Links and Files Database

The VB3.0 version is no longer supported although there have been no reported problems for some time

See here for the VB 3.6 version of this hack, which is now the supported version. This version currently also works with VB 3.5
See here for the VB 3.5 thread for this hack.

What's new in v1.60?

Option to display associated thumbnail images
Option to accept/not accept new entries if these already exists in database
Code for mass edits (accessed via admincp) tidied up
VB phrasing completed
Includes a full French and a partial German translation (thanks to cclaerhout, Allan and LeeWicKeD), handled properly by installation script.
Various bugs fixed and tested against php4 and php5:
Better database validation (on startup/in admincp: links with invalid associated forumids, categories with invalid parentids)
Alternative linkbit templates provided (default uses a fieldset, the other is the old-style table row)
Alternative category selection templates (pull down menu/list of checkboxes),
Star rating displayed using standard VB stars rather than in text form
Series of minor bug fixes
See file change.txt in zip file

What it is/does

- Provides a searchable database of weblinks and/or downloadable files, for example manuals, music files, pictures, etc.
- Integrates within VBulletin, without requiring any code changes.
- Transparently handles links and file downloads. (If you want to provide downloads from your own site, you need a separate tool to upload these files. This hack does not and will not include a file uploader.)
- Provides unlimited nested categories.
- Each link/file can be a member of multiple categories.
- Link and category title and descriptions can use all BBCODEs, giving the possibility to add images, colouring, etc, as you wish
- Viewing/access permissions controlled using VBulletin forum system
- Users can rate links, in a similar manner to VB thread rating.
- File downloads are semi-leechproof, i.e. the user does not see where the file is stored and can only access the link if she has access to the associated forum.
- Audio files playable via Windows Media Player can be offered as a jukebox .
- Tracks who downloads what
- Validates links on entry/editing, and provides admin facility to validate the entire database.

Installation/upgrading instructions

Read instructions.txt in the zip file. Installation script works out whether to install or upgrade.

To upgrade from an earlier release of this hack, simply re-run the installation script. If you modified the templates in the top styles, you will lose these modifications unless you back up and re-edit.

PLEASE BACK UP YOUR DATABASE

See also

For screen shots, see attachments.

Tested with

VBulletin 3.0 and higher
PHP 4.1.1 and 4.3.4, should work with all 4.x versions, seems ok with 5.0.4
MySQL 4.0.
Reported ok with MySQL 4.1 but not exhaustively tested

Credits

Initially inspired by drkFusion's vb2 hack "vb Link Directory" v.2 and discussion about v.3 on Vbulletin.org. This is a complete rewrite with many more features. Every credit to the VBulletin folks for providing the infrastructure and to those on vbulletin.org who have helped with testing.

Integrations/Conversions

Natch has written extensions to integrate this hack with VBindex and VBAdvanced.

For convenience, this hack includes fully integrates with, but does not install, his VBIndex hack - i.e. the required template and code are provided, and the admin panel handles the configuration settings. Please refer to his thread for instructions.

Integration with VBadvanced is described in thread 1319 at vbadvanced.com.

The zip file includes a script and instructions for converting from vbLinks v2 (see thread 44551

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by refertech

Not sure AE. For me, I had same exact problem as you with space but no one problem with spaces removed.

AndrewD:
My other problem with the rating showing and the file size not showing was only with that one link and that link was made when i was having all of my other problems. But all others work fine so i just deleted that one and re-set it up and all is well now.

Thanks,

Mark

Mark, I had wondered. Downloads only show a size if the code thinks the file is on the local host and so can use a stat() call to get file details. For remote files, you would have to read the file completely in order to find how big they are, so the size check is skipped.

[Meltingfire]

Originally Posted by AndrewD

Mark, I had wondered. Downloads only show a size if the code thinks the file is on the local host and so can use a stat() call to get file details. For remote files, you would have to read the file completely in order to find how big they are, so the size check is skipped.

Installed this hack yesterday, have founds some bugs.

The first bug is that you dont use THIS_SCRIPT to often, in the install-script you have alot of the links containing local_ for "next step", "run step 1", etc in the HTML, also, one of the queries, "ALTER TABLE local_linksltoc ADD INDEX ( linkid ) " will give an error if you dont change it to use THIS_SCRIPT.

The second thing i dont like is that the Forum-Jump dropdown is placed at the top right of the links pages when it should be at the left bottom as on every other page?

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by Meltingfire

Installed this hack yesterday, have founds some bugs.

The first bug is that you dont use THIS_SCRIPT to often, in the install-script you have alot of the links containing local_ for "next step", "run step 1", etc in the HTML, also, one of the queries, "ALTER TABLE local_linksltoc ADD INDEX ( linkid ) " will give an error if you dont change it to use THIS_SCRIPT.

The second thing i dont like is that the Forum-Jump dropdown is placed at the top right of the links pages when it should be at the left bottom as on every other page?

Thanks. The install script seems to have one missing table prefix, on linksltoc - the rest are script names, which I will parameterise but should not cause errors unless you deliberately rename the script.

The placement of the forum jump dropdown is, as they say, a feature :devious:. We put it in that position consistently on our main board because we found people were not spotting it down the bottom of the page. Just edit the linksheader template and put it where you want.

[Mickie D]

working great for me now

thanks very much

is there any chance of having an upload feature so my members can upload files and use this just as a downloads section ?

Regards
Mickie

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by Mickie D

working great for me now

thanks very much

is there any chance of having an upload feature so my members can upload files and use this just as a downloads section ?

Regards
Mickie

Mickie, glad things are working fine.

As for uploads/downloads, I leave that for someone else to sort out. The security issues seem pretty horrendous to me, and we don't allow our users to upload onto our site. Perhps this should be handled as some sort of tie in with the new VB attachments system?

[Morrus]

Originally Posted by AndrewD

Mickie, glad things are working fine.

As for uploads/downloads, I leave that for someone else to sort out. The security issues seem pretty horrendous to me, and we don't allow our users to upload onto our site. Perhps this should be handled as some sort of tie in with the new VB attachments system?

Just had a problem.

This has been working fine for me for a while now, but suddenly today the system has flagged *every* link (200+ of them) as broken. Any thoughts on why it might do this?

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by Morrus

Just had a problem.

This has been working fine for me for a while now, but suddenly today the system has flagged *every* link (200+ of them) as broken. Any thoughts on why it might do this?

Have you just done a revalidation via the admin page, or is this spontaneous? And are your links on or off your site?

The "validate" procedure tries to open a connection to all your links. If the call fails (timeout, etc), then the link is flagged as unavailable.

Perhaps you could pm me or post one of the apparently bad links? I'll try to see iof anything obvious is going on.

[refertech]

AndrewD do you have any idea on how that add on hack works that Natch wrote do you. He must be on vacation cause I'm having a few problems and he in hiding. If not i understand and i know i probably shouldnt be asking for this here.

Mark

[Natch]

I stop visiting the board for 3 days and I'm in hiding ?

The problem you are having (unless I'm mistaken) is assocaited with the links not pointing to files that exist ...

[swanienufan]

First off, I want to say GREAT hack, super easy installation worked great!

Is there a way to set the display order of the categories or links? Didn't know if I was missing something. I went back and looked through most of the messages and couldn't find anything on this. If not available now, is this something that might be added in future releases?

Thanks for your work on this.

G