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.

[Benj]

Originally Posted by AndrewD

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.

sweet so that means whats hot could possibly be sorted into maybe whats hot today / this week / over all

[TygerTyger]

I'm having a few problems with the 2.0.6 beta when changing the global names in local_links_init and the file names accordingly.

I've pinned down one cause, in the includes/acmincp/xml file you're not using the globals yet . But otherwise there's something else going on somewhere that's having the same effect. For instance, I go to create a new category after installation and click submit and it gives an error saying that local_links_admin.php can't be found instead of using the new global name. Except the category is actually added as it should be. Aside from the error it works fine.

The forum jump menu seems to appear even if you've turned it off in forum permissions/admincp as well.

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by TygerTyger

I'm having a few problems with the 2.0.6 beta when changing the global names in local_links_init and the file names accordingly.

I've pinned down one cause, in the includes/acmincp/xml file you're not using the globals yet . But otherwise there's something else going on somewhere that's having the same effect. For instance, I go to create a new category after installation and click submit and it gives an error saying that local_links_admin.php can't be found instead of using the new global name. Except the category is actually added as it should be. Aside from the error it works fine.

The forum jump menu seems to appear even if you've turned it off in forum permissions/admincp as well.

Thanks - this was careless of me. One of the defines is wrong.

The forum jump menu should only appear in a few places (i.e. add/edit link, add/edit category). It's a side effect of the way vbulletin and LDM are coded - I will see if it is easy to suppress.

[Lizard King]

Hi Andrew I hav a problem fromupgrading 2.0.5 to 2.0.6. Installation went through perfect but after the installation the only thing i get :

Critical error: different versions of software, templates, phrases and database.
Software: 2.0.6 database: 2.0.5
Cannot continue - ask administrator to correct.

I double check ach step and i am not doing anything wrong. Is there a way to upgrade only the templates ?

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by Lizard King

Hi Andrew I hav a problem fromupgrading 2.0.5 to 2.0.6. Installation went through perfect but after the installation the only thing i get :

Critical error: different versions of software, templates, phrases and database.
Software: 2.0.6 database: 2.0.5
Cannot continue - ask administrator to correct.

I double check ach step and i am not doing anything wrong. Is there a way to upgrade only the templates ?

You're the second to hit this - I don't understand why it happens sometimes.

Just use the product manager to uninstall and reinstall - you won't lose anything.

[Lizard King]

Originally Posted by AndrewD

You're the second to hit this - I don't understand why it happens sometimes.

Just use the product manager to uninstall and reinstall - you won't lose anything.

That worked out. Thanks.
I am not sure but maybe because i customized the templates before so before installation we need to revert th templates.

[BeasTboyz]

Re: output_buffering

Andrew, sorry for the late response, I had to leave for a business trip last night after work and didn't have a chance to change it. Luckily the hotel has wireless so I edited my php.ini tonight and ran some tests.

As far as I can tell, my download speeds using the download manager are at around 100-120KBps. This is a significant improvement . It's hard to tell here from this hotel with their mediocre connection, and I'm not sure how well a computer downloads when you're watching it on RDC and its uploading a fair bit - so I'm not sure exactly where I'm at with it. Anyhow, the links again are:

speedtest: http://www.observedtrials.net/speedtest/speedtest4.php
regular file download: http://videos.observedtrials.net/coustellier.mpg
LDM file download: http://www.observedtrials.net/vb/loc...ion=jump&id=92
php info: http://www.observedtrials.net/info.php

If anyone would care to help me here, I would much appreciate any advice you have. I am a poor coder, but I am have books and google and am willing to dedicate time and trial and error.

Thank you everyone,

Matt

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by BeasTboyz

Re: output_buffering

Andrew, sorry for the late response, I had to leave for a business trip last night after work and didn't have a chance to change it. Luckily the hotel has wireless so I edited my php.ini tonight and ran some tests.

As far as I can tell, my download speeds using the download manager are at around 100-120KBps. This is a significant improvement . It's hard to tell here from this hotel with their mediocre connection, and I'm not sure how well a computer downloads when you're watching it on RDC and its uploading a fair bit - so I'm not sure exactly where I'm at with it. Anyhow, the links again are:

speedtest: http://www.observedtrials.net/speedtest/speedtest4.php
regular file download: http://videos.observedtrials.net/coustellier.mpg
LDM file download: http://www.observedtrials.net/vb/loc...ion=jump&id=92
php info: http://www.observedtrials.net/info.php

If anyone would care to help me here, I would much appreciate any advice you have. I am a poor coder, but I am have books and google and am willing to dedicate time and trial and error.

Thank you everyone,

Matt

Matt, it looks as if things are better, but I think they are still not great. Via the script, your video now comes to me at about 53 kB/sec, which is about a two-fold improvement.

I have one suggestion to try in the LDM code. Edit local_links_include.php - look for the line which reads

$READ_BUFFER_SIZE   = 2048;

and try increasing the size, e.g. to 204800 (i.e. a much bigger buffer]. This doesn't make a significant difference on our Linux server but it is worth seeing whether Windows cares.

[BeasTboyz]

Andrew, I believe that has done the trick, a friend at a university said he was getting 650KBps off the server using LDM now. You are the man! Thanks for everything .

Matt

[MissKalunji]

how do you upload stuff ?

i dont wanna use it for the links but just for downloads help?