Miscellaneous Hacks - Word Links (Turn words into links) by BOP5

My VB4 Version of this mod won the June 2011 Mod-of-the-Month!! This is virtually an identical mod- thank you for your votes!

The purpose of this mod is to automatically turn keywords or phrases you specify into links. You set a list of keywords and a list of URLs to link them to and let the mod do the rest.

Demo Link

There are many options as you can see in the screenshot. You can choose to include the "nofollow" attribute, choose to open links in a new tab, choose to match whole words only or not, specify specific forums, enable in social groups and visitor messages, and disable completely for selected usergroups.

Version: 2.0

• New in 0.91: Limit the number of links created per keyword per post.
• New in 0.92: Use CSS to customize the look of links created by this mod.
• New in 0.93: Linked words now retain the same case as they were originally typed. Also a new option to specify whether linked words are case sensitive or not.
• New in 0.94: The <span> tags for use with custom CSS are now optional. They can be turned off to prevent unnecessary HTML generation if not using custom CSS. Also bug & conflict fix.
• New in 0.95: Enable or disable in PMs.
• New in 0.96: Should fix conflicts with AME mod, restores same case change in 0.93.
• New in 1.0: Additional code to prevent unintended linking. No new features.
• New in 1.1: Set approximate number of max links per page.
• New in 1.2: Fixed bug when Ampersands (&) were used in keywords.
• New in 1.3: Added optional notice on posts with links and associated phrase.
• New in 1.31: Bug-fix. Somewhere around version 1.0 "Match Whole Words Only" stopped working. It is now fixed.
• New in 1.5: Two new features: 1) You can now use a csv data file for your links (and advanced features) if you prefer and 2) You can use a custom user profile field to allow users to disable the mod individually if you choose.
• New in 2.0: New condensed code. New option for custom regex code.

Example... If someone types:

"I bought it on Amazon."

This mod can auto convert it to:

"I bought it on Amazon.

And you would presumably put your Amazon affiliate code, if you had one, in the link.

NOTE: This mod does not alter the actual posts or the database. Disabling or uninstalling the mod will remove all links.

There is a VB3 and VB4 version of this mod, please download the correct version.

Full instructions in zip file.

*NEW IN 0.92*

As of version 0.92 all links created are within a <span> tag of class "boplink." This allows you to customize the look of the links created by this mod ussing CSS.

In your "Additional CSS" you can add the following CSS code and customize it to your liking for each of your styles. This is OPTIONAL. If you do not add this CSS links will retain the same style as existing links in your posts.

Sample CSS:

.boplink A:link {background: yellow; text-decoration: none}
.boplink A:visited {background: yellow; text-decoration: none}
.boplink A:active {background: yellow; text-decoration: none}
.boplink A:hover {background: yellow; font-weight:bold; color: red;}

This CSS will highlight the links in yellow and turn the text to red and bold when mouse-overed.

In VB 3.x Additional CSS is accessible via Style Manger -> All Style Options, scroll down to Additional CSS Definitions. Use the lower box to customize the CSS uniquely for each style.

This mod uses functions that may not work on non-latin (multibyte/unicode) characters. I'm sorry but it is only tested/working on English and other latin based alphabets.

Please Mark as Installed if you use this.

[BirdOPrey5]

adwade - I have figured out the "S&B" issue is because the & is being turned into the HTML code for an "&."

I will update the mod, probably tomorrow, but for now if you want change your keyword:

S&B

to

S&B

And it should link S&B as expected. :up:

[BirdOPrey5]

Updated to Version 1.2

Fixed bug when ampersand (&) and other special HTML characters were used in keywords. Keywords with these characters (ex: S&B) will work as expected.

[Spinball]

Another couple of points.
We would want some transparency to our visitors. Every time a link is added, we would want some kind of indication of that. Otherwise people whose posts have been changed will complain that it will look like they posted the link and therefore endorse it.
Could we have a title attribute of something like

Shopping links added by AVForums

?

Also it would be nice if we could track the number of added links and clicks some how.
My ad guy suggested inserting a 1x1 pixel also.

Have you considered any of these ideas?

[BirdOPrey5]

Originally Posted by Spinball

Have you considered any of these ideas?

I figured the issue of having links added to posts should be told to the users by way of an announcement and/or forum rules noting that the forum has a policy of auto-linking certain keywords and users should understand some links may be added to their posts. If you want to list your keywords or such that is up to you.

If your're using skimwords they should already be used to this.

The custom CSS option allows you to make links generated by this mod look different than ordinary user-added links so that could help reduce confusion too.

I suppose I could add an option to append a line to any post altered by this mod something like "For your convenience some keywords in this post have been auto-linked." - Obviously something you could edit.

But the tracking of links would involve edits to the database and that was never something I was intending to do with this mod. May I add it one day- possibly- but it likely will not be anytime soon.

Adding a spot for a 1-pixel gif would only help track if someone was willing to make a separate gif for each keyword. It could be done but does anyone really want to go through that much trouble? And it would only show how many times a link was displayed, would be of no help tracking clicks.

[BirdOPrey5]

New in 1.3: Added optional notice on posts with links and associated phrase.

You can now choose to display a custom notice in posts, PMs, visitor messages, and social group posts to alert users that keywords have automatically been turned into links.

To edit this notice use the Phrase Manager and edit the GLOBAL phrase: bop5_wordlinks_note.
HTML code is allowed in phrases. {1} will be replaced with the number of keywords linked in a post. Its use in the phrase is optional.

[Artes_Marciales]

Great Work!!!! : D

I have a suggestion but do not know if it will be very difficult to program
Registered users can enable or disable "Word Links" from your profile?
That would be perfect.

[BirdOPrey5]

Originally Posted by Artes_Marciales

Great Work!!!! : D

I have a suggestion but do not know if it will be very difficult to program
Registered users can enable or disable "Word Links" from your profile?
That would be perfect.

It would require you as admin to make a custom profile field but the logic would be pretty easy to program in the mod, I just don't know how many admins would like to give the choice to disable- would defeat the purpose of the mod.

But I will try and work it into the next update.

[Artes_Marciales]

Ok, Thanks!! : D

I think registered users may not want to see the links and I think is very good for them to have the possibility to enable or disable the mod.

[BirdOPrey5]

BUG-FIX!

I noticed today that the option to "Match Whole Words Only" was being ignored and upon investigation I see it has been broken since version 1.0. (It was working in the Betas). I have fixed this issue and released version 1.31.

I am also well into development of an option to manage links and keywords via a csv datafile, so it's easier to keep track of than the two boxes currently in use. I expect to have this newer version out in the next day or two.

[BirdOPrey5]

Big update today... Two new features.

1) For those of you with a lot of keywords and links it's hard to keep track of which keyword goes to which link in the two separate boxes you can now put all your keywords and links together in one .csv (comma separate value) data file and upload it and the mod will pull its info from the data file instead of the two boxes.

In addition you can use advanced features if using the datafile such as setting the "target" and "rel" attributes for each link individually if you choose. If you don't specify a target or a rel value the mod will use whatever setting you have chosen in the mod settings.

A sample datafile is included and an example is here:

Amazon,http://www.amazon.com,,
eBay,http://www.ebay.com,,nofollow
Best Buy,http://www.bestbuy.com,_self,
JUOT,http://www.juot.net,_blank,nofollow
vBulletin,http://www.vbulletin.org,_blank,
Google,http://www.google.com,,
Apple,http://www.apple.com,,friend
Microsoft,http://www.microsoft.com,_self,alternate

You can make a csv file in a text editor or use a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel and "Save As" a common CSV file.

The second new feature is integration with an optional Custom User Profile Field. If you make a custom profile field to enable users to turn automatic word linking on or off you can tell this mod which field number you created and the mod will disable itself for anyone who turns it off. (By default it's on.) Full instructions on how to make a custom user profile field is included in the mod instructions.

A separate How-To make a compatible csv datafile is also included in the mod .zip fie.