Hello can Linksql be used as a CMS (content management system) for posting text and image articles (news as an example on news.yahoo.com) ? If so, can you guys please give us an example site that's using links sql as a CMS .....? Thank you much.

Hi,

Yes, indeed Links SQL can be used as a CMS, and you can see some examples here:

http://www.flashkit.com/movies/
http://www.pressbox.co.uk/
http://www.blueskyfootage.com/Categories/

If you need more information, please feel free to let me know.

Jack.
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Jack Ong, C.O.O., Gossamer Threads, Inc.
9th Floor, 100 West Pender, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6B 1R8
Email: <jack@gossamer-threads.com>
Tel: (604) 687-5804 Fax: (604) 687-5806

Hi jack, thanks for the reply.

Well it seems the pressbox.co.uk site has some of the news type publishing. Still, a better designed site would be a neat example. More like the Yahoo site --

http://movies.yahoo.com

http://news.yahoo.com

Notice that Yahoo has categories with templates for each news article on there. Something which is a mix of both sites above is what we want to do on a small scale using our own content.

Is this possible easily ?

Hi,

Yes, it IS possible to replicate the Yahoo site, if you are someone with good html skills or have one such person in your employment. All the features including the image upload and the Reviews are contained within Links SQL by default.

But as for the "easy" part that you mentioned, it's always easy if you have the requisite knowledge, or if you hire someone with the abilities to handle the work. Not knowing your html expertise level, I unfortunately cannot comment on whether or not it will be easy for you.

We do take on custom jobs here at Gossamer Threads, or you can feel free to post a request for one of our Forum regulars to take on a custom job should you wish to go that route.

Do let me know if you have any further questions.

Jack.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack Ong, C.O.O., Gossamer Threads, Inc.
9th Floor, 100 West Pender, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6B 1R8
Email: <jack@gossamer-threads.com>
Tel: (604) 687-5804 Fax: (604) 687-5806

Thanks for the reply again. However I have to see in detail what it entails as then Linksql would then form the basis of our entire site and so I need to make sure it's doable and is stable in this use form.

Could you guys setup a demo site on your site itself that shows off a structure similar to news.Yahoo.com...?

Hi,

Links SQL WILL be stable and CAN handle what you want it to do. We have quite a few clients in this forum itself who will attest to it. news.yahoo.com is built by a corporation with a significant amount of capital behind it and with talented programmers and designers. We can replicate the functionality should you wish to contract with Gossamer Threads to build that custom application for you.

My apologies, but we unfortunately lack the ability to setup a demo for you, due simply to the thinly stretched time resources of the 15 people on staff. I hope you understand.

Jack.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack Ong, C.O.O., Gossamer Threads, Inc.
9th Floor, 100 West Pender, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6B 1R8
Email: <jack@gossamer-threads.com>
Tel: (604) 687-5804 Fax: (604) 687-5806

Does http://www.pressbox.co.uk/ us the standard LINKS SQL ? (I ask this because they have an 'attachment option' in add.cgi, something I didn't see in the demo.)

File uploading is a built-in feature of Links SQL. By default it isn't active, but you can easily enable it by adding a column to your database for file uploads, then adding the field within the form of the add template. These changes can be easily implemented though the admin console.

Sean

Hi cK,

Yes, indeed pressbox is using just a regular installation of Links SQL with detailed pages enabled and as Sean mentioned, with one of the fields in their database to handle File Uploads. If this is what you're looking for in your application, it is part of the default functionality of Links SQL.

Jack.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack Ong, C.O.O., Gossamer Threads, Inc.
9th Floor, 100 West Pender, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6B 1R8
Email: <jack@gossamer-threads.com>
Tel: (604) 687-5804 Fax: (604) 687-5806

I've seen a few examples of people using LinksSQL as a CMS with articles, movie clips etc... which is close to what I'm looking for in a CMS. What I'm putting together is an article system, where I'll have about 10 people writing and uploading articles, which I would then approve. I've seen how this is possible with LinksSQL. What I'll also need, which is very important, is for these articles to be key-word searchable.

Any examples of this? Possible?


Thanks,
Alexia

Hi Alexia,

Searching on the keywords is not going to be an issue for Links SQL, in fact, you can specify any field you wish in the database for the program to search upon.

If you take a look at:

http://www.fanimenation.com/pages/

and input this search term into the search box: kamehameha

You'll see a return of some records after a search in the "Description" field. It's a 2-click operation to add the "Keywords" field to this search, and to remove the "Description" field from being searched upon is not a problem either.

Jack.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack Ong, C.O.O., Gossamer Threads, Inc.
9th Floor, 100 West Pender, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6B 1R8
Email: <jack@gossamer-threads.com>
Tel: (604) 687-5804 Fax: (604) 687-5806

Thanks for the quick reply, Jack.

My apologies, for I think I worded my question wrong. I don't want to search the keyword column for an entry. I'd like to be able to do keyword searches on the documents that are stored within LinksSQL.

I envision a listing of links to articles stored within the LinksSQL db. Each link will have a short description explaining what the article is about. When someone does the standard search, each articles description, as well as (and more importantly) the complete article is searched to determine weather it is a match.

Thanks,
Alexia

Hi Alexia,

If those articles are stored as text within fields in the Links SQL database, then it won't be a problem to search the data contained in those fields. But if you're speaking of searching the contents of articles uploaded in .doc format for example, that would entail quite a bit of work and might be prohibitively expensive. We might be in excess of 25 hours of work to get this functionality. But if you were to copy and paste the articles' contents into the database, searching on the data won't be an issue.

Jack.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack Ong, C.O.O., Gossamer Threads, Inc.
9th Floor, 100 West Pender, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6B 1R8
Email: <jack@gossamer-threads.com>
Tel: (604) 687-5804 Fax: (604) 687-5806

Thsi topic has been discussed before in this forum:

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/...string=Evoir;#135114
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Buh Bye!

Cheers,
Me

there could be a hybrid situation.

The text of the document could be stored in Links, but the formatted .doc/pdf/etc document could be stored on disk as an attachment.

If the"has_attach" field is checked, rather than serving the internal document, the attachment is offered up. This could be a simple <%if%> statement.

At that point, the text field could be indexed, normally.

During a build, or as a function of jump.cgi, you could check the on-disk attachment date, and the date of import, and if it was found to be older, use one of the filters to reconstruct and import the text, or send the admin a note that the index might need to be updated.

This solution would require a bit of grunt work, but is not terrible expensive in terms of labor hours or maintennence, depending on how often the on-disk documents change.

Actually, the logic here is what I was using for image/document upload in my attachment system <sigh>. There was a hook to see if a plugin was available for conversion or stats, and if not, the default process was used. If there was, the control was routed to the plug in for stats generation/processing or whatever.

"has_attach" was the field used to indicate the jump, and it contained an integer value. 0 was no, a number greater than zero was the number of attachments.


PUGDOG� Enterprises, Inc.

The best way to contact me is to NOT use Email.
Please leave a PM here.

Another solution: create another (seperate) field and input keywords for that article. Have LSQL search on that field and it should tuen up results that are related to that pdf or whatever.