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DirtSearch v3

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DirtSearch v3
Robert Sammoms sent out an email on his list today about dirtsearch 3.0 (links 2 in php3)...and it seems that mostly all the mods in this forum for links will be integrated into dirtsearch using php3
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DirtSearch Help and Information - http://www.dirtdobber.net

As I work to develop Version 3.0, I've put an in progress script on my
website. It's located at http://www.dirtdobber.net/ds31/ Feel free to
visit and check out the progress as it goes along. Once I get more on the
administrative scripts, I'll open that up to you as well. Keep in mind, not
everything there will work at this time.....I think most of it works as
DirtSearch 2.0 except for the modify scripts which should be working
tonight. I'm taking a different approach to this in that if a user wants to
modify his/her site, they will need the username and password they used when
adding it. I am also going to allow a user to add more than one site under
the same username combination so they can update all their sites at once, or
manage them easily within the engine. With that, the username will also be
their webmail account if you have that activated (and once that portion is
working). Some of the things I've added that you will be able to see once I
get the admin section up and running is that there are now easily set
variables for:

days to keep something listed as new
hits required for a site to be popular
number of listings to list in the high flyers section
number of links to return on each page by default
ability to have subcategories listed as links under main categories instead
of the description, or use the description as always
ability to force someone to be in a category to add a site, or allow the
user to add a site from anywhere on the engine

still in the works:

comments section (with the rating, a user can add comments)
detail page (for reviews, etc.)
banner ad program integrated into the engine
more levels of new sites
allow mass e-mails of new sites or site information
webmail
language translation template packages
ability to build static pages or use dynamic search pages
and more!

If you have any comments/questions about what you see, please let me know.
If there are any parse errors, database errors, etc. on anything other than
the modify section at this time, please let me know. I do already know
about the cookie problem on the vote, that should be fixed soon as well.

Thanks,
Robert

All I know is that once dirtsearch comes out...it's going to blow away links....especially since it will be able to use all sql databases including flat text...and it's free! Smile
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Re: DirtSearch v3 In reply to
 
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All I know is that once dirtsearch comes out...it's going to blow away links....especially since it will be able to use all sql databases including flat text...and it's free!

offtopic in this forum, it doesn't deal with (links/mods) if you say the mods are being made to an engine that will blow links away. Its competing against Links.

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LookHard Search
lookhard.hypermart.net
Lavon Russell

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Re: DirtSearch v3 In reply to
And please don't tell me I posted the above in the wrong forum since it has *something* to do with mods for links Smile

I think..... Smile
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Re: DirtSearch v3 In reply to
In terms of performance, probably... but then again, the only real-time DB manipulation (at least on my site) is with search and rate/review, so the gains for the core directory engine will likely be marginal...

In terms of feature/functionality, not likely. Links has become one of the most feature-rich platforms I've ever seen because of the active user community. No one man can create/re-create all the mods available...

In terms of price, Links is free for non-commercial sites. And if you are running a commercial site, you've already paid for Links, so its a sunk cost, right???

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The Immuatable Order of Modding
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1. Read the FAQ, 2. Search the board, 2a. Search the board again, 3. ask the question, 4. back-up, 5. experiment, 6. rephrase question (or better yet, post solution to original question)

[This message has been edited by oldmoney (edited February 23, 2000).]
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Re: DirtSearch v3 In reply to
This is more of a discussion item than an actual modification issue (and should be posted in the LINKS Discussion Forum)...IMHO.

Wink

But I don't see any problem with it...just be forewarned that Bobsie and/or Alex may come along and close the Thread if discussions get out of hand.

Just a warning.

Regards,

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Eliot Lee....
Former Handle: Eliot
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Re: DirtSearch v3 In reply to
Nice Adaption of LINKS. Overall, I commend Robert for his efforts in integrating features and also making some of the Admin features more user-friendly. However, there are some challenges I forsee for users:

1) Adapting their LINKS directories to his program, if they choose to change their directory structure to PHP.

2) In terms of performance, as oldmoney pointed out, I think that LINKS outweighs the PHP version in terms of searching. I attempted to search for a keyword, and it took way too long to bring up results. (But this is probably related to the .css problem with the localhost configurations that are in the .cgi scripts.)

3) Not readily apparent user support. As oldmoney mentioned, LINKS has a community of users that help each other out in terms of coming up with modifications. From my limited experience with PHP, I think it will be a nightmare for most novice programmers to integrate Mods into the PHP Version, since many of them already have difficulties with implementing Mods in regular LINKS.

4) Also, not everyone has PHP installed in their servers, which will raise a lot of confusion for people trying to install this program if they do not know that they need to have PHP in their server.

5) Also, it is unclear whether the scripts he has written will support newer versions of PHP, like PHP4.

Just my two cents....

BTW: I was actually working on a PHP version of LINKS...nice to see one available!

Wink

Regards,

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Eliot Lee....
Former Handle: Eliot
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Re: DirtSearch v3 In reply to
Well most servers nowadays have at least version 3 of php installed on their servers...it's just that novice users are so used to finding and using perl scripts that they've never heard of php and thus don't know about php being installed on the server.

But I think if you know any programming language (perl, c, c++, vbscript etc..) it won't take you very long to use your knowledge to help you learn php. As I am a C++ programmer and since php is practically derrived from C, it has taken me little time to adapt.

But the main thing about DirtSearch that will make it easy to make mods for it is that it will be written using classes which are much more efficient than perl modules.

And as far as support goes, there's a forum on his website...it's just that DirtSearch hasn't gotten popular enough for many users to come and help out.

But then again...it's probably just me that is excited about this...it's a jump for the php open source community...
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Re: DirtSearch v3 In reply to
Not to rain on the php parade, but I doubt this is an acceptable topic. After all, it is a competing product that is being discussed on Alex's bandwidth $$$. The closed thread Eliot alluded to:

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/...um3/HTML/003202.html

And I recall many months ago a similar discussion about a cold fusion version or something that crossed the line of professional courtesy being discussed here. I think the determining factor was that freely distributed modifications are acceptable, but paid-for programs are not.

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And as far as support goes, there's a forum on his website...it's just that DirtSearch hasn't gotten popular enough for many users to come and help out.
dieznuts, with all due respect, I think it would be more appropriate that you took the initiative to start discussions at DirtSearch, rather than use that as an excuse.

Sorry to sound so negative, but try putting yourself in Alex's position and see how you feel about this topic.

Dan
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Re: DirtSearch v3 In reply to
Isn't Link 2.0 prohibited on hypermart servers? as you are running it on your site...

I was just wondering since my site was deleted...because of the Links 2 situation

oh and something that dirtsearch does better than links 2 is that it doesn't build pages....that way, webhosts aren't so quick to call it a bandwidth hogger...when your db gets to around thousands of links and it takes a long time to build etc..
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Re: DirtSearch v3 In reply to
I'd have to disagree. A major selling point of Links is that it does build pages. Serving up hundreds or thousands of pages dynamically is far more of a load on the server than running the build via telnet.

Using my site as an example, I have 5,300 links and 350 categories. Even with ~700 new links (the slowest part of the build) at any given time, building takes 90 seconds or less. Doing that once a day is minimal compared to a dynamic approach, although php isn't nearly as much of a hog as perl.

Having just discussed SSI and bandwidth elsewhere, I don't think bandwidth would come into play with the two approaches.

Dan
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Re: DirtSearch v3 In reply to
True, but i rarely go on my site anymore and i have very few links, and categories, so i don't think they care. I build once every 3 weeks. At least thats the way its gotten to be so far. One fault of Dirtsearch is that its php and it can't run on all webhosts and most webservers don't come with options like Oreilly Webserver which comes with Java, Perl, and ASP options. Also, PHP isn't very stable when dealing with a large site.

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LookHard Search
lookhard.hypermart.net
Lavon Russell

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Re: DirtSearch v3 In reply to
Eliot,
He already made a conversion script. It inserts cats into the tables first and then the links.
Thank you,
Bob
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Re: DirtSearch v3 In reply to
Interesting...however, I believe that Dan does make some good points...I forgot about the advantages of building web pages versus dynamic web pages that eat up bandwidth.

Regards,

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Eliot Lee....
Former Handle: Eliot
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Re: DirtSearch v3 In reply to
mysql vs. flatfile..

i disagree...

mysql barely takes a load off your bandwidth.. especially when ported with php3..

that is all i can say about that..

however.. i don't even know if it is possible to build pages with php3.. i'm curious about that.. php3 is suppose to be the page.. not generate anything.. that is why dirtdobber man has the crappiest protection against rating more than once.. (setting a cookie for EACH id..) in netscape all i need to do is press cancel when the cookie notification pops up and go do it again..

thats cause php3 can't write to a file.. maybe he should just write it to a database..



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Jerry Su
Links SQL User
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Re: DirtSearch v3 In reply to
 
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that is why dirtdobber man has the crappiest protection against rating more than once..
Blunt, as always, Widgetz... guess that's why I like you. Wink

When you say that MySQL barely takes the load off your bandwidth, I take it you mean that it is *more* processor intensive than serving up a static HTML page, yes? (Bandwidth is a confusing term: does one mean the server resource bandwidth or pipe bandwidth... both are of course valid)

Anyway, the cookie per rating implemenation also sucks because of the 20 ccokie per domain limit...

------------------
The Immuatable Order of Modding
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
1. Read the FAQ, 2. Search the board, 2a. Search the board again, 3. ask the question, 4. back-up, 5. experiment, 6. rephrase question (or better yet, post solution to original question)

[This message has been edited by oldmoney (edited February 25, 2000).]