OK, thanks

I know about the tab problem - it's related to the way in which vb builds the editor control - will take another look.

Hello, fantastic mod it will probably get used a lot on my site, have a couple questions.

I have a section for people to release maps for games, and would like a way for them to input the author of the maps to be shown on the entry page in the same area as all the info like filesize etc. Now I know 2.2.9 has this attributes thing, however it feels incomplete or limited to me.

I would like a way to place custom fields to look just like any other field on the entry form in any position, but also be shown on a per category basis so people uploading other things elsewhere don't get this Author option to choose from, and can be set if it should be mandatory or not. I would also like it to not show up with the group name before it, eg. Author: Name instead of Maps: Author: Name, tried putting 0 in display order for the group name and leaving Author as 1 but both vanished.

It seems that allowing general users to add custom attributes to entries shows all the custom attributes every time they create an entry within any category wether or not they are set to 0 display order for the category, just feels like this attributes thing is nothing like custom fields at all and is too limited still.

I have also noticed, using Short (Title+Thumb) for template_altbit has made the title of entries vanish and no way at all to view them.

Any work still being done on custom fields stuff? Currently using 2.2.8 with 3.6.9 so not important untill 2.2.9/3.7 is properly released.

when I click a link I get redirected to say:

http://cheatingnetwork.net/local_links/jump/1/1

and it doesnt work, is this a .htaccess issue?

Thanks - as you say, the custom fields stuff is new for 2.2.9, and the important first step was to get the plumbing in place. I have every intention to continue developing this according to the interest people express. I will think about what you say regarding extensions.

Its not true that every attribute is offered in every category for every entry. You set up the available attributes on the global admin page, then you set up which of these are relevant for the category on the category page, then you are only given these attributes to define for entries added/edited in the category.

You've probably enabled 'seo_friendly' on the ldm/admin page without configuring your web server/vbseo to deal with the urls that LDM then creates.

Is there a way to reset the download count on a per user basis? I have the download limit set but I would LOVE the ability to reset it for some people if they run out of download attempts for technical reasons.

Riki

damn, this is hot! ty! - installed -

edit: The images don't show up in the description:

Have you set *link_imagesize*? ldm/admin/settings

that was the problem - fixed, ty !

another problem: If I use the "modern - short desription" style I just see a short descripton ... yes, that's what I wanted. But I don't see a "read more" link. I am just able to see the whole description if I click the "rate/comment" button.

Is there a way to add a "Read more" button? Maybe with a simple template edit?

ty, anarx

EDIT: I found a way:
in template links_linkbit_mshort :

under $linkshortdesc add:

Just so, I'll include this in the 2.2.9 RC. You don't need the lpage param - that's for paginating inside the ratings.

</invisibility>

;D

Me? You? Something else?

oh, sorry. I asked is there a way to reset the download count on a per user basis? I have the download limit set but I could really use the ability to reset it for some people if they run out of download attempts for technical reasons.

thanks again :)

Riki

Would the downloads provided in such a setup be secure? In other words, would only members of the forums be able to download it? Would there be any way for a member to give a valid url of some sort to a non-member so that they could download it without joining? I was thinking about making a paid membership site for certain piece of software I want to sell and was wondering if this would be a good solution.

I would say that this is a great solution for what you want. The downloads are 100% secure as far as I can tell. You cannot give your friend a link that would work. Im sure Andrew could explain it better than me, but I have paid membership download section and it works amazing well for it.

I've just had a few days vacation, so I've only been answering the quick questions. I think this is straightforward, but will give you a full answer over the weekend.

Provided you set up the correct permissions, the download links are fully secure. Furthermore, if you configure lDM to store files outside the web space, they are also completely secure against someone guessing the filename (which is not easy anyway as uploads are stored using random filenames)

Hmmm, how come i have the below extra fields on my forums profile...

My Recent LDM Hits

My Recent LDM Entries

nothing in them. where are the settings for them please, Andrew?

Also, is it possible to stop a certain usergroup adding entries to a parent category for example

I have

Mixes
--Trance
--Techno
--House

etc etc

I only want a certain usergroup to be allowed to add entries to the Trance, Techno and House categories only, NOT the parent Mixes section

I've had a look through the settings but can not work out how do set it like this

Andrew, I am currently having issues with a few people having severely slow download speeds unless they use a download manager, and when they do use a dlm it can sometimes stop before its complete. I am currently distributing very large files (up to 1GB) and have the file on 2 servers different than ldlm (1 is a mirror). One solution I am considering is splitting the files into smaller sizes (500MB), also I will either upgrade to B1 or downgrade to 2.8. Do you think any of this will help?
Thanks

Ok, so what I discovered is the reason its fast with a dlm is because of the "allow_http_ranges " is enabled. If I disable this, the speed go dramatically down.

Now, if I link directly to the external file I want, the speed is 800k/s super fast.
If I stream an external link through ldlm the speed is slow and variable (50k-130k).

Why would streaming (force_redirect=0) a file through ldlm cause the speed to go down so much? Also, why would using http ranges make the speed faster (yet in some cases a tad unstable)?

Is there any way I can fix this? I use a shared server, perhaps tweaking the php.ini file? Does the speed of the server ldlm lives on limit the speed files are streamed through ldlm?

Please help me understand my situation so I can make a smart decision on how to make ldlm work.
Thanks again!
Riki

Here's the story:

- When you use LDM in its default configuration (force_redirect=0), LDM reads the file and retransmits it to the user. If the cURL library is available to PHP on your server and the download has been specified using a full url, the transfer runs as efficiently as is possible. If you do not have cURL or if the file is on the server and specified using a local filename (i.e. no http: at the front), the file is read and transmitted in blocks (by default 32Kbytes in size; 256K bytes on Windows servers). In that situation, it is possible that transfers of large files will proceed faster with a larger block size, at cost of larger memory requirement. We need to do some tests.

- Download managers gain their speed improvement by making multiple connections to LDM, to request different sections of the file. Within the limits of server capacity, these sections are transmitted in parallel, and the download manager then reconstructs the whole file. This process speeds things up for the user but increases load on the server, and can quickly kill a shared server. If you disable allow_http_ranges, then download managers are not allowed to make multiple requests. The file gets transferred sequentially.

- If you set force_redirect to 1, then LDM does not intervene in the handling of the transfer. The speed of the transfer depends entirely on the construction of the web server. One side effect is that inquisitive users can find out where the file is stored, and bypass your security.

Transfer efficiency and speed (and also server load) depend critically on certain factors. If the file is physically stored on a different server, there is a *large* overhead involved in fetching the file and retransmitting it. Transfer of remote files will *always* be much faster if force_redirect is set to 1, at the costs of reduced security, because the transfer is being handled directly (and solely) by the server on which the file is stored.

Here's the catch: If you set up a local file using its full url (i.e. http: // yoursite / yourdir / yourfile.typ) instead of using the local filename ( / yourdir / yourfile.typ), LDM has to assume that the file is remote. This is because web servers may have been set up with redirections, mod_rewrite, etc.) So transfers of local files specified with full urls are much slower (and also more expensive in server load) than when specified as local files.

So the broad answer to your question is 'yes, you can certainly tweak LDM to work faster', but you may end up putting a very large load on the server if you try to squeeze every drop of speed by allowing too many simultaneous transfers. Other sites have had to limit their use of LDM for transferring large files because they have put too much load on the server.

My recommendation is:

- specify local files using local file names, not full urls
- do not offer downloads of large files hosted on other servers
- make sure the curl library is available

wow, thanks for the detailed explanation. This does make a lot of since. I have been avoiding this, but it seems if I want to sell large downloads, I will have to pay for a dedicated server..ouch. I was hoping ldlm would prevent me from having to go that rout with the clever hidden external links. I appreciate your time.
Riki

about the cURL, these are my php settings

PHP
allow_url_fopen Yes
cURL Yes
GD2 Yes
open_basedir not set
post_max_size 8M
upload_max_filesize 2M
MySQL 5.0.45-community
wait_timeout 200

What will happen if I change this setting to Yes?
force_fopen
Prevent use of cURL library for network file handling. Only meaningful when cURL library is installed. Do not change this setting unless you know what you are doing.

Your settings suggest that everything is installed correctly.

As the parameter name suggests, it will disable use of the cURL library, which is used for transferring files from remote servers. The alternative code uses functions built into php, which I think are not as efficient, but are sometimes useful for debugging.

Hi!

In Moment I Use Vb 3.5 and LDM 2.1.2.

Next Time i want upgrade my VBulletin and LDM. Can anybody say me, what i have to do if i want to hold the links etc.... ?

Very Thanks :)

I've run a quick test - the upgrade process seems to work correctly from version 2.1.2. First upgrade vbulletin to version 3.7, then upgrade LDM by uploading the version 2.2.9 of the code and installing the product xml file.

I'll add the facility on the 2.2.9 RC admin/allowances page to clear bandwidth consumed by individual users during the last 24 hours.

Wow, that`s Great, very Thanks.:)

The main thing was the hits, I have a limit set to like 5 hits per user. It would be easiest if I could just reset those hit values on a per user basis. Currently, the only way to give a user more hits is to raise the global hit number, which gives everyone more hits. If I could perhaps give individual users more hits or reset the hits they currently used, either would be great!

Thanks man.

Riki

It's not easy (without rewriting quite a lot of the code) to give individual users a temporary extra allowance or temporarily ignore the allowances for them only. The change I've made will allow you to tell LDM to treat an individual user's hits for the last 24 hours as being 'zero size'. LDM does not count such hits against either the files or the bytes allowances.

Edited - moved to start of thread

I tested the feature and it looks like it only works with the allowances and not the limitaccess-byhits-plugin. I like the idea a lot but is there a way to make it work with this plugin as well?

Nice updates in the RC btw! :)

Riki

OK, will check.

hi Andrew,
thanks for the update :)
i have tested the new version, but it seems not to be able to seo category names correctly
example:
catid:13
catname: Some Name
seo name (output): c-Some Name-13
which should be: c-some-name-13 (no CAPS and - instead of space)
and for some reason i couldn't get it to work.

thanks a lot again

Yes, this works fine now. Thanks

Edit: I couldn't get the seo links to work with vBSEO. I asked on their forums last night but haven't had a reply yet

Feel free to test it if you like Andrew

Sorry, I'd missed the capitals and spaces. Here's a modified version of includes/local_links_include.php

If you set seo_friendly to 2, you need a different set of mod_rewrite rules. These are the ones I am using as test. If you also set seo_title, then you need to replace local_links in the first part of each rule by your seo_title:

I don't have access to the relevant part of the LDM admin - the maintenance section is restricted to superadmins.

Have you taken a look at the mod_rewrite rules I have posted in the wiki? I don't know how vbseo works - I have never bought a copy.

Hmm, you have the same admin rights as me. There isnt and Super Admin group on my forum. Just Admin. Will send you pm Andrew.

Pm sent.