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New Beta Available!

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New Beta Available!
You should have all received an email by now(well actually two, the first one is a mistake). Here's a summary of the new features for those who don't yet have Links SQL. I'll update the website hopefully tommorrow. If you have any comments about a feature, please post it to a new thread, as this one will be kind of long. =)

New Features in 1.1b2:
=======================================================================
* NEW SEARCH ENGINE
The search engine now supports Altavista style searching. You
can use +word, -word, "some phrase", +"some phrase", -"some phrase" or
any combination. The indexing is noticeably slower then before, but this
is required to get phrase searching. It does have some limitations
though. It requires a lot of memory for large sites (>= 128 MB of ram),
and it will only work if words have spaces between them (so this means
it won't work for Big 5 or GB encoding). We have included a
search-ni.cgi which is an alternative for those who don't like the
search index.

* FILE ATTACHMENT
If you specify a user or link upload directory, Links SQL will
now automatically allow the admin to attach one or more files to the
record. This is still in the early stages of usefulness, as currently
there isn't an easy way to access this except from within the admin. I
plan on making the filename available in the template.

* ENHANCED SETUP.CGI
There is now a setup.cgi which you can run from telnet or from
the web that will check for common problems (missing modules, etc). It
will also handles tasks such as creating the Links SQL tables, dropping
the tables, and re-creating the .def files. Let me know what you think.

* IMPROVED EDITOR INTEGRATION.
When someone is logged in, all the user fields are now available
in the template. This means you can do something like:

<%if User%>
Welcome <%User%>, Your password is <%Pass%>
<%endif%>

I've also added an <%isEditor%> tag. This means you can do:

<%if isEditor%>
<a href="<%db_cgi_url%>/maintain.cgi?modify_form=1&modify=<%ID%>">Edit</a>
<%endif%>

ifEditor will be true if the person is logged in and is an editor of the
current category. This is designed so you can put edit/delete marks
beside each link, or perhaps add a form at the bottom of a category that
is only displayed for a logged in editor.

See the default template link.html for an example.

* COMPRESS OUTPUT
There is a new option in Links.pm to compress the output. This
will remove all excess whitespace from the output of load_template. This
reduced file size of a category page for 15%, and when you are dealing
with 10,000 categories, it really adds up. =)

* FASTER STAT BUILDING
I rewrote the build_stats() in nph-build.cgi. This should be
considerably faster, and it does more too! It may introduce some
oddities though, so let me know if you see things like missing
categories, etc.

New Features in 1.1b1:
=======================================================================
* USER SIGNUP
You can maintain a user database. There is now a user.cgi which
allows users to register. There is an option to require validation which
means the user is emailed a validation code and then must enter that
code before being approved. Currently the only real use for users is to
make them section editors (see below). A user based review/comment
system is now a relatively easy addon. =)

* SECTION EDITORS
You can make someone a section editor. This means they are able
to add/delete/modify and approve links in a specific category (plus all
subcategories). It is still a little bare, and I'd welcome any feedback
on how to improve it.

* 3 LEVEL OF NEW
<%Days_Old%> is now available in both link.html and
subcategory.html to till how many days old a link is (or the newest link
in case of subcategory.html). NOTE: these are off by default and must be
turned on by editing HTML_Templates.pm as they had considerable
overhead.

* ENHANCED LINK CHECKER
The link checker was given a complete overhaul. It now let's you
check links that have never been checked, only bad ones, only ones that
haven't been checked in past n days, etc. It saves all link status, as
well as a full history of link status. This allows you to easily view a
links history and delete it based on that. The new checker also runs in
parallel and should be considerably faster then before.

Note: For large sites, it is not practical to use the checker from the
web browser, you will need to run it from telnet and let it go.
Alternatively, have it setup to run automatically every night (checking
links that haven't been checked in last 7 days).

* DYNAMIC PAGE VIEWS
You can now view the directory dynamically using the page.cgi
script. This is useful for previewing your template changes without
rebuilding. The page.cgi script also allows you to specify alternate
templates. This means you can brand your content in several different
views. For example:

Normal: http://gossamer-threads.com/perl/links/page.cgi
Yahoo: http://gossamer-threads.com/...nks/page.cgi?t=yahoo
Snap: http://gossamer-threads.com/...inks/page.cgi?t=snap
AltaVista: http://gossamer-threads.com/.../links/page.cgi?t=av

(By the way, these template sets have been included in the
distribution, if you want to use them as a base for your site).

* ENHANCED CATEGORY NAME SUPPORT
If you have a lot of categories, using the drop down lists for
categories is not usable. You can now set db_gen_category_list = 0 in
Links.pm and then enter in the category name or the category ID anywhere
you would normally be presented with a drop down list. Previously, you
were forced to enter in the category id.

* KEYWORD LOGGING
All searches are now logged in a table. You can view what people
are using to search, and how many results each search took. This is
available under Keywords under the building menu in the admin.

* ALTAVISTA STYLE TOOLBAR
You can now use <%next_span%> to get a 1 2 3 >> type toolbar
instead of those next and prev page. See the category.html template as
an example.

* RANDOM NUMBER FOR BANNERS
You can now use <%random%>, <%random1%>, <%random2%>,
<%random3%> to generate random numbers for your banner programs.

* SUBCATEGORY TEMPLATIZED
There is now a subcategory.html template that is used to display
a subcategory. There is also an option in Links.pm to set how many
columns you want your subcategories to be displayed in.

* ENHANCED TEMPLATE PARSER
You can now use comparison tests:
<%if Var > 10%>
..
<%endif%>
as well as run subroutines
Quote Reply
Re: New Beta Available! In reply to
me no got them emails

jerry

(it's bad grammer day Smile)
Quote Reply
Re: New Beta Available! In reply to
Me neither.