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 BeasTboyz

Very strange that I'm not getting good speeds. The server only hosts my small site and its a dual xeon 2.8ghz with 1gb ram and 2x120gb drives. If you had any suggestions for what to check, I'd certainly appreciate it, otherwise I'll just see what I can do with testing different methods.

Thanks again, Andrew

Matt

You said that it has slowed down - which version of LDM were you running before? The only change I can think of is that LDM now uses the cURL library when it is available. (You can see what is being used by looking at the table which is printed at the bottom left of the LDM admin pages.) I wonder if curl is slower than fopen?

[TundraSoul]

LDM 2.0.6

AndrewD here are a few more suggestions that came in from our members.

When adding/editing a link/file, please allow the user to input the "When submitted" date. Often I would rather use the published date instead of the date the link/file is added. I have about 2,800 press releases I would like to add, but I can't unless I can set a real date for them.

The next suggestion is a personal request to make the links more SEO compliant. So for instance, instead of using local_links.php?action=links&catid=2, you could use local_links.php/accessories/ to list the category. It's important that the search engines be able to find the filenames or link names and index them correctly.

I think I mentioned some of this before, but it has to do with Keywords, and Searching. Many users are complaining that it's hard to find files/links, which are relevant to them. It's really not a big deal if you only have a few dozen links, but when you have hundreds or plan to have thousands, it quickly becomes a big deal. Sorting through all the links looking for those relevant to you or your search is very time consuming and frustrating.

Thanks for all the hard work!

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by TundraSoul

When adding/editing a link/file, please allow the user to input the "When submitted" date. Often I would rather use the published date instead of the date the link/file is added. I have about 2,800 press releases I would like to add, but I can't unless I can set a real date for them.

Funny thing is, I hit this problem today myself. Will put it on the 'to-do' list

Originally Posted by TundraSoul

The next suggestion is a personal request to make the links more SEO compliant. So for instance, instead of using local_links.php?action=links&catid=2, you could use local_links.php/accessories/ to list the category. It's important that the search engines be able to find the filenames or link names and index them correctly.

I'm assuming that this would be a site-option, and turned on when you are using e.g. mod_rewrite, yes?

Originally Posted by TundraSoul

I think I mentioned some of this before, but it has to do with Keywords, and Searching. Many users are complaining that it's hard to find files/links, which are relevant to them. It's really not a big deal if you only have a few dozen links, but when you have hundreds or plan to have thousands, it quickly becomes a big deal. Sorting through all the links looking for those relevant to you or your search is very time consuming and frustrating.

Again, I have this problem also - I'm up to over a thousand documents. I think the best approach to enable the admin/user to place arbitrary keywords on links, regardless of the category they are in. Also the search results need paginating, perhaps with the option to use the results of one search as the start of the next - although this would need a lot of work.

[TundraSoul]

Yes, the server would need mod_rewrite enabled to use this function.

I would consider Keywords an somewhat useful enhancement. However there's no point if the user doesn't put any words in or if they're the same words as the title. The majority of users are lazy and will not input any keywords at all. I've seen this when they upload photos and other content, we barely get a description with it.

Another option, be it a personal preference that I've mentioned before, is link associations. This associates the link/file with something from the users profile. More importantly this creates an association between the user and something they're interested in. Ultimately this can allow the user to search for links/files that are relevant to them. It's a very powerful method of presenting content/files/links based on the users interests, and choices. :drool:

Originally Posted by AndrewD

Funny thing is, I hit this problem today myself. Will put it on the 'to-do' list


I'm assuming that this would be a site-option, and turned on when you are using e.g. mod_rewrite, yes?



Again, I have this problem also - I'm up to over a thousand documents. I think the best approach to enable the admin/user to place arbitrary keywords on links, regardless of the category they are in. Also the search results need paginating, perhaps with the option to use the results of one search as the start of the next - although this would need a lot of work.

[EasyTarget]

I was wondering if anyone could help suggest how to setup a folder/ftp system on my site.

There's a couple people that want to help me set up the links/files section but I don't want to give them access to the whole site via ftp. I was thinking I could remap the downloads folder to a separate ftp for them so whatever they put in their ftp shows up in the downloads folder on the web. Are there any other ways I can do this?

Also if this is the way to go, how would I set up the scan directories and all the other settings to where it puts the uploads and all?

[Benj]

Originally Posted by AndrewD

I wanted to get reactions to the home page version of this before I could see about putting it into other categories too

cool.... just wondering what infomation is stored in the database with regards to link click / downloads is there a timestamp submitted or something just wondering for my own purposes.... because you have in the "whats hot" section i think hot links from the last 30 days... how does this work?

[fringehead]

I have upped the file attachment size to 50 megs, but when I upload a 7 meg file I get a "file too large" error message. I believe my php.ini file is 96 megs... Do you have any idea why this isn't uploading these?

Also I would like to be able to assign the upload to a username in case I am uploading materials for another person....

Thanks Andrew!!!

Sean

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by benj

cool.... just wondering what infomation is stored in the database with regards to link click / downloads is there a timestamp submitted or something just wondering for my own purposes.... because you have in the "whats hot" section i think hot links from the last 30 days... how does this work?

Yes, the linksdownloads table has a record with the following fields for each 'hit':
linkid, url, username, userid, user IP address, timestamp
There also a userbrowser field, but it's no longer used.

There are some analysis features available under administer/statistics/hits/view hits, where you can get tabulations sorted in certain ways. It's a bit rudimentary.

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by fringehead

I have upped the file attachment size to 50 megs, but when I upload a 7 meg file I get a "file too large" error message. I believe my php.ini file is 96 megs... Do you have any idea why this isn't uploading these?

I think that the relevant parameters in php.ini are as these:
upload_max_filesize
post_max_size
max_input_time

There are also the per-mimetype settings in your VB/admincp/attachmenets/extensions and sizes

Originally Posted by fringehead

Also I would like to be able to assign the upload to a username in case I am uploading materials for another person....

Thanks Andrew!!!

Sean

Will think about it. Why not just log on as them?

[fringehead]

Andrew, how about you allow the people to upload an icon instead of putting in a url, have the program scale/resize the picture, then store it on the hard drive?

I use an Ensim server which runs the site in high security which runs the site in a chroot environment. It seems I am having a problems with the pathnames. I tried the example you put above (relative to mine) and I got no sucess... Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Sean