Hi,

I've been using the standard links v2 for a while now and have considered expanding qango.com to qango.co.uk as well. I'm thinking of buying Links SQL for the UK & Ireland directory and have a few questions.

I've moved to a new host that offers MySQL as part of the package and a lot more webspace, so I now have the room to expand to the SQL version.

I'm going to need some more cash before proceeding, but wondered about a few things:

The price for links SQL includes installation, is it something I could do for myself (I've installed standard links sucessfully a few times now)?

I've never used templates, rather edited site_html.pl to customise. Could I still do that with Links SQL?

I appreciate that its a slightly different set of scripts and the admin looks quite a bit more comprehensive, what are the main differences between the two from an operational/admin point of view?

With regard to mod_perl. My new host mentions this in the package details, but what is it and why do I get the feeling it speeds things up?


Sorry to drone on, but I like to plan things and want to get as much info as possible before proceeding.

Thanks in advance for any replies.


All the best
Shaun

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Shaun Hague
Webmaster - Qango.com
http://www.qango.com/central/

 I asked the same question, and the answer is basically no, for a variety of reasons.
Links SQL is all templates based.
You can actually verify links! Speed of light searches, super easy to add fields and change sort orders, etc.

It's a very worthwhile investment, in my opinion.

Dan

I installed Links SQL 1.0 myself, and at that time had never used SQL before, and had just installed that, so in a few hours I was able to get MySQL _and_ Links SQL working.

The new installation of Links SQL is quite easy. If you know _anything_ about how to install programs, and MySQL you should be able to do it.

1) Set up a database called whatever you want, "Links" is the default, I believe.

2) Untar/zip the package into the cgi-bin directory tree. Set the directory defaults and program defaults -- 755 on the .cgi programs in the main, admin and setup directories. Change the directory permission to 777 for the defs and backup directory.

3) create the public directory in your server tree, the default is /links/pages . Set the permissions to 777 for the pages directory.

4) edit the Links.pm file to reflect your server default paths and urls.

5) run the ..../admin/setup/setup.cgi program and enter the required information

6) create the databases, recreate the def files for S&G's and click the "admin" button, and you are in the Links admin screen to enter your categories and do a test run.

That's it (unless I've missed something so extremely obvious it goes without mentioning!

Check the FAQ for some reasons and benefits of upgrading -- I haven't added new items for awhile (just no time) but those were some of the earlier entries.

The difference between the two is you have to train yourself to think in terms of SQL databases, tables and data calls. Everything you do is a database record, and you can access it from different programs, and in many different ways. The upshoot is you start to create a lot more fields, and even tables, to hold more data, and get into the customizing quite a bit.

It's _ALL_ template based -- even the subcategories now have a template you can use to format them like links.html.

There are some suggestions I posted, and I think a few others did, on how to simplify the templates, and distill them down to even a few if you want to program a bit.

You can have DYNAMIC page generation, so you can not use much webspace, use more cpu, but have a dynamic site that is all cgi generated, and users can pick or change their templates, or you can even change templates on the fly.

From a purely operational standpoint, you need to look at how related categories and alt categories are used, there are differences. The search.cgi is powerful, but has a few logic bugs that have been pointed out here in the forum.

Because it's SQL based, most modifications, as you can see by the flurry of posts, can be done simply, and efficiently by people with basic knowledge, and limited experience. The more experience you get, the more complex your mods can be--- but really, the more your experience, the SIMPLER your mods are, because you push most of the work off to existing subroutines and to the SQL engine itself.

You will probably need to run the SQL version next to your 2.0 version for several weeks if you've made some major modifications, just so you can port over all the minor tweaks and changes you've made. But once you do, you can re-import your 2.0 database, change your directory names, and be up and running!

Once you get away from flat (files) you'll never go back! There is much, much less chance of corruption in the SQL database, much more speed, efficiency, etc. Even when you add 30 fields to the links records!

Also, mod_perl will make things hum along faster than you imagined! If you had a 10,000+ link database and/or one that is very active, you'll notice the differences immediately. Smaller less active databases that were run on fast ISP's will notice it less (like I ran my own serves, and my change over of a 500 link database shaved a few seconds off the time).... other people have cut their times greatly.



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POSTCARDS.COM -- Everything Postcards on the Internet www.postcards.com
LinkSQL FAQ: www.postcards.com/FAQ/LinkSQL/

Thanks for the advice - I'm hooked already!

I'll be back in a while when I've saved up enough pennies to splash out and get SQL'd


All the best
Shaun

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Shaun Hague
Webmaster - Qango.com
http://www.qango.com/central/

Installation is easy provided you, or your ISP have correctly installed Mysql, DBI, DBD::mysql and have given you a database with the proper login/password. You'd be surprised how many misconfigured systems there are out there.

That's the main reason we do installations, as issues like that are tough to figure out for the newcomer, where we can spot problems
very quickly.

As for mod_perl, _no_ host I know of offers this on a virtual host level, only with dedicated servers. I'd be astonished if someone actually did this.

Cheers,

Alex

Alex,

I hope I didn't come across discounting the provided installation! That's a MAJOR selling point for _most_ people!

But, like me, some people are impatient, and have their own servers, and might want to give it a shot first. In that case, it's not that hard to install! Actually, your new installation script makes it a breeze.

As long as the server is configured properly, but as I said too, I did it all my self as a newbie to MySQL, SQL, Links SQL, etc, and it all worked <G> Except for a few questions since it was the 1.0 release.

The biggest problem I ran into was forgetting to re-start MySQL every time I changed permissions, passwords or userIDs.

Oh no, not at all. I just didn't want to scare people into thinking that it was very hard to setup, it's really not. The main issues are with webhosts who aren't setup correctly (and their are a _lot_ of them out there).

I would encourage people to try it out themselves, and learn something about mysql/databases, it's very useful, but definately not essential.

Cheers,

Alex