Does this allow people to submit their websites to be listed in the directory ? And require admin approval beforehand

Awesome hack. It's much better than drkfusion's imho. Clicks install.

I installed the hack ( *installed* ) and am very happy with it. I have one question though:

I added a link to an external file (from another site). When a uses clicks on the link to download the file, he cannot see the original site. Fine. But does that mean that all filedownloads are "proxied" from the original site to my site and then from my site to the user? Like this:

file -> my site -> user

If this is the case, wouldn't it generate unnecessary traffic for my site on all external filedownloads?

I installed the hack and all looked good. I am trying to add files but it keeps telling me that they are not available:

checking 1 http://www.certguide.com/forums/guid...rplusguide.asp (force next): failed
checking 2 http://www.certguide.com/forums/guid...003aplusos.doc (force next)

If I paste the links in my browser the files open right up.

What am I doing wrong?

Are you sure you put the file in your admincp directory?

local_links.php and local_links_templatex.xml go into your main forum, local_links_install.php goes into the admincp directory.

There is *no* moderation facility yet. The permission to add links is defined by the site admin by usergroups. If a usergroup has the relevant permission, then a user in that group can add their website.

It depends, and it also depends what you mean by unnecessary. If the entry has a recognised mimetype (recognised = defined in the main vb admincp), then the file is successively read and transferred on to the end user. If it does not have a recognised mimetype (e.g. is just a link), then the code executes a standard redirect, and there should be no traffic through your site.

As for unnecessary, I'm open to suggestions of other ways of handling the process in a way that will work reliably.

By unnecessary I mean a link to a file download where I don't mind whether the user finds out the direct file location or not. Perhaps one solution would be to offer a switch called "anti-leech on/off" when creating new links, and if the switch is on, follow your current procedure (stream the file through the site), and if it is off, redirect it (disregarding the vB minetypes).

I don't know ;)

I tried adding these links to my test database and they work just fine for me. The links checking process simply tries to open a connection to the specified file. Maybe you had a very busy server?

Thanks - I'll think about this idea. But is bandwidth to your site more expensive than my time as a programmer? (smiling)