The installation file along with the installation scripts can get the program installed.
What you are asking for is more of a design manual. Links SQL is a complicated program, and I was able to get the version 1.0 up and running (knowing nothing about MySQL and SQL) in a few hours. Of course I learned more along the way. Now, I can clone an installation on my server in about 20 minutes, including editing the various defaults files for my templates.
A well written program doesn't need a manual, it is self documenting. Links is not quite self documenting, but there are clues that that will change in the next release as well.
Because Links is a commercial script, that comes with installation as part of the package, there is no need for complicated -- and potentially erroneous -- installation manuals. Alex is the manual, and installs it, and makes sure all the things that can go wrong are taken care of. Once that's done, the necessary information is in the scripts and in MySQL's 'mysql' table. The basics are provided, and if you need to make changes, you need to either look at the code or use the forum.
I'm not saying a manual wouldn't help in some cases, that's why I tried to start the FAQ to index the questions. I'm 2 months behind, but it will catch up one day.
The thing is that Links SQL is a simple program. Once it's installed, it runs with a few mouse clicks.
The "problems" occur only when you try to make changes to it -- and Alex can't really be expected to deal with all of the potential problems and pitfalls of that. That's why there's this forum, and a core of people who can answer questions and who keep hacking away at it -- documenting their steps so others have some tracks to follow if you want to do the same thing.
In that way, a Links Manual would be very small. Granted, a "Developers Guide" would be much more helpful... and that is in the works, sort of. The first step is catching up with the FAQ and threads.
To answer your other question if I'm available -- I have very limited time, and I have to charge for that. I'm not cheap. And I do mean that. I value my time, and that's what I have to sell. (Also, my partners have a value on it I can't undercut.) As you've noticed, I don't charge for code or software changes. It's just the way I look at it. I buy commercial software when I see that it will save me "time" over doing it myself -- and the core Links engines do that. I've rewritten much of the .cgi stuff over the past few months to do what I need and want.
I read the forum here often multiple times a day, though, sometimes I'll miss a day or two before catching up, but I don't have much time to take on outside projects. I do this in the little free time I have, and because sometimes I get an idea that makes sense for what I'm trying to do.
Maybe once school is out Jerry will be back, and as a teenager, he has more "free" time. He might be able to take on projects. The obvious point here is that there is a big opening for Links SQL programmers, but anyone willing to invest time into that will find bluer horizons in the general workplace with SQL and CGI and PERL.
I'm here because I'm developing my site/business in Links SQL, and I don't feel it's the software that makes us special. It's our content, so I don't have to jealously guard any "trade secrets", and the more I think through other people's problems, the better solutions I come up with for my own. I firmly believe in the Open Source movement, since that's how I see the future (and I'm an old-time hacker/programmer from the pre-Windows/M$ days).
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