Major Additions - 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. The recent revision history is given in the first post of this thread.

Please use carefully and always backup your database before upgrading. Post reports of problems and suggestions for enhancements in this thread.

14.06.09 Version 2.3.0 is now the the officially-supported version. Works with 3.7 and vb 3.8. Please post comments in this thread

22.06.08 Version 2.2.9-post1 - This is the previous supported version. Works fine with all versions of vb 3.6 and vb 3.7. All standard features except profile integration and forum prefix selection work fine with vb 3.8.

[vbboarder]

My flash videos were playing fine a week ago, but I recently installed vbTubePro and then the videos in LDM were not showing. Not sure if it's because of vbTubePro, but I can't recall working on anything else besides LDM and vbTubePro this past week. Anyways, here's the bug and solution fix.

Problem: the JW wma/wmv player does not show if the window mode is not transparent/ windowless.

Solution:
1. Edit links_playerbit_JWwmPlayer template - FIND:

file:?$player_stream?

After that ADD:

background:?transparent?, windowless:?true?,

2. The old 1.0 JW Silverlight player can't handle the background parameter, so download the new JW Silverlight media player at: http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=jw_wmv_player

3. Add the JW prefixes to silverlight.js, wmvplayer.js, wmvplayer.xaml (ie: rename to JWsilverlight.js) and overwrite the files in the /forum/clientscript folder.

Problem: the JW flash player does not show if the window mode is not transparent/ windowless.

Solution:
1. Edit links_playerbit_JWPlayer template - FIND:

ldmso$player_id.addParam(?allowfullscreen?, ?true?);

Before that, ADD:

ldmso$player_id.addParam(?wmode?, ?transparent?);

2. The current JWPlayer for Flash works with this modification. However, the new JWPlayer 4 is available and also compatible with this edit. It's available at: http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=JW_FLV_Media_Player

Hope that helps people having trouble displaying videos using the JW players

[derfelix]

Originally Posted by AndrewD

try editing local_links_search.php, round about line 1150, there's a sequence...

Works Like a charm!!!!!
Thank You Sir !!!!

Felix

[stwilson]

Originally Posted by stwilson

I have the same issue. My lists of links do not work like you suggest either. I have a page of 10 links but clicking on the link title fires off the action of opening a new browser and taking me to that link. I would prefer to have the clicking take the user to the link's detail, including the comments. I have tried every possible configuration but cannot get it to work this way. The fact that yours works like you posted gives me hope.

Andrew,

Welcome back! Any suggestion on how to set my links properties so clicking on the link title opens the link details versus attempting to open the link? I have tried everything but cannot figure it out. Is that even an option?

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by derfelix

Maybe its only me.. but probably I am doing something wrong....

Talking about Keywords..
(this is only theoretical.. but i plan to have it running in couple of weeks)

I set up LDM as a simple link directory with 16 categories...
Users add links with title, description AND Keywords..
Suppose every user adds 5 keywords.. some are double.. some not..
so if i plan to have about 5000 links.. that makes 25000.. keywords.. no.. because of doubles etc.. but lets say about 5000 in total..

--------
Now on the display links page for example and in other places I have the "Filter" (a dropdown that shows all keywords).. that would be a dropdown with 5000 fields?????
I know this is theoretical only, but realistic is to have about 1000 keywords after 5000 links.. (specially if you have very different categories)
even a the 1000 keywords loaded every page would slow down the system.. or am I wrong..
Ok the filter is limited to keywords by category.. but still.. we dont know how big we get..
I would suggest an option to turn the keyword filter off.. specially to save ressources on bigger board

Thats only an idea... but maybe i'm totally wrong..

Felix

I took a look at this, and I don't think the problem is as serious as it might be. The keyword filter shown on a category display page only includes kywords that have actually been used for entries in that category. Pages where users can add keywords use an Ajax-enabled drop-down of matching keywords. Have I missed something?

Still, I will add a control setting to disable this menu.

[derfelix]

Well i tested with a little spider i wrote... grabs links with description and keyword metatags.. and adds it to the db.. the 50 links i added to the category had very many keywords (from metatags) about 40 or 50 per link... for some reason they were not somilar so i ended up with 2500 keywords for 50 links

of course if a human fills in the link he will rather add 1 or 2 keywords.. but if you use the keywords from metatags sometimes you have over 100 keywords per link.. ( I know that thats wrong for search engines.. but some people just put them there)
thats why i thought: oh my gosh...

but if you add a way to disable it.. i think it would be great..

Felix

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by stwilson

Andrew,

Welcome back! Any suggestion on how to set my links properties so clicking on the link title opens the link details versus attempting to open the link? I have tried everything but cannot figure it out. Is that even an option?

If I understand your question correctly, you can do this on a per-category basis or for everything.

On a per-category-basis, edit the category of interest and go to the control settings tab
For everything, go to ldm/admin/settings

Set the template_linkbit to 'Title Only'

Save

You will then see the entries in the category/categories displayed as single lines with just title, date and number of hits. Click on one of the links and it will take you to the full listing for that entry. Click again and it will take you to the entry.

See images.

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by vbboarder

My flash videos were playing fine a week ago, but I recently installed vbTubePro and then the videos in LDM were not showing. Not sure if it's because of vbTubePro, but I can't recall working on anything else besides LDM and vbTubePro this past week. Anyways, here's the bug and solution fix.

Problem: the JW wma/wmv player does not show if the window mode is not transparent/ windowless.

Solution:
1. Edit links_playerbit_JWwmPlayer template - FIND:


After that ADD:


2. The old 1.0 JW Silverlight player can't handle the background parameter, so download the new JW Silverlight media player at: http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=jw_wmv_player

3. Add the JW prefixes to silverlight.js, wmvplayer.js, wmvplayer.xaml (ie: rename to JWsilverlight.js) and overwrite the files in the /forum/clientscript folder.

Problem: the JW flash player does not show if the window mode is not transparent/ windowless.

Solution:
1. Edit links_playerbit_JWPlayer template - FIND:


Before that, ADD:


2. The current JWPlayer for Flash works with this modification. However, the new JWPlayer 4 is available and also compatible with this edit. It's available at: http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=JW_FLV_Media_Player

Hope that helps people having trouble displaying videos using the JW players

Thanks - I will be updating the jw player in the next release, so will make these fixes there. In the meantime, your explanation is excellent and I'ms ure anyone affected can follow it.

[sparklywater]

when can we expect the next release of LDM?

[stwilson]

Originally Posted by AndrewD

If I understand your question correctly, you can do this on a per-category basis or for everything.

On a per-category-basis, edit the category of interest and go to the control settings tab
For everything, go to ldm/admin/settings

Set the template_linkbit to 'Title Only'

Save

You will then see the entries in the category/categories displayed as single lines with just title, date and number of hits. Click on one of the links and it will take you to the full listing for that entry. Click again and it will take you to the entry.

See images.

Thank you Andrew! That worked. I will play around with one of the templates to get the layout I need but overall that worked. Is there any way to get the set it up to show, upon clicking on the title in the list, to take you directly the version that shows when you click on the show comments (action=ratelink&linkid=347&catid=81&lpage=1)? I guess what I'm trying to say is I would like the detail page to show the listing with the comments underneath it.

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by sparklywater

when can we expect the next release of LDM?

2.2.9 is likely to stay the supported release for at least a couple of months, perhaps with a few more bug fixes applied.

I have done quite some work already on 2.3.0, but some of the suggestions and the bug reports posted here will take time to complete. Perhaps an early alpha will be available fairly soon, but thorough testing is the big challenge these days.

Coded so far for 2.3.0:

+ Category Display
Added option to display/remove keyword filter dropdown
+ Starred nominations
Entries can be unnominated
Nominations are no longer stacked, i.e. only user's current nomination is recorded
+ Session ids
vBulletin session ids handled corrrectly throughout
+ Efficiency changes
Admin and categories tables cached in vBulletin datastore and other code rewritten to eliminate various database lookups
+ Media Players
Upgraded JWsilverlight player to version 1.1 and added windowless and background params
+ Hooks
Added ldm_icons_cached after caching list of icon filenames
+ Bug fixes
Fixed id3tag-enhancements extra
Fixed permissions-related null category bug within Edit Entry
Fixed sort order/pagination bugs when searches contain urlencoded chars
Fixed Add LDM to VB navbar plugins for situation when vbAdvanced is not installed in forum directory

Still to do:

- Redo much of the 'attributes' code to fix bugs/improve functionality
- Provide import mechanism for vb attachments
- Move to jw media player 4.0
- Disentangle comments and ratings calculations
- Option to make comments/ratings visble inline consistently
- other bug fixes

Anything else?