Links and Downloads Manager

LDM extends VBulletin to manage a library of documents, files and links to other web sites. Documents can be stored on your own web site, stored on your server separate from the web site, uploaded by your user community, or held somewhere else altogether. So you can use LDM to provide your user community with access to your own files and allow them to share files with each other.

12/08/06 - Versions that work with vb36 are available and supported in the VB36 thread. Version 2.2.1, which works with VB 3.5 but not with VB 3.6, remains available here.

Thanks to everyone who has helped with all the design, testing, etc.
Translations are provided (thanks dLutt and LeeWicked) into German, (thanks to Allan) into French, and (thanks to Hugo) into Spanish. Harry1951 has handled the Dutch translation.

Screenshots, Instructions and How to Install

Full details and instructions are available as a Wiki at http://www.eirma.org/wikis/index.php...nloads_Manager

LDM installs as a VBulletin product. There are no modifications required to standard VB code.

Basically - upload php files and run the installer through VB's Product installer. No changes needed to VB code. Remember to BACKUP YOUR DATABASE. By default, LDM prefixes its database tables 'local_'. Edit the configuration file, local_links_init.php, if you need/wish to change this.

LDM can handle an essentially unlimited number of categories and nested subcategories, and an unlimited number of entries (hyperlinks or downloadable files). Each entry can be placed in one or several categories. Categories can have styles. Descriptions and titles can optionally include BBcodes, smilies, images and html, giving the possibility to add images, colouring, etc. File types can be flagged using icons and individual entries can also have associated thumbnail images.

Standards templates are provided for libraries of links, files, documents, and photographs.

Users can offer comments and rate the links/downloads. Each user is allowed one rating and many comments per entry, and can freely edit these if they change their mind.

Permission to use specific features is established via the product's admin page, where the administrator specifies which usergroups can add and edit entries, comment and rate these entries, moderate, etc.

By default, all entries are visible to all users. You can restrict visibility/access to links and categories by using the permissions masks from your board's forums.

Moderation of new entries is available but turned off by default.

Users can report bad links to the relevant moderators/administrators.

Each user can flag links as his/her "Favourites".

Modules are provided for VBAdvanced.

Hooks are provided in suitable places in LDM and sample plugins are included in the release (see extras directory), for example to integrate with ID3 tags in mp3 files, for slideshows, to autocreate new threads in your forums, etc.

Plus much more.

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by Jukov

BTW tower of babel and all that, a friend of mine translates the LDM phrases to russian as we speak...

That's great!

About a year ago, people were having problems with an earlier version, which only showed up when they were using Bulgarian and Korean translations. Now that really taxed my tiny brain. We got to the bottom of it!

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by Allan

Very Nice AndrewD

File attach: French language for v 2.0.7RC update

Click Install

Merci beaucoup, Allan.

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by sitka

can you show hottest links or specific category links on forumhome? not with vbadvanced

Easiest way is to create forums which are redirects to the the category of interest, ie. use local_links.php?catid=N as the link. For standard categories, LDM will create these automagically within Add Category (look down the bottom of the form).

For What's hot, etc, you just give a negative catid:
What's Hot: -7
What's New: -8
Just hover the mouse over the Show drop down menu to find out the catid's for the various options.

If you want these to expand into showing a list of the actual hot, new, etc, entries on forumhome, I can't think offhand how you would achieve this without using the portal interface. Perhaps a plugin could be written.

[tqvn2004]

Nice extension but its interface is a bit confusing. I like the interface of vbadvanced Link manager better: http://www.vbadvanced.com/links/

It keeps the same looks and feels of Vbulletin. Have you ever considered a interface change for this extension, AndrewD?

[Boofo]

I like the interface just the way it is. The one you linked to has a lot of wasted space and columns that have no need to be there.

[EasyTarget]

andrew on the short bit template the stats get all scrunched up at the end like:

Originally Posted by LDM

10-
16-
2005
Hits
3

and the entries without a thumbnail get displayed as if there was a thumbnail to display (moves the title over)

also I think it would be nice if we could choose whether to add the descriptions to the side of the thumbnails or underneath it (for banner-like images). And maybe add a short-bit description input field on the add/edit link page so that we could use more than just the link title in the short bit.

*edit*
I was just thinking it'd be nice also to be able to define which template to use by the category. so one category could be the normal links bit and another could be the short links bit template.

it seems all the gif images come up with a black background even when it seems transparent.

[Vtec44]

Originally Posted by tqvn2004

Nice extension but its interface is a bit confusing. I like the interface of vbadvanced Link manager better: http://www.vbadvanced.com/links/

It keeps the same looks and feels of Vbulletin. Have you ever considered a interface change for this extension, AndrewD?

I modified the template, and came up with THIS

[MikeGK]

Originally Posted by AndrewD

Mike, as per PM:

Thanks - I'll add this to the list of things to think about! - Is the download speed an issue for you? If so, does the problem relate to files coming from your own server or being processed through your server from another site? And what operating system is the server using? If Windows, we discovered a serious performance glitch, which has been corrected in later versions of LDM.

Hello Andrew, the file hosted on local server not offsite, and I'm running on linux ...the speed is kinda slow on one connection ..usually with two connections open would increase speed better ...could you please help ..thank you ..

Mike

[TundraSoul]

Very nice Vtec44.

Originally Posted by Vtec44

I modified the template, and came up with THIS

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by tqvn2004

Nice extension but its interface is a bit confusing. I like the interface of vbadvanced Link manager better: http://www.vbadvanced.com/links/

It keeps the same looks and feels of Vbulletin. Have you ever considered a interface change for this extension, AndrewD?

Each to their own! Actually, I tend to agree with you - the various bits and pieces have been added over time as people have asked for more and more. The virtue of the VB template based system is that you can always slim things down, redesign, etc. I will be delighted to distribute other templates, but graphics design is not my core competence!