Pligg CMS Forums

liotier · #1 (**permalink**) 07-20-2007, 07:44 PM

A few old friends and I often hang together on our usual IRC channel, and while discussing we like to share links. I took that as a pretext to deploy a small Pligg and play with it. Since I wanted to use it along with the IRC channel I thought it might be a good idea to make Pligg capable of notifying an IRC channel of an upcoming story.

Rumaging through PHP libraries capable of speaking IRC I ended up using Net_SmartIRC which is available in Debian as php-net-smartirc.

The examples packaged with the class are quite good at teaching its use so I soon wrote a small proof-of-concept of notifying an IRC channel from PHP - please note that I rarely code PHP, I am an hobbyist sysadmin with rather basic programming skills in general. The following code is capable of logging on, sending a message and exiting :

PHP Code:

  <?php

include_once('/usr/share/php/Net/SmartIRC.php');

 
$notification_channel = '#my_test_channel';

 
class mynotifier

{

    function notification(&$irc)

    {

        global $notify_once_id;

        global $notification_channel;

        $irc->message(SMARTIRC_TYPE_CHANNEL, $notification_channel, 'Please remain calm, this is a test.');

        $irc->unregisterTimeid($notify_once_id);

    }

 
    function termination(&$irc)

    {

        global $termination_id;

        $irc->quit();

        $irc->unregisterTimeid($termination_id);

    }

}

 
$notifier = &new mynotifier();

$irc = &new Net_SmartIRC();

//$irc->setDebug(SMARTIRC_DEBUG_ALL);

$irc->setUseSockets(TRUE);

 
$notify_once_id = $irc->registerTimehandler(0, $notifier, 'notification');

$termination_id = $irc->registerTimehandler(1, $notifier, 'termination');

 
$irc->connect('irc.eu.freenode.net', 6667);

$irc->login('TestNotifier', 'PHP IRC notification service', '0', 'TestNotifier');

$irc->join(array($notification_channel));

$irc->listen();

$irc->disconnect();

?>

I guess my next step will be splicing it into Pligg for another proof of concept. I tried wedging my code into submit.php but the best I obtained was the behavior of the unpatched submit.php... For now I feel like my ambition has overtaken my compentence...

But I'll keep trying for a while. From skimming the forums it sounds like Pligg has a concept of hooks but I can't quite figure it out. Could any of you tell me more about this and where I can splice my code to see how it works.

If I manage to get it to work I guess it will be a candidate for a plugin, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here...

blast · #2 (**permalink**) 07-23-2007, 11:17 AM

Well, I know that the guys from meneame.net made a few stufs about this :) I'm searching the link right now ;) If I find it, i'll write it ;)

liotier · #3 (**permalink**) 07-25-2007, 04:57 PM

New milestone : I managed to modify submit.php to have it notify a channel when a story is posted. Next step : adding author, title and Pligg URL in the notification. Then I'll post my prototype and a diff.

liotier · #4 (**permalink**) 07-25-2007, 07:47 PM

Done ! Please behold IRC notification by Pligg !

This is a prototype : it works fine for me but you need to overwrite a file from the standard Pligg and edit it with your parameters, and it probably ignores any convention used by those who are familiar with working on Pligg. To reach release quality this functionality should probably be architectured as a Pligg plugin.

To use it, you need to install Net_SmartIRC which is available in Debian as php-net-smartirc. Make sure that the path of that library as declared in my submit.php is correct.

Then you need to edit my submit.php to set connect parameters, login parameters, and the channel. Make a backup of your original submit.php and replace it with mine. That is all !

Please find attached the complete file.

Please tell me if you like it - I need some feedback !

Here is a diff of my submit.php against submit.php from Pligg 9.7 :

PHP Code:

  51a52,96

> // --------------------------------------------------------

> // Begin IRC notification preliminary declarations

> // --------------------------------------------------------

> include_once('/usr/share/php/Net/SmartIRC.php');

> // FIXME The notification channel should of course be set by the user.

> $IRC_notification_channel = '#jimtest';

> class myIRCnotifier

> {

>     function IRC_notification(&$irc)

>     {

>         global $IRC_notify_once_id;

>         global $IRC_notification_channel;

>         global $db;

>         global $URLMethod;

>         $linkres=new Link;

>         $linkres->id=$link_id = strip_tags($_POST['id']);

>         $linkres->read();

>         $IRC_notification_pligg_username = $db->get_var("SELECT user_login FROM " . table_users . " WHERE user_id = $linkres->author");

>         if ($URLMethod == 1) {

>             $IRC_link_url=my_base_url.my_pligg_base."/story.php?id=".$link_id;

>             }

>         if ($URLMethod == 2) {

>             $IRC_link_url=my_base_url.my_pligg_base."/story/".$link_id;

>             }

>         $IRC_notification_message = $IRC_notification_pligg_username. ' posted "' .$linkres->title. '" at ' .$IRC_link_url;

>         $irc->message(SMARTIRC_TYPE_CHANNEL, $IRC_notification_channel, $IRC_notification_message);

>         $irc->unregisterTimeid($IRC_notify_once_id);

>     }

> 

>     function IRC_termination(&$irc)

>     {

>         global $IRC_termination_id;

>         $irc->quit();

>         $irc->unregisterTimeid($IRC_termination_id);

>     }

> }

> $IRCnotifier = &new myIRCnotifier();

> $irc = &new Net_SmartIRC();

> $irc->setUseSockets(TRUE);

> $IRC_notify_once_id = $irc->registerTimehandler(0, $IRCnotifier, 'IRC_notification');

> $IRC_termination_id = $irc->registerTimehandler(1, $IRCnotifier, 'IRC_termination');

> // --------------------------------------------------------

> // End IRC notification preliminary declarations

> // --------------------------------------------------------

> 

66a112,119

>       // Begin IRC notification

>       // FIXME The connect and login parameters should of course be set by the user.

>       $irc->connect('irc.eu.freenode.net', 6667);

>       $irc->login('PliggNotifier', 'Pligg PHP IRC notification service', '0', 'PliggNotifier');

>       $irc->join(array($IRC_notification_channel));

>       $irc->listen();

>       $irc->disconnect();

>       // End IRC notification

liotier · #5 (**permalink**) 07-26-2007, 05:34 AM

I forgot to post the link to the submit.php attachment... Here it is.

dollars5 · #6 (**permalink**) 07-26-2007, 06:00 AM

Great work m8, will try when I find time.. If a live demo is available or if you use it at your site, feel free to share the link that we all can have a sneak peak of it. Looking forward for more contributions from you for the benefit of the Pligg and OSS world.