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

[libertate]

Ok, I installed this great hack. Thank you for making it.

Uhmmm... I do not understand the relationship between "Add new" and "Add category".

What is the difference between the two? I guess Category somehow relates to "new", since it can be picked in the edit, but...

And it doesn't seem to work. I have GAS installed, and I cannot see any of the changes in the articles.

I have a cagetory defined As
Description: ABC
Ordinal: 0
Replacement Code:
$link=http://www.somewhere.com/link/link/link
$description=Dr. ABC
$text=ABC

Then I added "new":

Replacement text : ABC
Link : http://www.somewhere.com/link/link/link
Ignore threadid (dont autolink this thread) 0
Description : Dr. ABC
Ordinal 0
Category name Dr. ABC
Replacement code :
$link=http://www.somewhere.com/link/link/link
$description=Dr. ABC
$text=ABC

Settings:
Safe mode
2
<a href='$link' target='_blank' class='DEF' title='$description'>$text</a>
---
What am I missing? Nowhere where there is ABC is replaced by the link...

[limey]

I just installed as well, like it alot.

Two suggestions:
add a "duplicate this linked word" button in the admin panel so you can change the certain words from WalMart to walmart without having to retype the whole thing.

Second:
Make the pop up code have hte option of including a "Click to visit link" link in the popup code.

Yeh or nah?

[The Geek]

liberate - check the readme for a good explination of the categories.
Essentially, you can define replacement code as item level, category level or global level.
For instance, if your item and category replacements are blank, but your global replacement is:
<a href='$link' target='_blank' class='DEF' title='$description'>$text</a>
then it will use that code.
$link is the url you specify, $description is the alt text and $text is the word that gets replaced.

LImey - the replace should be case insensitive anyway so it wouldnt make much sense (unless of course there is a bug where its not being case insensitive )

Just wait till 4.0 - Its seriously sweet

[Shackbase]

whats the eta on 4.0 geek?

--Tone

[The Geek]

I always hate seeing this answer from other people... but here goes -
when its done

blech.

Actually its not to far off now. Thought I would have finished the coding by early today but I rewrote it almost all virtually from scratch instead. The problem is I keep getting new ideas that require me to go back and rescrap loads of already written code. Couple that with regex hell (whoever invented it should go there - as brilliant as it is).
It a nutshell I am about 90% of the way done with the code and then I have to do an installer/upgrader.

For those that have not upgraded to 3.0 from 2.6 I would recommend it as I dont think ill include an upgrade from 2.6 to 4.0

I may get lucky and have it Sunday.

[venomx]

The Geek.

Under Settings theres a Replacement code
Under add new theres Replacement code
Under add new cat theres. Replacement code

How do these work? I thought putting it under Settings would auto fill in the other two when I go to add a new one but nope. If all 3 are filled it does this break anything? If we have it in the settings do we need to add the code when making a new unknown one? What if we have it in the cat and make a new link with that cat. do we need to add it to the link when we make it?

Sorry for so many questions, just wondering why its needed 3 times.. :P

[greenhybrid]

It seems there's a character limit on link text. Why? I can't use "real hybrid mileage database"

[The Geek]

hybrid - changed in 4.0

venom - this has changed in 4.0 as I think it was (and is) confusing to people.
Essentially if you had replacement code in the settings - you didnt ever have to put replacement code in any categories or individual items - it is a 'global' value. However you could 'override' the global by putting replacements in at the category level.
THe idea being that the global would be the default - but then you could have category override it.
FInally - you could also put replacement code at the individual item level which would override the category setting.

Anyway - as handy as it is - I think its confusing and overkill. In 4.0 Most settings are handled at the category level

[venomx]

I am glad we will have the option to track clicks or not because I just sold 5 links and he only bought them because it was a direct link to his site and not a redirect.. lol

Looks good!

[blueuniverse]

Is the usergroup feature going to be implemented in v4 (it looks like it from that screenshot) but just to check.