Links and Downloads Manager
 

What this is and does

LDM is a general-purpose tool for managing libraries of links and files, and handling uploads and downloads in a flexible way, while tracking and control user access. It has a range of integrated media players and a large library of 'plugin' extras.

Installation and Usage Explained in the on-line Wiki, with a brief explanation in the file instructions.txt in the release zip.

Please use carefully and always backup your database before upgrading. Post reports of problems and suggestions for enhancements in this thread. You can also find extensive discussion of this mod in the VB3.7 mods section.

14.06.09 Version 2.3.0 is the the officially-supported version. Works with 3.7 and vb 3.8.

14.02.10 Post-1 version uploaded with minor bug fixes, including dealing with PHP 5.2.12


Staff Note: Sadly, Andrew D, the developer of the Links and Downloads Manager has passed away after a long period of illness.

Reserved for announcements and bug reports

swfuploader

There is a bug in the swfuploader extra, which breaks the extra if your forums directory is called something other than "forum". To fix this bug, edit the links_swfuploader_header_one template, find the line that reads:
and change to

really nice hack!

thank you :)

Andrew,

When I try to import the Search Module I get an error that states that I don't have permissions for /admincp/vba_cmps_admin.php

I can continue and the Search Module is on my page but when I use the search form it states that a security token is missing.

Thank you AndrewD. Does this version include the option to upload and store files by their real name?

There is an 'extra' (upload-filenames) which does the best it can - not all filemames can be preserved 100%.

I can't reproduce this, but I imagine you have an old version of the ldm_search.php file in your forums/modules directory. Check, and if necessary delete this file, then reinstall. Let me know if you still have problems.

Andrew,

Thanks for the help. I woke up this AM and had an epiphany and it turned out that what had happened was that my ldm_ templates were custom for all my child styles. I had uploaded the latest version of your Search Module and it overwrote ldm_search.php but I had only selected my parent style to install the updated templates (assuming the children styles would inherit the new templates).

As soon as I reverted the templates of the children styles the search box worked.

Again, thank you for an excellent product.

any demo or screenshoots on the link manager?

As it says in the opening post, check the wiki :)

Thank you, Andrew. Good work, as usual ;)

thank u , i will upgrade

Thank you, good job ;)

Thank you Andrew!! Will upgrade soon.

Thanks very mush for the update !

I have change the serveur and some links doesn't works now. For exemple an ancien link :

/00. dossier a/02. dossier/Audio/audio n° 02.mp3

I must to change for :

/00. dossier a/02. dossier/Audio/audio n° 01.mp3

Must I add the caracter  on the sames links or there is a solution ?

This problem is because I have change the server.

thanks very mush.

Have all files changed name in a consistent way during the change of server? (For example, do all the files now have names with n° instead of n??) If so, you can do a bulk update of your entries' filenames. Go to the LDM admin/mass edit page. Select the 'mass edit' link on the same line as "select all" and "select all entries on all pages".

On the next page, select "select all entries on all pages" checkbox and "Edit" radio button. Then, in the find and replace boxes put the following:

Find : #n?#
Replace: #n°#

Be careful - you can do damage to your LDM database if you get these wrong.

If the new names are not consistent, then I don't think you have any choice but to go through one entry at a time.

Thanks very mush. I have a lot of categories with audio named ***n°** ....

I don't understand why when the script search an audio in a categorie, the caractere "Â " is add.

I will see my hebergeur if there is an othere solution, maybe the encoding, and there is a reglage, I don't really know ......

Hello,

I upgraded from 2.2.9 and set to overwrite. It only shows a white page now.

Installed it again and now it ignores the CSS for all styles?

Edit: seems to be related to another optimising hack and caching styles.

Thanks. Where can I find a change log? Also any design/template changes we should be aware of?

There is a full change log on the wiki. It's far too long to post here. :)

The LDM templates do undergo regular changes. It's not really feasible to provide lists of changes.

AndrewD,

i guess i'm not the first to have problems with swfuploader extra. i tried to install it on my test forum and it doesn't seem to work at all. i mean, i see "browse" button in the add entry form but it doesn't press. actually, it does press in msie6 but does nothing. it doesn't even press in firefox. i suspected there's a problem with my browser but when i tried swfuploader demo at their site it worked. i see no settings for this extra plugin so there's nothing i could have misset. multi-upload is turned off. if i turn this extra off and upload files the old hard way everything's ok so it's not permission or any other problem. what can be wrong?

Sorry to hear of this problem. I've had one or two reports of difficulties with swfuploader, but I think they were all sorted out.

If the "browse" button is there but not doing anything, it suggests that one or more of the swfuploader files is missing or corrupted. Take a look on your site in the forum/clientscript/swfupload directory. There should be five files:

swfupload.swf - 13kb
swfupload.js - 38kb
swfupload.queue.js - 4kb
handlers.js - 7kb
fileprogress.js - 7kb

With firefox, it's worth installing the Firebug addon (from the firefox site). That way, if there is a problem with one of the javascript files, it will give you a warning down in the bottom right corner of the browser. By clicking on that warning, you should get a more detailed error message.

AndrewD,

thanks for the firebug tip, i never knew such a great tool existed. i've been able to find the problem with button, it appears that there's a line containing relative path to the actual flash object in links_swfuploader_header_one template and somehow this line was set to "/forum/clientscript/swfupload/swfupload.swf". i adjusted it for my setup and flash object begun working but there's a new problem now, after pressing submit button the local_links_actions.php just gives out blank screen. there's nothing in error_log and it appears that the problem may be somehow linked to file size: it successfully added 14kb gif but choked after uploading 0.5mb and 5mb jpegs.

AndrewD,

oopsie, it seems this bug is not actually yours. first i tried to upload 4.7 mb zip archive and it worked just fine and then i tried to upload smaller picture and it also worked. the final test was with that 5mb jpeg (12 mpix 2848x4288) but with optional thumbnail image (small one) filled in and it also worked. hence my conclusion: it seems that the problem is in ImageMagick that chokes on large images while trying to make thumbnails.

Ouch, sorry about that. Will fix in the next upload.

By default, LDM uses the GD image package (even if you are using imagemagick elsewhere). GD has a serious problem with making thumbnails from large files - I found once that it used over 50Mb memory to process a 5Mb image.

There is a new add on with version 2.3.0 so that LDM will use ImageMagick instead of GD. You may want to give this a try (test-newimagecode). The intention is to make this standard with the next release.

AndrewD,

i tried this extra and indeed it worked. thanks. :)

[high]* Slave waves!
[/high]
Blimey, I've not been here for ages! I'm still stuck on 3.6 (Got the site just as I want it, no more changes until 4.0 I think) so I can't test anything at the moment but I just wanted to say it's lovely to see this mod still going.

Well done AndrewD!! :)

<font color="red">* Andrew waves back!
</font>

Glad to hear from you again...

Please help. I've spent three days off and on pulling my hair out! I'm trying to get the hit parade to show the most popular entries and newest entries for *ALL* categories combined. One list, but it pulls data from every category.

It is only showing it from one category. So...to explain... on my main downloads page (the root of downloads) it shows the hit parade next to the entire category list, but the hit parade is only for one particular category --- not all of them combined.

I for the life of me cannot find where to control this or where I have set this.

Live hit parade on root:
http://forum.bigmiketrading.com/free_downloads/

The hit parade list is all from this one category:
http://forum.bigmiketrading.com/free...er/indicators/

Please help before I go completely mad!

Mike

Happy to help, Mike. It will be easiest for me if I can do a bit of debugging on your site to find out where the error is happening. Would you send me a PM with details of an account with full vb admin privs (i.e. the ability to access the vb acp and install plugins).

If I add a new user group to vbulletin and base the usergroups permissions of an existing usergroup, then that has an unwanted effect on LDM permissions. LDM categories inherit permissions from associated/parent forums. But in this situation categories inherit a no-permission from their associated/parent forums.

Even once global permissions for the new usergroup are added to LDM, the associated/parent forums still cause a no-permission.

Hey Andrew,

Hope you might be able to help. I've reverted all templates in the new version but it seems to not come out how previous versions appear. I looked in the default VB but it still has the same effect.

http://www.unofficialmills.co.uk/com...s.php?catid=39

All the text descriptions are aligned right.

Also why are the hit parade titles shortened? Is there a setting for this? http://www.unofficialmills.co.uk/com...ocal_links.php

Finally on the jukebox is it possible to remove the box surrounding the description?

Good Mod!
thanks.

I think you've got the LDM admin setting link_imagesize set to 500. LDM attempts to grab the cover art from mp3 files and show it as the entry's image, scaled to link_imagesize pixels and placed in a cell at the left side of the entry bit. For some reason, it is actually displaying blank images for your mp3 files, but these are still occupying the 500pixel box, and this is what is pushing your text to the right.

Another user requested this. You can modify LDM admin setting length_shortname to change the cutoff

You need to modify the links_playbit template. There's a sequence that reads
You can change this to, e.g.,

If I understand you, your report is correct. Currently, when new usergroups are added, LDM treats the usergroup as having no access permissions at all. You have to go to LDM admin permissions to give the new group the permissions you want. I may rethink this with vb4.0.

Ah this wasn't set to anything so maybe for the future it could default to 0 perhaps :)

Thank you for your help!

By the way, I don't suppose there's any sort of RSS feed linked to LDM is there?

The problem is that LDM keeps using inherited permissions it cant find. If I add a new usergroup, then I need to add permissions to LDM for it. This is managable.
However, in the categories that inherit their permissions these permissions are overridden.
LDM can't find the forum permissions of the new usergroup and therefore it overrides these categories with no-permission for the new usergroup. It is possible to correct each setting of each category, but I can find no solution to correct a mass of categories at once.

If you are running version 2.3.0, both the ldm/admin/permissions and ldm/admin/settings have a "view all category overrides" link in the top right of the page. The link takes you to a new page which allows you to selectively eliminate these overrides.

There was a bug which causes unwanted inherited overrides but I think it is corrected in 2.3.0.

Absolutely brilliant mod. I'm using it just as a links manager and am overwhelmed by all the features but even so, it's superb work.

I'm still trying to simplify things as far as possible but one day one it looks like I'll be sticking with this great product.

Congrats

I did this and now have the strangest error showing up at various specific locations. All locations are LDM locations.
EDIT: it is a conflict between LDM and Two-Step links.