What do I need?
What is a HFD file?
A HFD file is a file with the .HFD extension and is known by HotTopic. It describe where and how to find your forum.
Example of a HFD file
[General]
FileVersion=1.2
Title=GoT
Color=#000000
URL=http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/
XMLURL=http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/hottopic_xml/100
UserProfileURL=http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/user_profile/%userid%
[Forum]
RegEx=gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_topics/(\d*)(\D|$)
RegExResult=1
URL=gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_topics/%forumid%
[Topic]
ShortURL=http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_messages/%topicid%
LongURL=http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_messages/%topicid%/%lastpage%#%lastmessageid%
RegEx=gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_messages/(\d*)(\D|$)
RegExResult=1
FirstPageNumber=0
Explanation of the HFD file
| General section | |
|---|---|
| FileVersion | Version of the HFD file, HotTopic 2 currently can read version 1.1 and 1.2, but 1.2 has better support. |
| Title | Title of the forum. This must be a unique value for HotTopic. |
| Color | HTML color for displaying purposes. |
| URL | URL of the forum. |
| XMLURL | URL of the XML file. Read bellow for an explanation of the XML file. |
| UserProfileURL | URL of a forum member profile. %userid% will be replaced whit a member id. |
| Forum section | |
| RegEx | Regular expression for a sub-forum. |
| RegExResult | Index of the regular expression match, the first index is 1. |
| BaseURL | URL for a sub-forum. %forumid% will be replaced by the forum id. |
| Topic section | |
| ShortURL | URL for opening a topic. %topicid% will be replaced by the topic id. %lastmessageid% will be replaced by the last reply message id. %subforumid% will be replaced by the sub-forum id. %lastreplierid% will be replaced by the replier user id. %lastpage% will be replaced by the last page number. %repliesperpage% will be replaced by the user setting replies per page |
| LongURL | Same replacements as ShortURL, but used for opening extended topic urls. |
| RegEx | Regular expression for a topic. |
| RegExResult | Index of the regular expression match, the first index is 1. |
| FirstPageNumber | The first page number of a topic |
What is a XML file?
It's a file on the Internet where active topics can be identified. An example of an XML file:
http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/hottopic_xml
The fields that are required are: id, title en replies. If HotTopic can't find a field, then this will not be used. Of course, the best thing to do is to fill out all the fields, so HotTopic can cooperate to the fullest with your forum.
URL parameters and caching
While picking up the XML file, HotTopic sends a timestamp of the last synchronisation in the URL. This is being done thru the "lastrefresh" parameter. This way its possible to filter certain topics, so it won't keep sending the same data. This is especialy easy for forums which aren't busy and users that surf the Internet using a slow connection. It saves a lot of bandwidth.
An example URL which HotTopic could open:
http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/hottopic_xml/100?lastrefresh=1025011968
Here, the UNIX timestamp of the last synchronization is 1025011968.
If the XML file is downloaded particularly often and your web browser is having problems with this, you have the option of caching the XML file. This means that u save the XML file on the server and checks with each request that the cache file is up-to-date.
Still have questions?
Pleas contact me on the following address: info@hottopic.nl.
Attention:
It's not permitted to host or change copies of HotTopic without permission of the HotTopic team, except for the Linux version, which you are encouraged to mirror, use and hack upon.