I know there have been several threads on this, and I posted some ideas a few weeks back, but today I got two inquiries, and I'll address this.
I have addressed many parts of this in different scripts/programs I have written getting my sites back up, but it's a matter of putting it into one place, and making it user-friendly.
I can have a program out in a few days to a week, if there is interest, and that means $$. I hate to do this this way, but many (most) of you are familiar with my situation currently, and if I take this sort of diversion from what I have to do, I need something tangible to offset the panic that will set in. Seriously, we've had our new servers up for 2 months, and I still don't have all my sites back on-line, and there are still broken things in several that are -- all because my ISP "forgot" about our backups.... Anyway.
I have parts of this done for another project, and there will of course be upgrades:
1) When a link is uploaded, it can have an expiration date set by the admin (hard limit) or the user can pick a date either x-days in the future or on a specific date. This code needs a lot of tweaking for the finer points, but the basics -- 30, 60, 90 and "on" dates are there.
2) A cron job expires the links by checking the expire-on date to the current system date. It sets the Expired field to 1/Yes. I use that field to decide to show the links or not. (It could also set isValidated to _No_)
3) I can add in a mail feature that will mail link owners at say 15 and 0 days their link is expiring/expired. The cron job will manage that.
Admin features are lacking at this point, since the basics are what I concentrated on. The expire date shows up in the standard admin editor.
Before I commit, what other features would you want in this first release?
Other things built in, or considered, are in this post: http://www.gossamer-threads.com/...orum.cgi?post=183632
How are you managing payments for the ads?
Is this a subcategory for ads, or is the the whole Links installation with expire dates?
Caveats - the search and links counts are not accurate, since the only flag field Links uses is isValidated, and this would need to also check isExpired. I _hope_ alex is still considering the various shemes and plans to be able to add additional user flags to the system :) This _could_ be fixed somewhat by also setting _isValidated_ to "No"
Feature Addition: If there is sufficient interest past the basics, the best way to manage this in the current links system, is to create a new table for holding "expired" or pending ads. When an ad expires, it's removed from the Links database, and inserted into the "expired" table. The LinkID can be preserved, and re-inserted into the old database, or it can be assigned a new ID. But, the main key on this table would be the Username/LinkOwner field. A link owner could pull up a list of their expired ads, and resubmit the ones they wanted. Because Links is only managing "new" and "active" ads, the benefits of this sort of system start to become pretty obvious.
Feature Addition: The big one is "modify"/renew or edit the ad. Simple renew, without edit is easier, but once the ad is changed, it would need to be re-validated (or are you auto-validating ads?)
The interface issues are more of a problem than the management code, so "time" is a real factor in designing this.
The down and dirty - I need a show of hands as to interest. That means who would purchase this mod if it was set at $75 with free upgrades, but I could have it out in 10 days (or say a week from this friday) (give myself some breathing room). I could probably have a beta out by friday, that would let you start taking in ads, but managing them would have to be from the standard admin or MySQL man directly, until I got the edit code done.
I don't want to see the hands here in the forum :) Please send me a private message here, (the best way) or an email to my listed email address (not so good, as my mail client is having heart failure). I really need 4-5 people willing to pay for this before I can commit to it. (or one person willing to fund the whole thing, I guess).
DO POST suggestions or features here, since it's easier to plan for them from the start than to back hack them in.
Other things being worked on:
1) updating the existing plug ins, I still need to get the 2.1 versions on-line.
2) Image/File upload - I have a set of steps to get basic file handling working in Links, but the multiple attachment system is still being re-done for 2.1. I posted a thread asking for comments from people using the current built in system. I'm back to pretty much my original release schedule, if you substitute 2002 for 2001 <G>.
3) postcards.cgi is working, and available for purchase. It can accept any URL as the image url, so you don't need a modified copy of Links to run a postcards directory in one subcategory -- just add an"Image" field to your Link record, and pass that to the program.
4)... other stuff.
Anyway, I got two requests/iquiries today on the xpiration mod, so I thought I'd post this offer.
I know there is at least one, maybe 2 other similar plugins in the works, maybe they'll be finished first.
PUGDOG� Enterprises, Inc.
The best way to contact me is to NOT use Email.
Please leave a PM here.
I have addressed many parts of this in different scripts/programs I have written getting my sites back up, but it's a matter of putting it into one place, and making it user-friendly.
I can have a program out in a few days to a week, if there is interest, and that means $$. I hate to do this this way, but many (most) of you are familiar with my situation currently, and if I take this sort of diversion from what I have to do, I need something tangible to offset the panic that will set in. Seriously, we've had our new servers up for 2 months, and I still don't have all my sites back on-line, and there are still broken things in several that are -- all because my ISP "forgot" about our backups.... Anyway.
I have parts of this done for another project, and there will of course be upgrades:
1) When a link is uploaded, it can have an expiration date set by the admin (hard limit) or the user can pick a date either x-days in the future or on a specific date. This code needs a lot of tweaking for the finer points, but the basics -- 30, 60, 90 and "on" dates are there.
2) A cron job expires the links by checking the expire-on date to the current system date. It sets the Expired field to 1/Yes. I use that field to decide to show the links or not. (It could also set isValidated to _No_)
3) I can add in a mail feature that will mail link owners at say 15 and 0 days their link is expiring/expired. The cron job will manage that.
Admin features are lacking at this point, since the basics are what I concentrated on. The expire date shows up in the standard admin editor.
Before I commit, what other features would you want in this first release?
Other things built in, or considered, are in this post: http://www.gossamer-threads.com/...orum.cgi?post=183632
How are you managing payments for the ads?
Is this a subcategory for ads, or is the the whole Links installation with expire dates?
Caveats - the search and links counts are not accurate, since the only flag field Links uses is isValidated, and this would need to also check isExpired. I _hope_ alex is still considering the various shemes and plans to be able to add additional user flags to the system :) This _could_ be fixed somewhat by also setting _isValidated_ to "No"
Feature Addition: If there is sufficient interest past the basics, the best way to manage this in the current links system, is to create a new table for holding "expired" or pending ads. When an ad expires, it's removed from the Links database, and inserted into the "expired" table. The LinkID can be preserved, and re-inserted into the old database, or it can be assigned a new ID. But, the main key on this table would be the Username/LinkOwner field. A link owner could pull up a list of their expired ads, and resubmit the ones they wanted. Because Links is only managing "new" and "active" ads, the benefits of this sort of system start to become pretty obvious.
Feature Addition: The big one is "modify"/renew or edit the ad. Simple renew, without edit is easier, but once the ad is changed, it would need to be re-validated (or are you auto-validating ads?)
The interface issues are more of a problem than the management code, so "time" is a real factor in designing this.
The down and dirty - I need a show of hands as to interest. That means who would purchase this mod if it was set at $75 with free upgrades, but I could have it out in 10 days (or say a week from this friday) (give myself some breathing room). I could probably have a beta out by friday, that would let you start taking in ads, but managing them would have to be from the standard admin or MySQL man directly, until I got the edit code done.
I don't want to see the hands here in the forum :) Please send me a private message here, (the best way) or an email to my listed email address (not so good, as my mail client is having heart failure). I really need 4-5 people willing to pay for this before I can commit to it. (or one person willing to fund the whole thing, I guess).
DO POST suggestions or features here, since it's easier to plan for them from the start than to back hack them in.
Other things being worked on:
1) updating the existing plug ins, I still need to get the 2.1 versions on-line.
2) Image/File upload - I have a set of steps to get basic file handling working in Links, but the multiple attachment system is still being re-done for 2.1. I posted a thread asking for comments from people using the current built in system. I'm back to pretty much my original release schedule, if you substitute 2002 for 2001 <G>.
3) postcards.cgi is working, and available for purchase. It can accept any URL as the image url, so you don't need a modified copy of Links to run a postcards directory in one subcategory -- just add an"Image" field to your Link record, and pass that to the program.
4)... other stuff.
Anyway, I got two requests/iquiries today on the xpiration mod, so I thought I'd post this offer.
I know there is at least one, maybe 2 other similar plugins in the works, maybe they'll be finished first.
PUGDOG� Enterprises, Inc.
The best way to contact me is to NOT use Email.
Please leave a PM here.