Hi,

I am changing my domain name. I have already installed links and have added categories and subcategories. However I have not added any links yet.

Is it better to delete links2.0 and install it again under the new domain name or are there any changes I can make which will make this unnecessary?

Thanks very much,

Nick

This type of question is more appropriate for the Installation forums and also CHANGING servers/domains have been discussed quite a few times in the INSTALLATION forums....

No, you do not need to "re-install" the application. All you have to do is EDIT the variables in the links.cfg file, so that the CORRECT URLs and PATHs are used to build your directory. To be on the safe side, I would recommend deleting all the directories underneath links/pages, so that you will be sure to have current files with correct URLs in them.

Regards,

Eliot Lee

thanks anthro,

I changed the links.cfg file and thats ok.
However what exactly do you mean by deleting the directories under links/pages? Should I delete all the categories/subcategories I made and any links which are already in the directory?

thanks

Yea...DELETE all the CATEGORY directories/subdirectories, AND the NEW/COOL/RATINGS directories.

Don't know how to make it more clear for ya.

Good luck!

Regards,

Eliot Lee

Here's a way to make it more clear, perhaps:

If you keep the files that generate these directories (the files links.db, categories.db, etc. in the admin folder, plus the hits and rates subdirectories in admin) then you can delete the subdirectories with no real loss of information. When your new domain is set up and running, or when you move from one server to another, just move over your top file and the admin and pages repository directories, run the Build utility from the admin control panel, and bang-o, you're back in business. Whenever I do backups to my hard drive at the end of the day, I only download the admin folder and its contents - I don't bother to download the generated pages and subdirectories.

Does that help out?

yes, thankyou everything works fine now.
What exactly is the top file however? Would I need to backup the top file in addition to the admin file when I'm doing backups?

I also managed to make the category and subcategory fonts smaller by making this change in the
sub site_html_print_cat part of the site_html_template.pl file.

# Then we print out the name linked, new if it's new, and popular if its popular.
$output .= qq|<dl><dt><font size="-2"><strong><a class="link" href="$url">$category_name</a></strong></font>

this also makes the subcategories smaller in the categories pages in explorer but larger in netscape. Any ideas?

Could you also tell me how to make my links and link description font smaller?

Finally...How would I go about installing a second links2.0 directory on my site. Do I do just put the links2.0 cgi-bin and pages files into other directories on my server? Is there any thing i have to do to make sure that I avoid conflicts?

I know this is alot, and I thank you for your answers

Sorry, my fault, should have been more clear. In my parlance 'top file' is the index file at the top level of the directory, and/or any other files in that top level. You will need to move the add.cgi, edit.cgi, jump.cgi, rate.cgi, search.cgi, and subscribe.cgi files, as well as -=everything=- in the admin directory. You will also need to move over, or create, an empty directory for your pages. You do not need to bother with moving the contents of the pages directory or any of the subdirectories.

Bluntly? This happens because the browser makers are b***heads, and love making the lives of web designers a sheer screaming-meemie heebie-jeebie fingernails-on-the-blackboard nightmare.

The small/medium/large/x-large values in the CSS font-size attribute look different on MSIE than on NN. Font size -1 looks different on MSIE than it does on NN - and different depending on the operating system (Windoze, Unix, Macintosh, what have you.) If you know how to use cascading style sheets, you're best off using those, and use point, pixel, or em values for the font sizes - since these are absolute, not relative, font sizes. In the short term, just live with it and tweak the sizes later on when you've got time to learn how to properly use CSS. It's a headache.

To learn how to use CSS, check out the W3C (http://www.w3c.org) or any of the other tutorials out there.

Change the site_html.pl file. You'll be looking for the subroutine that sets how a link appears (subroutine site_html_link). That's the one you'll want to change.

I've done this on my site. First thing you'll want to do is have different names for the directories - drop them down a level in the cgi-bin, and put the add/modify/search scripts at the top level. Don't forget to change the links.cfg files for each instance of Links2.0 to reflect your changes.

Your directory structure might look like:
Rename the different links/links2/links3 files however you want, but make sure that the names match up in your links.cfg file - or things won't run. That should take care of any conflicts. I haven't had any problems with my setup, though I only have one version of the subscribe script (why have more than one mailing list if you don't have to?)

Just another reminder to double- and triple-check your different links.cfg files for each setup and make sure they point to the right files and directories - otherwise you'll drive yourself insane. That one's the real bugbear.

__________________________________________
Support and Recovery Internet Yellow Pages
serving Canada, the US, the UK, and the World Wide Web
http://recovery.tlm.com

hallo IPY webmaster, and thanks for your detailed explanation, it really did clear everything up.

just one thing about the subroutine site_html_link in the site_html.pl file. I made quite a few changes to it trying to make the font size smaller so that links and their descriptions would look smaller under a search or in a category page. Nothing worked though.

thanks again for all your help,

nick