broken). And I’m a writer, dammit, not a programmer!

This could be a great way to really build community on a website.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  February 27, 2010 at 10:33 am
  
  @JennyD – This line of thought sounds very interesting to build additional internal linking for your blog, but I do not believe the BNS SMF Feeds plugin offers the immediate functionality you are looking for. As you stated:
  
  Your plugin pulls the most recent posts from all or specified topics or boards in SMF.
  
  The plugin cannot manage topic related feeds, it only works to display board and category feeds, the SMF software does not generate a feed expressly for Topics.
  
  Besides the issue above, incorporating the necessary code into a theme as you describe it above would be a significant re-working of the current plugin.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
  - JennyD says:
    
    February 27, 2010 at 1:59 pm
    
    Edward -
    
    I was afraid of that. But I did think SMF allowed a “subscribe to this topic”. Am I wrong?
    
    » Reply to this Comment «
    - Edward Caissie says:
      
      February 27, 2010 at 8:16 pm
      
      @JennyD – There may be a mod that allows for that, but to the best of my knowledge it is not part of the core SMF forum, although I do admit I have not focused on the inner working of the software for some time.
      
      » Reply to this Comment «
Teemu says:

March 26, 2010 at 1:23 pm

Awesome work with this plugin! I love it.

I have two feature requests:
1) I’d like to have “Click here to participate” or similar link at the bottom after topics. It’d be nice to have the ability to change this text to whatever I like from the widget settings

2) There should be an option to remove the RSS-picture and link. I know I can hide them with CSS but removing it would be better

Thanks!

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  March 26, 2010 at 8:21 pm
  
  @Teemu – Thank you for the compliments. I will add your ideas to my suggestions list for this plugin. A couple of related questions:
  
  1) Are you describing a link to the forum in general or the specific link to the topic?
  2) The RSS icon is tied to the feed “Title”, are you suggesting to have just a simple text title that is not linked to anything as the alternative?
  
  Feel free to write these code changes yourself and submit them for inclusion, just use the form on our Contact Us page, or email me directly if you are interested.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Crono says:

May 6, 2010 at 6:13 am

Yes I was curious if there was a way i can shorten the forum titles that shown up in the WP sidebar so they fit one line and if there was a way to better organize how the displayed forum links in the widget are displayed. For example, have each featured forum title right under eachother…no paragraphs.

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  May 6, 2010 at 9:59 am
  
  @Crono – Thanks for choosing the BNS SMF Feeds plugin. As to the details being displayed, by default the plugin only displays the forum post titles. May I suggest reviewing the settings you are using.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Crono says:

May 6, 2010 at 6:15 am

Oh and if there was a way to edit the title itself. It’s centering in the sidebar for me (when all all widgets are aligned to the left) and maybe hide the RSS icon? Check my site for an example (URL is in my name).

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  May 6, 2010 at 10:12 am
  
  @Crono – I would suggest “hiding” the RSS icon and removing the padding to see how that changes your layout. Look at adding additional lines in your style.css file such as these:
```
li.bns-smf-feeds h2 a img {
  display:none;
}
li.bns-smf-feeds h2 a {
  padding-left: 0;
}
```
  » Reply to this Comment «
Crono says:

May 6, 2010 at 7:55 pm

One more question. How do I shorten the forum post summary that is shown in the widget?

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  May 6, 2010 at 10:53 pm
  
  @Crono – Shortening the “description” would require more code than what would be easily presented here. Although it is an interesting idea it is not one that I have any immediate plans to pursue at this time.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Spel says:

May 29, 2010 at 5:04 am

I get an error –
Warning: gzinflate() [function.gzinflate]: data error in D:\xampp\htdocs\Armyblog\wp-includes\http.php on line 1787

[Removed core code sample]

Any idea is where the problem – Plugin works – but above widget i get above mentioned error

Thanks in advance

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  May 29, 2010 at 11:11 am
  
  @Spel – You appear to be using WordPress version 2.8, please update.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Spel says:

May 29, 2010 at 5:18 am

Another one issue –

Is there any option to get slider – I have forum which aggregate lots of new topics whole day (every one connected to our area of interest) – is it possible that for instance I write that I want 200 rss feeds (only names of topics with link to the smf forum), but only first 10-15 will be visible – others will be visible using slider

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  May 29, 2010 at 11:14 am
  
  @Spel – That option does not exist but you are welcome to modify the plugin to add a “slider” if you wish. Feel free to submit the code back to me and I will review it for inclusion into future versions. At this time I do not have plans to add one myself.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Hugo Jesus says:

July 14, 2010 at 1:09 pm

Hi.

I have a wordpress site at http://www.centralcomics.com and a SMF at http://www.centralcomics.com/forum

So, the plugin pulls the WP comments instead of SMF topics.
Why is this happening?

Thanks,
Hugo

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  July 14, 2010 at 5:41 pm
  
  @Jesus – I check the feed from your forums and it appears to be requiring a session_id be part of the feed. Unfortunately the plugin does not include that functionality, yet. Beyond that difference I cannot say why the plugin is returning your comments in place of the forum entries. When I tested it using your forum URL it returned NULL, which is very odd by itself.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Slayer says:

August 2, 2010 at 2:26 am

Hi!

This plugin is really great
i have different website with WP+SMF.. in all i have pick the smf feed (with the ?type=rss%3baction=.xml%3bsa=news string) and in some cases, convert it in feedburner feeds. In both cases, the feeds works perfectly, with an adeguate refresh rate etc, but when i added the feeds in the blog with the WP RSS widget.. i have found some problem with the refresh of the WP widget (missing topic after refresh, and very long time from one refresh to another).

This until 2 days ago

Now, with this plugin all works fine, and i have “eliminated” the standard WP rss widget
Like the user “Crono”, i have removed the little rss icon, because i have already one rss icon in the forum, with the feedburner link.

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  August 2, 2010 at 8:05 am
  
  @Slayer – That’s great to read. I’m glad the plugin is working well for you.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Batman Arkham City says:

August 8, 2010 at 1:23 pm

I have a website at http://batmanarkhamcity.org, with the forum at http://batmanarkhamcity.org/forum.

The plugin seems to be pulling my recent blog posts into it rather than recent forum posts. Any idea on this? Do I need to have my forum and wp site bridged for this to work?

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  August 8, 2010 at 5:32 pm
  
  @BAC – I just tested this on one of my servers and was able to pull in your forum posts correctly.
  
  Please review your setting for the plugin; it appears you are missing the last “/” of the forum address. This will point the rss feed reader back to your own website and you will see your recent posts as you noted.
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Batman Arkham City says:

August 8, 2010 at 8:06 pm

Thanks Ed, that fixed it.

Btw, for anyone looking to get rid of the RSS icon, I just removed the img on line 467 of bns-smf-feeds.php and that did it.

» Reply to this Comment «
- Edward Caissie says:
  
  August 8, 2010 at 9:29 pm
  
  @BAC – You’re welcome! As to removing the RSS image, my preference would be to add a line to the end of the theme style.css file, like this:
```
a.bns-smf-feeds img { display:none; }
```
  That way when the plugin is updated you won’t have to edit it; of course that will not help if the theme you are using is updated …
  
  » Reply to this Comment «
Batman Arkham City says:

August 8, 2010 at 11:45 pm

Thanks Ed, that worked as well! Great plugin you’ve got here!

» Reply to this Comment «