We want to use our LinksSQL not as a links directory, but as a collection of articles that will be added into the description.

1] How can I set it up so that our 'hits' reflect how many times the 'detailed' page has been read, and so it picks up which are "cool"?

2] How can I limit the number of characters of the description shown on the category page? I'd love to have it so that only about 200 characters of the article (or so) show up on the category page, but when they click the detailed link, it shows the entire article

Thanks so much!

1) on your category pages you can link to the detailed page as follows:

jump.cgi?Detailed=<%ID%>;

Then everytime somebody clicks on the link, hits will be increased by one.

2) you could add a new field "full_text", that stores your article. In the "description" field, you would just put (manually) the first few lines of the article. On the category page, you would then show "Description" and on the detailed page, you show "full_text".

Ivan
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Iyengar Yoga Resources / GT Plugins

jump.cgi?Detailed=1&d=1 and I also tried
jump.cgi?Detailed=1;&d=1[/url]

Any more suggestions?

Do you have detailed pages turned on?

You need to go to admin>setup>build options and select build detailed pages.