Geek AutoLinker 4.02

HowdA All,

Welcome to Geek Autolinker 4.0 from the makers of Geek Autolinker 2.0 and Tang - the stuff the people in space drink.

posts for version 4.0 start here

What it does:
It allows you to specify key words to replace in posts with ANY FREAKING URL YOU COULD THINK OF. Thats right, you to can now have key words automatically url'ed to other areas of the world wide web.

Now in 4.0 you can create popups, track impressions and click-thrus, get statistics on them and specify more attributes of the links. The popups can now also use bbcode to create virtually any kind of popup you could imagine. You can limit categories of links to certain forums and also enable specific usergroups to toggle GALs on or off (by category).


This is a perfect gift for sponsors, click throughs, referal programs, definitions, instructions, birthdays and other celebrations.

Example:
If I define Bob as a keyword that I would like to automatically come up hyperlinked to bob.com all I have to do is say so (well, you put it into the admincp). Presto! As quick as that, everytime a user sees the word bob, bobs, bob! Bob bOb? etc... it comes up linked to bob.com

How much will bob love you?

If the url you want it to jump to is actually a thread on your site, you can use the nifty ignorethreadid option. Heres how that works:

If I have a thread entitled Reputation and how to use it, I can put the word reputation into the Geek AutoLinker with the URL pointing to the thread about reputation. Then everytime the word reputation appears in someones post, anyone can click on it to learn more. Since it would be stupid to have the thread Reputation and how to use it autolink to itself, I put the threadid in the ignorethreadid box. That way all matches for reputation are linked to that thread except for the reputation matches in the thread Reputation and how to use it.

Safe mode and dangerous mode.

There are now two modes of operation. Safe mode will autolink any match AS LONG AS IT HAS A SPACE BEFORE IT. That means that <br />bob or .Bob are not valid matches and wont be highlighted. The reason for this is to prevent the autolinker messing up URLs with matches in them (like www.bob.com). Safe mode will most likely end up with fewer matches, but no messed up URLS.
Dangerous mode however could care less about your cute little spaces. It will link them regardless. That means more matches, but a slight increase that an existing url might break in a post.

Here are some examples in action.
Keyword: freak

Safe mode.
Freak out whenever freaks freak about on www.freak.com
Dangerous mode:
Freak out whenever freaks freak about on www.<a href="www.freak.com">freak</a>.com

Other stuff:

• Category management - allows you to override global settings
• Limit - limit the number of replacements per link per post
• Ordinal - organise the order replacments are made
• Customize your own replacment code on a global, catergory, or individual level.
• The installer is a prototype GISH installer that does the file edits for you. Please check the readme for details on how it works - its pretty cool).

Upgrading

• Download, replace all existing files with new ones.
• Run the gal4_install.php file (in your admincp)
• Follow the upgrade path.
• The system will ahve you manullay chage any files it can not find to update.

DEMO: http://www.thenailgeek.com/showthread.php?t=11011 (note the words MMA and PREP. If you follow to MMA you will notice that MMA isnt linked in the final article thanks to ignorethreadid)

Difficulty: Easy
File mods: 4 simple ones
Added queries: 0 or greater depending on your settings

Updated 10.5.05 - Major
Massive update in functionality

Updated 13.4.05 - Major
Massive update in functionality

Update 25.03.05 - oops!
Changed readme addition to functions_showthread.php Things look good now

Updates 25.05.05 to v.204 - sneaky bug
Thanks to Razz - I found 2 minor typos that end up causing people working in safemode to actually be working in danger mode! To upgrade, simply check out this post

Updated 12.2.05 to v. 2.03 - ultra minor
Fixed a typo in readme. To upgrade, al you need to do is edit admincp/index,
do a search for
construct_nav_option($vbphrase['GAL_add_new'], 'GAL_admin.php?do=create');
and replace with
construct_nav_option($vbphrase['GAL_add_new'], 'GAL_admin.php?do=add');

Updated 11.2.05 - ultra minor
Fixed a typo in README (dont worry, it wasnt in the instructions)
Stopped phrase text spitting out during install. Some of the phrase is html so it looked confusing to new installers.
Removed reference to GAS3 settings in the install. This is because its the same installer. Just forgot to remove that line.
All in all, this was just a typo fix. There is no upgrade because there are no problems with the code.

Updated 10.2.05 - minor
Found a couple typos that affect safe mode.
Nothing major - just replace the GAL_admin.php file

Updated 10.2.05 - Major
Completely re-written.
See README for upgrade instructions.

Update 10.2.05 - minor
Updated include/geek_autolink.php as it was missing a table_prefix
To upgrade, download latest package and replace your geek_autolink file.


nJoy

[Tom1234]

Originally Posted by The Geek

greenhybrid: Make sure the longer is in the system first.
The order that they are put in is the order they are matched.

Is there a better way to do this rather than requiring the longer match phrase (e.g. Toyota Celica) be entered before the shorter one (e.g. Toyota)? Maybe you can sort them internally first by length and then by alphabetic?

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by Tom1234

Is there a better way to do this rather than requiring the longer match phrase (e.g. Toyota Celica) be entered before the shorter one (e.g. Toyota)? Maybe you can sort them internally first by length and then by alphabetic?

currently - no there isnt. Ill add an ordinal column in a future release though.

[memobug]

Originally Posted by The Geek

Ill add an ordinal column in a future release though.

1. That would be helpful. I found that I'd added so many links that being able to organize them by categories would be helpful (movies, games, etc) I would probably be using that ordinal column for that purpose, so it would help

2. How about adding a TITLE text field to the link so a tooltip shows up when you hover on it?

Thanks for this great hack!

Matt

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by memobug

1. That would be helpful. I found that I'd added so many links that being able to organize them by categories would be helpful (movies, games, etc) I would probably be using that ordinal column for that purpose, so it would help

2. How about adding a TITLE text field to the link so a tooltip shows up when you hover on it?

Thanks for this great hack!

Matt

Yea - its actually already there - I just forgot to tie it into the admincp!

Ill look into the categories option too

[Tom1234]

I notice that the text to match on can only be 25 characters since that is its size in the DB. Is it OK to just change that VARCHAR(25) to a larger number in the DB without breaking anything else?

[The Geek]

sure - wouldnt cause any problems being longer. I dont think there is a check on the textbox size before update/insertion.

[Tom1234]

The autolinker was working perfectly, but then began displaying incomplete link code in the message posts rather than using the proper link syntax. I do not have an example since I immediately rebuilt the list and fixed it, but the only things I can think of that changed was that I deleted one autolinker entry (which was the first time I had done that) and later a re-start of the httpd daemon. Any clues as to how things could have been corrupted with the autolinker text replacement? I'm not familiar with the "datastore" and how that maintains state through an httpd restart. My suspicion is the entry deletion however. I'm using "safe mode" here if that matters.

[The Geek]

hmmm. got me. Every time you make a chage - it rebuilds the datastore. THe datastore is simply just a serialized version of an array of built links. this saves an extra query to the db and save looping through and rebuilding at run time.

The only thing I can think of is that it rebuilt it in danger mode instead of safe mode.

[Lizard King]

Geek for the next version is there a way to add some forum id's to settings so that whenever a new thread will be open in that forum the thread name will be auto linked ?
it might be really good for movie - book forums .

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by Lizard King

Geek for the next version is there a way to add some forum id's to settings so that whenever a new thread will be open in that forum the thread name will be auto linked ?
it might be really good for movie - book forums .

Hey Mert - I think that could be a little bit of a nightmare. Maybe as an addon or something. GAS uses a new file that ties into this that could be used as the basis for something like this.