PHP Link Directory RC2 is now available

[David]

Please check the download page.

Compatibitlty:
Tested on PHP 4.2, 4.3 and 5.0
Tested on mySQL 3.23 and 4.1, MS SQL Server, and PostgreSQL
Tested on Fedora, RedHat, Windows 2003, FreeBSD and Slackware

Admin Configuration Settings:
- URL Rewrite (yes/no)
- Show Link and Category Counts (yes/no)
- Show Subcategories below categories on main index.
- Show PageRank of links in the directory
- Sort links in each category by PageRank, Alphabetically or by number hits. Hits are counted with js, so no jump urls are used.
- No Follow Tags (prevent search engines from following links) - there are 3 options: disabled, all links with no reciprocal or only if reciprocal is required and no reciprocal link was found.
- RSS feeds may be enabled so that all categories have an xml feed.

Link Submission:
- Visual Confirmation may be enabled to prevent spamming of your directory by bots.
- Reciprocal Links can be required if you wish. If required, then when they click submit it spiders their site to make sure the link exists.
- Muliple submissions from the same site (in different categories) can be either allowed or disallowed.

Emailer:
If you are looking for a way to make it easy to have a system for seeking and managing reciprocal links, this is a strong point of this program. Furthermore, the system makes it very easy to hire freelancers to help you do the work yet maintain a level of quality, and also be able to see exactly how much work was done.
- Enter site name, url and email of webmaster and click submit and an email is sent using the email template you created.
- Multiple Email Templates can be used if desired, so it is easy to send a variety of messages efficiently.
- When submitting, a variety of methods are used to check and then warn you in the event you are trying to email the same person or website. This becomes especially important on large link campaigns over periods of time.
- The PHP Mail Function, Sendmail or SMTP can be used by selecting the preferred method from the drop down menu.

Validation:
- Check all your links to make sure they are valid. Spider also follows 301s and 302s.
- Check all your reciprocal link partners (if using this feature) to see if they are still linking to you.
- In both checks you may select to set links that don't validate to inactive and/or links that validate to active.

There many other features, and there has been much attention in the details to insure that everything works great for you, and we look forward to getting your suggestions, as we prepare for even more features coming soon!

[xooberant]

Any suggestions or recipe for upgrading from v2 rc1 to rc2 to rc3, etc., as work progresses?

Perhaps replacing all files except for specific config files, or some such.

Thanks, looking great.

[Anonymous]

Hi David - I tried installing the RC2 but I get this error message:


Missing file: /[root_directory]/libs/adodb/drivers/adodb-db_driver.inc.php

ADONewConnection: Unable to load database driver ''


Do you have install instructions for this version? Do I need to create the database in phpMyAdmin first??
Thanks!

[David]

No, but feel free to PM me your details I will be happy to get you up and running by tomorrow.

[David]

Xooberant, we are working toward keeping everything seemless.
There have been no changes to the database, so I think you can just look for changed files. I don't know exactly what the changes wer from RC1 to RC2 but I think they were very minor and most likely doing nothing will be fine. RC2 will probably become the final release, but there may be a couple of very small changes, mainly as we get reports from people who are on slightly different configurations (ex. post above).

In the future, we hope to release packages with just the changed files and when necessary, a script to upgrade the database. Also, notice in the admin homepage that you will automatically be notified of upgrades.

[dcb]

Thanks everybody for your feedback and sorry for the installer problem. It was a very minor issue and is now fixed. Since the time for fix was so short I have not issued a new version, instead I simply updated rc2.

So, everybody who downloaded rc2 and had installer problems ("white screen of death") please download it again.

As for upgrading from rc1, or in future to newer versions simply overwrite the app directory with the new version (you may skip copying include/config.php to keep your database settings) and re-run the installer (install/index.php). If you don't overwrite the config file when copying the new version the installer will keep your database settings and the upgrade will be as simple as pressing the next button several times. Also for security reasons the installer will ask your login info when starting.
If you overwrite the config file when copying the new version you will only loose the database settings and the upgrade process will be almost the same as for a fresh install.

Thanks for your patience.

[dcb]

Just in case you still have problems with the installer, please make sure that the folder [install path]/temp/templates is writable for the web server.
also [install path]/temp and [install path]/include/config.php must be writable in order to finish the install, but those won't stop the installer to start.

[Anonymous]

Great job on fixing the installer on RC2. My only problem now is when I choose "Enable URL rewrite" the subdirectories are "Not Found".

In other words, the categories will display with URLs like "index.php?c=3" but return "Not found" when trying to access "[root_directory]/links/Computers/".

Thought it may be a permissions problem since it appears as though the script needs to create a category directory named "Computers" but cannot.

Any ideas? Thanks!

Apache 1.3.33
PHP 4.3.11
MySQL 4.0.23
Mac OS 10.3.9

[dcb]

phpLinkDirectory uses Apache's URL rewrite module mod_rewrite (http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_rewrite.html) in order to simulate the directories. No directory is ever created. The configuration for mod_rewrite is placed in the .htaccess file in the installation directory.

There are 2 possible causes for this not working on your server.
a) You don't have mod_rewrite installed/loaded on the server. The solution is to load mod_rewrite in httpd.conf or recompile Apache with it if it is not compiled.

b) The AllowOverride directive in httpd.conf for the path where you installed the script does not allow turning the rewrite engine on from a .htaccess file. In order to be able to turn the rewrite engine on from a .htaccess file the AllowOverride directive must contain the FileInfo option.

[Anonymous]

Hello I downloaded latest version after setting up evrything including write permissions I get white screen on index page and on admin page
:(

[dcb]

This is happening after running the installer?

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the quick reply. Yes I even tried removing the database and made millions clean installs. I set the write permissions for the files and folders mentioned above, but nothing helps. :(
I do not know what more details I can give you that can help :(

[dcb]

can you PM me the server details, so I can take a look?

[Anonymous]

I don't know what exactly details do you like. I am testing it under IIS windows XP.
PHP Version 4.3.11
mysql-4.0.24-win

I know IIS has some problems with PHP related to sessions, but I managed to fix them and setup the last stable release (v1) and it seemed to be working.

Now I tried both RC1 and RC2 and none of them works (blank screens after install)
Setup works just fine and the settings are written to the file also I see the database is created fine. I guess it is something with the templates.
Maybe it is related something to pahs, but it does not report any errors :(

[Anonymous]

Requirements
PHP Version >= 4.1 (4.3.11)
Server API (isapi)
GD Support (for visual confirmations) Visual confirmation functionality will not be available.
Session Save Path writable? (C:\PHP\sessiondata)
MSSQL Server Support Not available.
MySQL Support (4.0.24-nt)
PostgreSQL Support Not available.
./include/config.php writable?
./temp writable?
./temp/templates writable?

the ones that are marked Not available are only with red cross but as far as I understand they are not required

[dcb]

Sorry, I thought you were running Linux. I don't have IIS installed on my home computer and I don't seem to find my XP CD right now, so I can't test it. I'll be able to do this tomorrow afternoon (GMT+2)
RC2 displays fatal errors and not being able to write the compiled templates (/temp/templates) is a fatal error. Is your PHP installation set to display errors?

Anyway this was tested a lot on IIS/XP and it worked just fine. Is it accesible on the web? can you give me the URL?

[Anonymous]

Hello
As I told you the the entire "temp" folder is writeable and I see there is stuff written in there. My php error reporting is also set in the php.ini file. I am a developer so if you have some more complex solution or advice do not hesitate to tell me. Can I enable in your configuration some more advanced error reporting?

[David]

I'm not sure if I am understanding your question.
Are you needing support? Or are you asking if you can submit an error handling script for us?

(Note: It might be a good idea to start a new thread with a descriptive title, as this post might get lost if we get a lot of replies)

Thanks for using the script, and I also say to you, don't hesitate to ask more questions. :)

[Anonymous]

I hvae a problem, with everything described above I get a blank screen after installation. Admin page and also index page are white.

[Anonymous]

Sying "Can I enable in your configuration some more advanced error reporting?"
I wanted to ask if there was a way in your scripts to activate more detailed error reporting as there was no error at all.

[David]

Feel free to email me at david at david-duval.com and I will take a look, and get it working for you, as we are giving free support on RC2.
I will need ftp login and access to mysql.
Thanks,
David

[Anonymous]

Content visible to registered users only.

I just downloaded rc2 today and I am having the same problem

[David]

feel free to email your ftp and mysql login and I will make sure you are up and running. There have been a few configurations that have had problems, we would love to get the opportunity to see what problem you are having so we can hurry up and get the fixes into the next version.
My email is david at david-duval.com

[Anonymous]

Hello
Thank you for the support. I want just to contribute my effort here. I installed also apche on my windows and tested it using apache and mysql and it works just fine. Finally I managed to find the cause of the problem. For those of you who have troubles you can chnage in /include/config.php the line
error_reporting(E_ERROR);
to
error_reporting(E_ALL);
so that you can see warning and errors.
The problem was that the IIS launch account did not had right for modify flag (i had set read,write, exec) and the templates were not generated.
So thank you for the effort and sorry for my stupid mistake.
The new version looks really beatifull, but I can not find the html export script any more. Is it moved or it is not available any more?

[David]

We will have to rewrite the html export script. I had assumed that since we have the url rewrite that people would not ask for this, but I assume then that you are looking to export so you can post on another site maybe that does not have php installed or something like that. If you can (certainly not required), send a donation to help me fund this (ex. $25), and I'll put a priority on getting this done.

Thanks,
David

[Anonymous]

Dear David
Thank you for the offer. I have not decide yet weather I will use your script or not. Indeed it looks good, but it lacks alot of important features. For example:
No automated upgrade to new versions preserving the current database entries. (extremely important)
No easy databse export (backup). (also extremely important)
These are just 2 major ones that I see at first glance. For sure if I decide to use it I will make a dontain. I know that you have spent alot of time on development (I am a developer too) and I really value your effort.

[David]

Hi, both of the items you mention can be done, and this why we really appreciate your involvement. Nearly anything you need can and will me done. 8)

[dcb]

Content visible to registered users only.

Due to security reasons fully automatic updates will probably never be supported, but as I explained earlier on this thread the update process is very simple and takes only a couple of minutes to complete (download, copy new files over, run the installer and press next a few times). And not only does it preserve your database but also the database connection details. Oh, and the database structure is altered, if required, during the upgrade.

Database backup/restore is already planned (mostly because we support multiple database engines), but because the time for this release was short we concentrated on more important features since all the supported databases have their own backup/restore mechanisms.

[Anonymous]

How does the modrewite work?
Is the script updating the .htaccess file itself or do I need to update it by hand?
When I set the rewrite feature on the web site stops working.

[Anonymous]

Just to note here that the rewrite module is loaded in apache and tested to be working fine

[Anonymous]

After successfull installation, on http://www.domain.com/resources/submit.php

I get
Parse error: parse error, unexpected $ in /home/user/public_html/resources/libs/smarty/plugins/function.html_radios.php on line 93

[dcb]

This is very strange since that file is part of the Smarty library and you should not get any errors there. Can you check that the file is properly uploaded on the server?
The file length should be 4597 bytes.

[OrganicSEO]

Content visible to registered users only.I'm also getting this error http://dir.organicseo.us/

[David]

search on adodb in this forum. That file is not missing (or needed). The problem is with the upload of the package.