features for next version

[k0riz0n]

Hi,
some idaes for the next version update...
1. ability to import an mysql dump (or any other dump file with ID and url in it e.g. from an extra php script) from link DB for those people who can't connect to the mysqlserver due to restrictions from hoster.

2. create more screenshots at one run of the processor. so i can create 75x60 thumbnail and normal 300x240 screenshots within one run.

3. custom naming for screenshots. i thought about an input field where the filename can be specified with variables or something:Content visible to registered users only.

4. compare local saved screens with new made ones.. only if shot is newer than saved one, its written into folder (e.g. checked by filesize)

[k0riz0n]

addition to nr 1:
the dump file could be created by the webserver "on the fly" with an php script.
but screenshot processor should be able to open this file from an URL too..

5. command line running. just call ScreenshotProcessor.exe c:\path\to\my\cfg\123.scp
and it starts taking screenshots

[Radu]

Thank you for these ideas, we will consider them for the next version of the application. Some of them were already on our list, but you also have other ones that are very good.

Any other ideas or suggestions from anybody are welcomed here and will be very useful for us.

[k0riz0n]

Is there a releasdate for the next version?

[bruleo]

I think I might have mentioned some of these somewhere else, but...

1) The ability to overlay another image or watermark.
2) Scheduler, enabling automatic connection, processing and uploading.

I know it's probably out of the scope of a 'standalone' processor, I would also love the ability to have the scp file written from the database / Admin, with checkboxes in Admin, selecting what screenshots need to be run. The entries in the file would then be reversed: Rather than saying what has already been processed, it would say what needs to be processed.

Bruce.

[DaDon]

These are some of the things that would improve my experience of phpLD:-


Ability to add additional payment plans directly from the admin control panel without having to hack into the code to do so.
One Click registering for new users without having to go through and click on the "I Agree" link.
A welcome message that greets you once you log into your account. At the moment as soon as you log in it shows your Registration Information which is not really useful and could actually be confusing.
Maybe the welcome message could say: "Welcome [Logged In User's name]. You can add more links, manage existing links and upgrade your listing from here, etc..."

That's it for now, but I will be back! ;)

[bruleo]

Content visible to registered users only.


Wrong thread! This for the screenshot processor!! :confused:

Bruce.

[Radu]

Content visible to registered users only.
We don't know yet the release date for the new version, but hopefully this will happen very soon.

[DaDon]

Ooops! My apologies. Maybe an admin should have just moved my posting tothe correct section and then notify me or something. :cool:

[k0riz0n]

Content visible to registered users only.any new infos? Would be an alphatester too :D

[nickthrolson]

nice cant wait till new ver comes out

[mx3design]

Would it be possible to include an exclusion file for problem links? I'm manually creating thumbnails for a few sites and don't want these to be overwritten. It would be a helpful feature.

The ability to schedule would also be invaluable.

Best wishes,
Jay

[David]

That is certainly a good idea to be able to mark certain ids as problem ids and save the job, so you don't have to worry about those. I also requested the ability to manually skip one if it is taking longer. I have been using the new version (now released) for a couple of days now, and really like it.

[k0riz0n]

According to my first post, please dont forget thinking about an DB file import :o

At the moment im backing up my link table, downloading this file and importing it on my local apache server to use the processor :eek:

[David]

Content visible to registered users only.

What sort of format? Would maybe allowing for the import of a csv file work? If so, I guess all we would need is the ID in the first row and the url in the second row, right?

[MyWebSearches]

I'm not sure about this but,

I always have problem working with a large database for some reason I can't import it to a new directory or when I'm upgrading to the latest version.

I'm constantly asking for help with this problem.

[David]

The way the script works now you don't do any importing. You just connect to the database. Now if we were to allow for a csv file, this would allow you to export (easier than importing), and then you could still use the scripts ftp function to upload the images.

[RCPW]

I don't know if this would even be possible or not but something that i think would be kind of cool would be the ability to just add a simple code or something to either the Right Side, Left Side, Header, Footer, Body Template that if you wanted to add or change the way your page lay out was all you would have to do was just go in and type in something like this:

Example for Left Side Template
Content visible to registered users only.

And it would automatically layout your category area sections for you That way if you wanted to move your Featured Links to the Right Side all you would have to do is jusy copy over the code Content visible to registered users only. and insert it in to where you would want it on the right side.

Is something like this even possible? I'm sure that there would still need to be advanced coding somewhere telling those codes what to do but I was thinking that it might be easier for us newbies to edit their own pages but I'm sure that even this would have it's problems.

[David]

I don't think you meant to post this in the Screenshot Processor thread, but you post has been noted, and this is something we have already planned in phpLD (at least similar).

[RCPW]

Your right,.. My Bad. I got to reading and the wheels got to turning and the fingers got to typing hehe. :D

[k0riz0n]

Content visible to registered users only.It can be more simple :)
I think about an simple txt file formated like this ID:URL
Content visible to registered users only.
SP should open this file locally or be able to load from an URL, so this txt file could be generated on the server up-to-date when processing...

I can deliver a php script when needed :)

[MikeK]

This ideas from k0riz0n are good ;). If this works - I would buy a license.

I haven't got a "remote access" to my database and this program must run with 1-click or better by command line (scheduler :)). Getting two sizes in one run would also be fine (reduces traffic and time).

Some other questions / ideas:
- Is it possible to change the user agent?
- Does the processor respect a robots.txt?
- Is it possible to do a incremental run (only for new entries)? (Maybe with the script which provides the data for the import.)

Ciao,
Mike

[mx3design]

Could we have lower case file extensions please?

[bruleo]

Content visible to registered users only.

I must admit that was something that was bugging me, but I thought I was missing something obvious!

In the file name structure, how about adding a [date] option please? (Very important for what I am planning!)

Other than that, I love the new version!

Bruce.

[Radu]

The version 2.3 of the application, that was released last week (phplinkdirectory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24628), allows 2 new wildcards in the name pattern: [date] and [datetime].

The extension case will be fixed in the release version.

[David]

Content visible to registered users only.

Yes, good call. I had been meaning to mention that.

Might be nice to put a link to Support on the app and link to this forum as well.

And we need a better logo, I better find a designer for it. :)

[bruleo]

Content visible to registered users only.

Was that a hint?! :cool:

[David]

Content visible to registered users only.


If you are good at that sort of thing, I would be happy to have you do it.
I am thinking it should say in Large letters
Screenshot Processor
and then below in small letters
from phpLD

[k0riz0n]

David, what about file import? Will this be realised?
http://www.phplinkdirectory.com/forum/showpost.php?p=126250&postcount=21

[James]

did you say you had a script that will output the txt file already?

Or will we need to do that also?

[k0riz0n]

Script isnt coded yet by me..
Give me an hint about your prevered dataformat and i'll start coding :)

[Radu]

The option to read links from a file will be added in the final release version.

It will be possible to read a local file, from the hard drive, or a file from the web. The file will be a simple text file that will have a linkID and a link per each line, something like this:
ID1[separator]Link1
ID2[separator]Link2
.........................

The separator character would be customizable from the application, and will support for sure the following characters: , ; : | #. Most probably users will be able to specify a custom character also. The line ends will be marked with CR/LF.

So, you can create the script to export the links table in the above format and you will be able to use this new feature soon.

[MikeK]

Content visible to registered users only.

That sounds good. [bt]

@k0riz0n:
What about a parameter that we can select between "all" entries, or only this once were no screenshots exists? (Two or more sizes could be a problem there?)

Ciao,
Mike

[James]

There will be no way of telling if no screen shot exists by the database..

I would suggest a simple pull from a date newer than X
or start at ID X

[k0riz0n]

Basic version of script will export all ID's/URL's.

For more expirenced user i'll add some paramters for custom configuration
- ID selection (from ID to ID or above ID )
- date selection

Detection for missing screenshots could be made with the naming pattern from the SP. Just had to check file with this naming exists in screenshot folder...
Not sure if it works, let me try a little bit.

@James & Radu
I'll send you an PM with downloadlink when finished, ok?

[Radu]

Content visible to registered users only.

That's good. :)

[MikeK]

I tested the export script from k0riz0n and bought a Screenshot Processor license. The only thing I need is a new version which is able to handle this import. ;-)

[k0riz0n]

I'm asking the same queastion to Radu..
Its on the run :)

[MikeK]

Another idea for the Screenshot Processor:

This program is also a very good "link checker". Websites which are down produce an error, redirects brings "white pages", ...

BUT: What about checking for domain parking also? :D

Search the html for "sedo", "domain parking", "name drive", ... and show them in an extra list for a manual control! [bt]

Just an idea.

Mike

[MikeK]

Content visible to registered users only.

The first run with all ~2.800 entries takes neary 6 hours. So it would be very, very helpful and traffic saving if we could make two (or more) screenshots in one run.

Ciao,
Mike

[bruleo]

Content visible to registered users only.

Not sure about the latest version, but I found that with the earlier version, you could run several instances of the processor together. At one point, I had three processors running, all with different settings and thumb sizes for different websites.

If you had one processor creating several different sized thumbs, then the interface is going to get overly cluttered.

Bruce.

[MikeK]

Hi Bruce,

in my case, time is not a big problem. Why should the program load the same page e.g. 3 times to make 3 screenshots of different size? Think of the traffic for my internet access and for the traffic for all of the webmasters. The last version of the AVG Virus Scan was a bad example! (http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/07/08/flaw-in-avg-8-fixed/1) And for the different setting you can think about a tab panel?

Ciao,
Mike

[bruleo]

Content visible to registered users only.

True, the false traffic is an issue, but where do you draw the line?! There are other users that will want 3, or perhaps 4 or more screens shots at a time. I have one site that uses 3 different sizes use different ratios, so that would mean independent settings for each image. The interface would end up looking like something out of the Starship Enterprise.

Maybe there could be some compromise, where a selection box asks how many thumbs, then if more than 1 is selected, the controls for those are then made available.

Bruce.

[Radu]

We are considering adding the ability to create more screenshot sizes at one run and in the mean time make the application simple and intuitive.

[mimika]

Content visible to registered users only.

If you have access to MySQL then you can run: SELECT url FROM links
to get all your URLs. They will come up with http and some with '/ ' but you can use good editors and remove http part and then save list as e.g. url.txt

As to triple run, you don't need that. You can us CSS to create different sizes
Content visible to registered users only.

and so on and then point your division to desired size

mimika

[bruleo]

Content visible to registered users only.


Yes, you can use CSS (and html) to scale images, but when the scaled images are of quite different sizes to the original, then the quality of the images is not as good as it could be.

[k0riz0n]

Content visible to registered users only.Export script is already done.

[mimika]

Content visible to registered users only.

I should point VERY GOOD Idea.

Program should add 404, parked etc. links to something like error.txt file to deal with them after words.
It will tell us which sites in Index are 'dead' and to remove them.

BTW, program WebSwoon uses .txt file to store links without any need for connection to server's MySQL DB
Config point WS to that file location and it's up to you to put them in there

mimika

[James]

Content visible to registered users only.

Really read the thread please it is already in development.
In fact the script exports them for you so you dont have to "put them in there"

[mimika]

Content visible to registered users only.

I did, and my BTW is only to emphasize the fact that run program using .txt file format is very good idea.
:)

mimika

[k0riz0n]

Any news about release date of new version? Can't wait for it :)

[Radu]

The release will be very soon. And the new version includes the importing of links from local or remote file.

[MikeK]

Good news!

May I point you to some earlier questions from me? ;)
http://www.phplinkdirectory.com/forum/showpost.php?p=126271&postcount=22
Content visible to registered users only.

Ciao,
Mike

[Radu]

Right now you cannot change the useragent, but we are considering adding this in a future version.

The application does not consider robots.txt. Tell me for what will you need something like this and I see what can be done.

[MikeK]

Hi Radu,

if I check my logs and look for the entries from the screenprocessor, I found the following:
Content visible to registered users only.As first, always a log entry with an empty UserAgent and second a GET with an unusual UA. (Less than 200 Google hits for this string.)
1. Empty UA are often blocked.
2. Watchful webmaster could easyly block the used UA.
3. Especially if we open a blocked url (blocked through a robots.txt)

A "clean" way would be: respect the robots.txt and use always an individual UserAgent.

Ciao,
Mike

[MikeK]

Did I miss a announcement? Just reading in another thread about the import feature I found a new verion 3.0 in the download area!

Now I know what to do this sunday afternoon. ;-)

Ciao,
Mike

[James]

it was uploaded late last night no announcement made yet ;)