Not a bug, but a little confusing, I agree. The 'confirm' delete box was on the previous page.

ahha, that was a nice way for you to avoid calling me stupid.. thanks, I found it.
:p

I think we're near the end of the road with the betas, so I've uploaded 2.1.5 RC1 in the first thread to this post. In addition to all the features/fixes seen so far, I've added these:

New features:

+ Avatars
Code and setting added to display user avatars in the linkbit

+ Digital Object Identification (see www.doi.org)
DOI handling added to link entry and search as an option - this one was for me!!

+ Download
'Agree to these terms' asked on entry to LDM/category rather than per link and answer held in cookie

+ Hooks
Hooks added at some strategic places - see section 8 of the LDM manual

+ Administration
Settings added to limit maximum text length of main link/category description fields

Bugs fixed:
- Repaired the handler code for the uploadfiletypes setting
- Repaired array handling for php 4.3.2 and earlier
- 'Add link' with null url defaults to 'allow' instead of 'disallow' duplicates
- Modified debug table handling to prevent overflow
- Improved the error message when user forgets to tick the 'confirm' boxes for delete entry/category

As always, backup before upgrading, and let me know what you discover. I would like to get this release final as soon as possible, as there are some other things I want to work on. Thanks for all your help.

Nice AndrewD .. :)

I'll get on and install and let you know what I find ..

ecDownloads has just released its 4.01 version today - new duel begins!

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...hreadid=110120

AndrewD, i have check the section 8 of the LDM manual to know sth. about your hook system. As i am a noob, i can't tell whether your have set a hook for the point system to work with LDM. I am not a coder, but i know some coders want that, so please confirm that, thanks a lot!

I've put in two hooks which I think coders will be able to work with to integrate with a points system, and can easily add more if need be.

One hook is called ldm_link_inserted, which is available immediately after a new entry is added to the database. The second is ldm_check_user_allowances which is called immediately before a download will begin, and after the system has checked the internal allowances that LDM provides.

Thanks for the fast reply!

Please bear with this newbie. I want to put a limit on the number of times a video clip can be played. Exactly how should I go about doing this? I want to play using an embedded player. Does LDM automatically open an embedded player?

I have read the relevant instructions that come with the installation files, but I haven't made much headway.

I don't know anything about coding or programming. I only know how to follow precise instructions. Your help is greatly appreciated.

Was html disabled in this update? I can't seem to get my html to work

As far as I can see on my test site, this works fine. Let me have details.

Do you mean the number of times each clip can be played in total? [Not yet possible to control] Or per day? [Ditto] Or by a single user? [Ditto] Or do you mean how many clips each user can play a day? [This is controlled on the admin download quotas page]

Yes, provided the settings are properly enabled.

Tell me what sort of video clips you want to control this way, and I can explain. If you have difficulties, send me details of your board, with an admin userid and password, and I'm happy to take a look.

Andrew, thanks so much for offering to help. Yes, eventually, I would like to be able to control the number of times a single user can play, but for now, it works fine if I can control how many clips each user can play per day--preferably also per week. I think you can easily implement the latter--how many times each user can play per week, right?

(The reason why I am asking is that I am setting up an online course with audio/video lectures. Bandwidth is always a concern here. If you have a better suggestion for controlling the playing of audio/viewing clips in that regard, I could definitely use it.)

Mostly for now, I would like to control mp3 audio recordings to be played by Windows Media Player (or Real Player) embedded in posts. What sort of changes should I make? If you can give me detailed instructions, I believe I am up to the task. I singlehandedly set up the vBulletin board myself and installed a number of plugins to date. The only thing I don't know is coding.

Is there a way I can donate in recognition of the effort you put into this? I really appreciate your help.

------------------------------------
Oh, by the way, one more question. MySQL has a limit on the size of attachment, correct? Does LDM works if I choose to put a link like the following into a post:

www.mysite.com/forum/media/file.mp3

instead of uploading it as an attachment, which might be prohibited by MySQL because of its large size?

That is to say, I FTP file.mp3 into the server, instead of uploading it as an attachment. Does LDM work just as well in terms of controlling how many times the file is to be played? If so, how do I go about doing that?

Yes, I can explain these points - bear with me until this evening

heh, I'm having a hard time finding any bugs in 2.1.5rc1 AndrewD :)

In fact I've not found any yet, even on my old PHP .. :)

One thing that is weird .. I've got a couple of links that refuse to validate via the admin pages ..

http://www.swift-tools.net/Quake/QVM/
http://www.truecombat.com/intro.php

Normally in this situation I'd just click on the links in their normal listings and once LDM detected that I'd got through to the link it would then change the status to normal instead of "Status Unknown" .. this doesn't seem to happen now. Have I missed a setting, or has something changed?

The only other thing that I can see is that "problem" with linked subforums not showing links in sub cats .. I'm guessing you've not looked at that yet :)

I looked at it ;) The challenge is to find a way to solve it which does not make the plug in very expensive to run on large boards. It currently isn't straightforward SQL to locate the entries that are in a category and its children.

I'll try to take a look at this tonight. Thanks. Where would a man be without his Slave.

Well .. I could mention "Full AdminCP integration" .. heh .. but I think you'd have a heart attack ..

:D

Oh .. one thing that's come to mind .. ;)

With the vBa modules .. at the moment it just shows the link and hits, would it be possible to also show the cat for each link?

link ? hits
cat
link ? hits
cat

sort of thing ..

Is it just the case of adding a $ to the links_vbalinks template, or is some editing of the php file required?

Awesome work Andrew. I have v2.1.3b3 running atm. To do the upgrade to this, delete the "Product", overwrite the files on the server, reinstall the Product. Is this correct? I just want to be sure I don't lose the SQL database of the downloads listed in there.

Not quite - just upload the files and reinstall. As long as the version number changes (which it does her), VBulletin will take take of everything. I always recommend that you take a backup before upgrading, just in case.

Well spotted. Variable not declared as global.

It needs a minor change in the code and a reference to a new variable in the links_vbalinks template. I'll add the variable into the code, but leave the template change for you to patch locally. In the meantime, you can implement the change as follows:
- Edit local_links_include.php
- Line 1907 or thereabouts, in function get_links2, add $linkscat to the list of global variables.
- Towards the end of the *while* loop, before the eval() statement, add this statement :
Then patch the template so that it refers to $linkcatname

1) Install LDM
2) Visit your normal VBulletin admincp, attachments/extensions and sizes. If you have already got an entry for mp3 files, good, otherwise add one. The important setting is the mimetype, which should be Content-type: audio/mpeg
3) Visit the LDM admin settings page, and make sure that this setting is defined: file_iconsdir. This should point at the directory in which you have uploaded the icons that are provided in the LDM release, e.g. images/LDM
4) Visit the LDM admin permissions page and check that the desired usergroups have got can_play_musicbox permission

LDM does not place the files into the MySQL database - it always uses files, even if these are uploaded. However, there are quite tight limits on what can be uploaded using normal web forms, so you are right, the best approach is to upload the files using FTP.

To continue...

- Put some entries in your LDM database. Create a category, then create entries in this category which point to the files you have FTP'd onto your server. It is better to refer to these using local filenames rather than full urls, i.e. create the entry as /dir1/dir2/file.mp3 rather than http://yoursite/dir1/dir2/file.mp3

- If you want people to access these via your posts/forums rather than via LDM itself, then you need to make note of the 'linkid' for each mp3. You can find this by hovering over the LDM entry. You need to paste urls of this form into your posts: http://yoursite/local_links.php?action=play&id=9 in order to get the media player to work

The control is 'per day', but there is also an option to let unused allowances accumulate for N days, so I think you can achieve what you want by giving a daily allowance of one seventh of the maximum weekly consumption, and a 'carry forward' of 7 days.

You set these limits on the LDM admin/download quotas page

Thanks, Andrew, for your detailed instructions. You must have put in a lot of time in responding to my questions. I really appreciate it. I don't have time to get to it just yet, but I'll return to bring you the results--which should be positive. :)

By the way, in your future releases, could you consider implementing an option that can control the number of times a particular user can play a video/audio clip or see an attachment? Is that feasible at all? I think that's very useful for someone like myself who is doing an online course with lectures in audio/video formats--because I want to give access only to the few of those who have signed up for my class. I can't find this kind of mod. anywhere on this vB.org forum, and I believe that other users would love to have this option as well.

OK, I'll take note.

That's great .. thanks :)

I have not installed the RC yet, as my install of VBA took the simplicity out of upgrading...I'm still on 2.1.3b3, and it's working very well.

The only wish I have is that the comments, or the ABILITY to add comments, was somehow more obvious or more inviting for users. I have had quite a few people download items from my site, and yet I have very few comments. The comments that are on there are generally from the same person. I don't know how it would be possible, but I wish the comments and the ability to rate/leave comments stood out more.

Still, this is one of the most amazing hacks I've seen. I recently turned on SEO links, and search engines have been loving it. :)

Thank you Andrew for all of your hard work. Very appreciated.

A quick question ..

AndrewD, have you changed the style/colour of the background colour on some of the headings? .. on the default style it seems to be using the dark blue instead of the light blue which means the collapsible arrow image doesn't look right ..

Where would I need to go to change this back to the light blue colour?

Take a look in the links_main template. I think I changed from tcat to thead style

Looks like there are a number of thead .. would I change them all?

If you want it to be consistent, yes, each is at the start of a table

Ok .. ta :)

hi Andrew, how do i change the template of LDM such that I can display the file extension allowed for upload and their respective upload limit on the front menu of LDM? this is because the current system doesnt really indicate or tell the user whether whats the exact reason why the files are not uploaded (whether if they have exceeded the filesize limit or not).

thanks in advance

Bit of a head scratcher this ..

I'm trying to add the following link to LDM ..

http://www.peterboroughgreyhounds.com/

but when I do it shows [3 Kbytes] under the name within the links listings as if it's a file ..

I've added other links to LDM since upgrading to 2.1.5rc1 and not had this problem so not sure what's causing it. Any ideas?

Heh, Andrew, you can pretty much go ahead and ignore my last post.

On my site, I have a lot of unregistered people that download the files. Because I had them set in the permissions to be able to can_rate_link, I assumed they would be able to. I tested it myself this evening and realized that unregistereds are NOT able to rate the downloads on my site. That is, of course, the reason why I have not gotten the comments that I was hoping for.

Here is where I need help though - the download categories are all "open access". I have can_rate_link set to allow unregistered users to rate the downloads. However, it still stops them and tries to make them register instead. Is this a bug, or is there another setting I need to change?

Thank you!

btw AndrewD .. don't forget to change this threads Prefix to "Major Addition" :)

A simple and silly bug. Will be fixed - the 3k is the number of html characters on the site's homepage

I'll take a look at this at the weekend and improve the display in the final release of 2.1.5