Only one wishlist, that would be a small script that would allow us to use a index.shtml page that would display the categories through an exec ssi tag, so that the larger directoreis don't have to rebuild all the pages everytime you want to make a simple change to the home page.

Just my wish.
Harrison

"I've got if's pretty good, but that's about it"

If you want to make a simple change to the Links homepage between builds, it's quite easy to just download the index page, change the HTML/text, upload it, and set permissions if need be. Probably takes less time then running a partial build, and definitely less time than building it into the program.

Dan

Why not use page.cgi, and hard-code the path names so they are not re-directed through page.cgi again (don't use <%dbi_cgi_url%> and such. You'll have a dynamic front page, but the rest of the site would be static.

Or, you could use a modification of the category_sidebar.inc mod I posted awhile back to generate the top_category.inc file (a list of all categories at level 0) and then include that via an SSI.

Depends on the needs of the site.

http://www.postcards.com
FAQ: http://www.postcards.com/FAQ/LinkSQL/

It would probably be easier to just start a new file, rather then modding page.cgi - which has a lot of stuff in it you wouldn't use if you are only using it on one page...

Using PHP would be easier then Perl for something like this as well - This is the sort of thing where I think that PHP is better then Perl at. Getting all the categories and printing them on the screen is fairly easy to do in both languages anyway ;)

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Found the easiest solution of them all, hard code the category links into the index.shtml page, since the main 14 categories don't change, I can make changes to the index.shtml page as much as I like now that the categories are hard coded into the page, then also save it as home.html in the templates directory so if I do a build between updating the front page, it will stay the same.

Cordially,
Harrison

"I've got if's pretty good, but that's about it"

The problem with hard coding, is you don't have the option of the "new" flags, or link counts.

http://www.postcards.com
FAQ: http://www.postcards.com/FAQ/LinkSQL/

Yup, very true, though I pulled that out early on before this particular situation arose, because I absolutely hate seeing the New icon, words, etc on the home page, I think from a design stand point it looks tacky and amateurish.

Now now, boys and girls, please don't start flaming me for my opinions, they are just that, my opinion.

The only site that I have seen do this that is considered a major site now, is google, yahoo doesn't do it, well, they use a new icon in different places but never on their home page, nor do they use the counting mechanism, I think it's bad form to begin with that people use the counts because they have 5,000 categories but only a handfull of them have anything in them. They then use the count as a crutch so that people know not to click on a particular link since it wont contain any information.

Anyway, you are right, you do lose the new and count if you hardcode.

Harrison


"I've got if's pretty good, but that's about it"

I would imagine one of the reasons most major directories do not have "new" on their main page is that there is something new in every single one of their main categories every day.

It doesn't really convey any useful information if every link has "new" after it.

I'm not saying it's a good or bad design decision, I'm just suggesting that the fact that large directories don't use it doesn't really enter into it.

Lloyd Sommerer