Hi all,

Over the weekend I upgraded the forum software in 2 steps from v3.5.5 to 3.6.4. The new 3.6 point release brings a number of enhancements together with bug and security fixes. If you would like to see which features are new to this release please visit the vbulletin site at: vBulletin 3.6 features (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=186803)

One of the more exciting new features is the possibility to automatically import RSS feeds into the forum. This allows posts to be created on the fly as news trickles in. I am open to suggestions on whether or not to use this feature and which RSS feeds you think are useful for Baanboard members. You can read more about the RSS poster feature here: RSS Poster Bot (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1138579#post1138579)

As usual: please report any problems or anomalies you may find to boardmaster@baanboard.com or else in this thread.

Hi all,

I have decided to do a little experiment using the new 'RSS auto-feed' feature. A new forum News Feeds has been created that will automatically receive the latest headlines from following syndicated sites:


BBC Technology
The Register


This new forum is however not by default visible to all members. Instead it will only be visible to members who are part of the Newsreader usergroup. Anybody can join this usergroup from their User Control Panel:

User CP (http://www.baanboard.com/baanboard/usercp.php) > Group Memberships (under 'Miscellaneous') > Join the 'Newsreader' group.

Until you are a member of the 'Newsreader' usergroup you will not see the forum, nor the posts within, nor will these posts show up in your search results when checking for New Posts.

To avoid clutter I have also decided not to include any of these post in the general search index. Members of the 'Newsreader' usergroup are however allowed to reply to any of the RSS posts but will not be able to create any new threads in the 'News Feeds' forum.

Give it a whirl and see if it adds to your Baanboard experience :)

Note: members of the 'Newsreader' usergroup who do not wish to see the RSS posts in their New Posts screen, can easily avoid this by first marking all posts in News Feeds forum as read. The easiest way to do this is to use the AJAX shortcut by double-clicking on the new post indicator for the forum (see 4th screenshot).