MadMan
04-03-2005, 07:45 AM
Hi these are the functions that needs to be implemented in the VBAdvaced Link Directory.
General Features
'Switches' area in the admin panel allows turning features on and off instantly without needing to edit them out of the templates.
Integrating paid PPC search engine results.
This is fully integrated to allow complete control of the appearance, location, amount of details, number of results, etc of the paid results. Results can be shown in categories and/or search, and the details are customizable by category.
Link sponsorship. Integrate with PayPal or 2checkout to allow link owners to purchase priority positioning in their category. Optionally switch this to deducting per unique click instead of per day (a simple PPC option).
Use multiple levels of sponsorship if desired.
Member sponsorship. Allow members to pay for promotion to a more privileged usergroup, or require paid membership.
Hide links, categories or comments from the listings. Remove them from the list temporarily, or hide a category so that you can link to it separately outside of the context of the directory.
Sort. The visitor can sort links or categories in any order, and the admin can set the default orders for links, categories, comment. Admin can set a secondary sort order for links where the primary sort order leaves several equal.
Filters for links and comments.
RSS feed. Provide an RSS feed to visitors, containing urls and descriptions ordered in any way you (or the visitor) likes. The RSS feed can also be used to track comments posted.
SEO and Traffic-Building Features
Meta tags. Set meta tags for general use on all pages, and set category-specific meta tags to override the general ones for each category.
Encourage sites to trade links by offering them top position or a more eye-catching link.
Catch link partners who stop linking by running the reciprocal link checker.
Choose to send them a warning email, and suspend the link if you wish.
Suspended links can be unsuspended or deleted later, and emails are sent to the link owner on both suspension and unsuspension.
When a link is pending validation, simply click the 'check' option next to it to see if it's linking back to your site properly.
Syndication. Have a javascript code generated based on a specified toplist so that other sites can syndicate your content. (Alternatively, use RSS.)
Customization Features
Add new fields. Add as many new link, category, comment or member fields as you like, no limits. Use a text area, input box, checkboxes, radio buttons, combo box, etc to collect your data. Choose if new fields can be filled in by visitors or only by admin.
Create a toplist. Anywhere you wish, list the top x links, categories, comments or members ordered by the field of your choice and filtered by a condition of your choice. Works in custom templates, so you can create new pages with toplist content. Use the simple toplist generator in your admin panel.
Custom templates. Create as many new templates as you need, and use toplists or globally available template variables in them. Also make a custom template for specific links, categories, etc.
Easily make a custom template for a special category by editing the category to specify the new template to use for it.
Create multiple types of categories, comments or links... each type can use different HTML to display it and may be positioned differently on the page.
E-mail Features
Create standard emails which you can select to re-send in the future.
Bulk e-mail members. Send a mass e-mail to all members or to members who fit the conditions you specify, and use any member template variables in your message.
Bulk e-mail link submitters. Send a mass email for all links or for each link which meets the conditions you specify to the owner of the link, using any link template variables in your message.
E-mail notifications to admin. Get an email informing you of new submissions, containing details of the submission.
E-mail notifications to user. Let the submitter get an email notification of acceptance or rejection. Optionally send submitter notification that their link is received and pending review, that their link's sponsorship funds have run out, or that their link has expired.
Send emails from different addresses. If you want validation emails sent by your moderators to contain their email address, for example, this is selectable.
Subscriptions. Subscribe to be notified of new comments on a link, or subscribe to a category to be notified of new links in it. Member can also choose to be notified by email of every new link in the entire directory regardless of category. Member profiles offer a subscription management area.
File Attachment Features
Visitors may attach a file to links, if you choose to allow it. Set the allowed file types and maximum size. Hide the real file name, and track the number of downloads. Choose which member groups are allowed to download the file. If it's an image, automatically display it.
Custom file attachment fields. Add unlimited file fields for links, categories, comments and members. Track downloads, image size, etc for as many different file fields as you need.
Show image thumbnails.
Links-Specific Features
Bulk-edit all of the links from a category on one page, when it's helpful to speed things up.
Links can be automatically marked as visited, and associated comments threads as read.
Display a list of related links for each link.
Visitors can rate each link.
Cookies are used to prevent re-voting, and IPs are also stored to prevent the same IP address from voting again.
View details of each individual vote cast, delete bad votes. Show mean or median rating.
Custom rating fields. Let visitors rate as many different aspects of each link as you like.
Remote voting code generator. Let link owners put a voting code on their site which will direct their visitors to you.
Grab the META description tag from sites with a button on the 'suggest link' and 'edit link' pages.
Visitors can report a link, email a link, bookmark a link, or add it to their personal link list.
Track hits in and out. Set the amount of time between clicks needed to count as a unique hit.
Separately track the number of hits in and out over a user-defined number of days (perhaps monthly, for example).
Copy or alias. Copy a link to another category, or create an alias of it so that the link functions as one single link in two categories at once.
Create a custom formula to determine the importance of a link (a standard formula is included) and sort by that value. Show the rank number of link by this criteria.
Check for duplicate links, check for dead links, and verify that reciprocal linkers have a link to your site. Marks links as suspect when they fail the check, and can automatically dispatch an email to the owner when a reciprocal link is not found. Suspend suspect links, or unsuspend previously suspended links.
Avoid URL duplication if you choose. Option to not allow a URL to be submitted when it already exists in the directory, and further sub-option to not allow multiple submissions with the same domain name. Set a list of exceptions, domains for which the rule does not apply.
Limit submissions by usergroup. Set how many links each usergroup can submit in total, and how many they can submit in each single day.
Expire links. If you're indexing something which has an expiration date (such as coupons, for example), set links to automatically expire after a certain number of days.
Comments/reviews system. Allow discussions of each link.
Rate comments. Visitors can rate a particular comment on a link as helpful or unhelpful.
Category-Specific Features
Unlimited levels of subcategories. If you need 1000 subcategories 100 levels deep, it's not a problem.
Related categories. Select related categories to link to from a particular category.
For each individual category, you may override the default link order, choice of mixing link types or not, and number of link and subcategory columns.
Category usergroup permissions. For each category, you can override any of the general usergroup permissions with specific permissions for the particular category.
Use the category usergroup permissions to select who can submit to a particular category, and the select box on the submission pages will gray out categories which the user does not have permission to submit to.
Bulk addition of subcategories. Add many subcategories at once by using subname1[,]subname2[,]subname3 etc as the category name.
Alias categories. Make a subcategory of one category become also a subcategory of a different category.
Moderators. Appoint moderators/editors to oversee specific categories.
Choose if you wish to auto-approve submissions by moderators to their own categories. Moderator inherit all subcategories of their category.
Moderator control panel. Let moderators handle the validation of links, link edits and comments within their own categories.
Membership-Specific Features
Personal link lists for members. Members can make a list of their favorite links, either directly transferring existing links from your directory into their link list or by submitting them manually if you choose to allow it.
Member rating. Optionally track the best contributors as decided by a customizable formula.
Search Features
Simple search boxes. Do a simple search for links, and choose in the admin panel which fields are searched for this.
Remote search boxes. Allow people to place a search box on their own site which let their visitors search your site, and let their link get credit for a 'hit in' in the process.
Search in category. Let people refine their searches to all content beneth a particular category.
Advanced search. Find items where any particular field is equal to, contains the term, has any of the words, has all of the words, is less than, or is greater than the search term... or search for where items are between two numbers.
Boolean searches. Use 'and' and 'or' operators and group with parenthases in advanced search, or configure the simple search box to be boolean if desired.
Configure the strictness of the search. If you don't have many articles yet you may set it to be lax and show any results where any of the search words are found even in the middle of a longer word, or if you have more content require the full word to match and require all of the searched-for words to match if desired.
Highlight search words. On the search result pages, the words which were being searched for are highlighted.
Sort search results. Order the results by any field.
Search within results. Refine the results to only those containing a particular term.
Log searches. Track the searching habits of your visitors by logging their searches to a file.
Show most searched terms. Display whatever number of most popular search terms you wish in whatever format you wish.
Administrative Features
IP banning. Rid yourself of troublemakers by banning IP ranges. IPs are tracked for each link submission, member registration and vote. Ban from site, or just from re-registering if you prefer.
Validation. Specify for each usergroup if the admin will have to validate their links, categories, comments, or link edits. When a link edit needs to be validated, the original link remains visible as it was until the changes are approved.
Send custom messages to submitter on acceptance or rejection.
Backup and restore. Use the admin panel to download a quick backup of your Links database content, and then easily restore backups through the admin panel.
Have backups automatically generated for you every x days if you like.
Censor or replace words or phrases. Prevent users from swearing, and/or place links around particular text, etc.
Mass-replace. Globally replace one bit of text with another across all language items or all templates.
Also globally replace according to advanced criteria for links, categories, comments and members.
Control behavior of redirects. Decide for yourself exactly which page you want the user sent to after they take a particular action...
Required fields. Select exactly which fields you wish to require the user to fill in. If it's not filled in, the user doesn't lose any data but has the chance to complete the missing field(s).
Reset fields. If you wish, select particular link fields to automatically reset to be blank every x days.
WSN Codes. Disallow HTML in user submissions if you wish, and replace HTML's functionality with custom BB Codes. Create as many as you like.
Smilies. Add as many smilies as you like.
Option to restore default settings, in case you do something which turns out to be a particularly major mistake.
Restrict administrative account logins to a particular IP range for an extra level of security.
Advanced Developer Features
Run a custom script every x days (a simulated cron job), if you choose.
General Features
'Switches' area in the admin panel allows turning features on and off instantly without needing to edit them out of the templates.
Integrating paid PPC search engine results.
This is fully integrated to allow complete control of the appearance, location, amount of details, number of results, etc of the paid results. Results can be shown in categories and/or search, and the details are customizable by category.
Link sponsorship. Integrate with PayPal or 2checkout to allow link owners to purchase priority positioning in their category. Optionally switch this to deducting per unique click instead of per day (a simple PPC option).
Use multiple levels of sponsorship if desired.
Member sponsorship. Allow members to pay for promotion to a more privileged usergroup, or require paid membership.
Hide links, categories or comments from the listings. Remove them from the list temporarily, or hide a category so that you can link to it separately outside of the context of the directory.
Sort. The visitor can sort links or categories in any order, and the admin can set the default orders for links, categories, comment. Admin can set a secondary sort order for links where the primary sort order leaves several equal.
Filters for links and comments.
RSS feed. Provide an RSS feed to visitors, containing urls and descriptions ordered in any way you (or the visitor) likes. The RSS feed can also be used to track comments posted.
SEO and Traffic-Building Features
Meta tags. Set meta tags for general use on all pages, and set category-specific meta tags to override the general ones for each category.
Encourage sites to trade links by offering them top position or a more eye-catching link.
Catch link partners who stop linking by running the reciprocal link checker.
Choose to send them a warning email, and suspend the link if you wish.
Suspended links can be unsuspended or deleted later, and emails are sent to the link owner on both suspension and unsuspension.
When a link is pending validation, simply click the 'check' option next to it to see if it's linking back to your site properly.
Syndication. Have a javascript code generated based on a specified toplist so that other sites can syndicate your content. (Alternatively, use RSS.)
Customization Features
Add new fields. Add as many new link, category, comment or member fields as you like, no limits. Use a text area, input box, checkboxes, radio buttons, combo box, etc to collect your data. Choose if new fields can be filled in by visitors or only by admin.
Create a toplist. Anywhere you wish, list the top x links, categories, comments or members ordered by the field of your choice and filtered by a condition of your choice. Works in custom templates, so you can create new pages with toplist content. Use the simple toplist generator in your admin panel.
Custom templates. Create as many new templates as you need, and use toplists or globally available template variables in them. Also make a custom template for specific links, categories, etc.
Easily make a custom template for a special category by editing the category to specify the new template to use for it.
Create multiple types of categories, comments or links... each type can use different HTML to display it and may be positioned differently on the page.
E-mail Features
Create standard emails which you can select to re-send in the future.
Bulk e-mail members. Send a mass e-mail to all members or to members who fit the conditions you specify, and use any member template variables in your message.
Bulk e-mail link submitters. Send a mass email for all links or for each link which meets the conditions you specify to the owner of the link, using any link template variables in your message.
E-mail notifications to admin. Get an email informing you of new submissions, containing details of the submission.
E-mail notifications to user. Let the submitter get an email notification of acceptance or rejection. Optionally send submitter notification that their link is received and pending review, that their link's sponsorship funds have run out, or that their link has expired.
Send emails from different addresses. If you want validation emails sent by your moderators to contain their email address, for example, this is selectable.
Subscriptions. Subscribe to be notified of new comments on a link, or subscribe to a category to be notified of new links in it. Member can also choose to be notified by email of every new link in the entire directory regardless of category. Member profiles offer a subscription management area.
File Attachment Features
Visitors may attach a file to links, if you choose to allow it. Set the allowed file types and maximum size. Hide the real file name, and track the number of downloads. Choose which member groups are allowed to download the file. If it's an image, automatically display it.
Custom file attachment fields. Add unlimited file fields for links, categories, comments and members. Track downloads, image size, etc for as many different file fields as you need.
Show image thumbnails.
Links-Specific Features
Bulk-edit all of the links from a category on one page, when it's helpful to speed things up.
Links can be automatically marked as visited, and associated comments threads as read.
Display a list of related links for each link.
Visitors can rate each link.
Cookies are used to prevent re-voting, and IPs are also stored to prevent the same IP address from voting again.
View details of each individual vote cast, delete bad votes. Show mean or median rating.
Custom rating fields. Let visitors rate as many different aspects of each link as you like.
Remote voting code generator. Let link owners put a voting code on their site which will direct their visitors to you.
Grab the META description tag from sites with a button on the 'suggest link' and 'edit link' pages.
Visitors can report a link, email a link, bookmark a link, or add it to their personal link list.
Track hits in and out. Set the amount of time between clicks needed to count as a unique hit.
Separately track the number of hits in and out over a user-defined number of days (perhaps monthly, for example).
Copy or alias. Copy a link to another category, or create an alias of it so that the link functions as one single link in two categories at once.
Create a custom formula to determine the importance of a link (a standard formula is included) and sort by that value. Show the rank number of link by this criteria.
Check for duplicate links, check for dead links, and verify that reciprocal linkers have a link to your site. Marks links as suspect when they fail the check, and can automatically dispatch an email to the owner when a reciprocal link is not found. Suspend suspect links, or unsuspend previously suspended links.
Avoid URL duplication if you choose. Option to not allow a URL to be submitted when it already exists in the directory, and further sub-option to not allow multiple submissions with the same domain name. Set a list of exceptions, domains for which the rule does not apply.
Limit submissions by usergroup. Set how many links each usergroup can submit in total, and how many they can submit in each single day.
Expire links. If you're indexing something which has an expiration date (such as coupons, for example), set links to automatically expire after a certain number of days.
Comments/reviews system. Allow discussions of each link.
Rate comments. Visitors can rate a particular comment on a link as helpful or unhelpful.
Category-Specific Features
Unlimited levels of subcategories. If you need 1000 subcategories 100 levels deep, it's not a problem.
Related categories. Select related categories to link to from a particular category.
For each individual category, you may override the default link order, choice of mixing link types or not, and number of link and subcategory columns.
Category usergroup permissions. For each category, you can override any of the general usergroup permissions with specific permissions for the particular category.
Use the category usergroup permissions to select who can submit to a particular category, and the select box on the submission pages will gray out categories which the user does not have permission to submit to.
Bulk addition of subcategories. Add many subcategories at once by using subname1[,]subname2[,]subname3 etc as the category name.
Alias categories. Make a subcategory of one category become also a subcategory of a different category.
Moderators. Appoint moderators/editors to oversee specific categories.
Choose if you wish to auto-approve submissions by moderators to their own categories. Moderator inherit all subcategories of their category.
Moderator control panel. Let moderators handle the validation of links, link edits and comments within their own categories.
Membership-Specific Features
Personal link lists for members. Members can make a list of their favorite links, either directly transferring existing links from your directory into their link list or by submitting them manually if you choose to allow it.
Member rating. Optionally track the best contributors as decided by a customizable formula.
Search Features
Simple search boxes. Do a simple search for links, and choose in the admin panel which fields are searched for this.
Remote search boxes. Allow people to place a search box on their own site which let their visitors search your site, and let their link get credit for a 'hit in' in the process.
Search in category. Let people refine their searches to all content beneth a particular category.
Advanced search. Find items where any particular field is equal to, contains the term, has any of the words, has all of the words, is less than, or is greater than the search term... or search for where items are between two numbers.
Boolean searches. Use 'and' and 'or' operators and group with parenthases in advanced search, or configure the simple search box to be boolean if desired.
Configure the strictness of the search. If you don't have many articles yet you may set it to be lax and show any results where any of the search words are found even in the middle of a longer word, or if you have more content require the full word to match and require all of the searched-for words to match if desired.
Highlight search words. On the search result pages, the words which were being searched for are highlighted.
Sort search results. Order the results by any field.
Search within results. Refine the results to only those containing a particular term.
Log searches. Track the searching habits of your visitors by logging their searches to a file.
Show most searched terms. Display whatever number of most popular search terms you wish in whatever format you wish.
Administrative Features
IP banning. Rid yourself of troublemakers by banning IP ranges. IPs are tracked for each link submission, member registration and vote. Ban from site, or just from re-registering if you prefer.
Validation. Specify for each usergroup if the admin will have to validate their links, categories, comments, or link edits. When a link edit needs to be validated, the original link remains visible as it was until the changes are approved.
Send custom messages to submitter on acceptance or rejection.
Backup and restore. Use the admin panel to download a quick backup of your Links database content, and then easily restore backups through the admin panel.
Have backups automatically generated for you every x days if you like.
Censor or replace words or phrases. Prevent users from swearing, and/or place links around particular text, etc.
Mass-replace. Globally replace one bit of text with another across all language items or all templates.
Also globally replace according to advanced criteria for links, categories, comments and members.
Control behavior of redirects. Decide for yourself exactly which page you want the user sent to after they take a particular action...
Required fields. Select exactly which fields you wish to require the user to fill in. If it's not filled in, the user doesn't lose any data but has the chance to complete the missing field(s).
Reset fields. If you wish, select particular link fields to automatically reset to be blank every x days.
WSN Codes. Disallow HTML in user submissions if you wish, and replace HTML's functionality with custom BB Codes. Create as many as you like.
Smilies. Add as many smilies as you like.
Option to restore default settings, in case you do something which turns out to be a particularly major mistake.
Restrict administrative account logins to a particular IP range for an extra level of security.
Advanced Developer Features
Run a custom script every x days (a simulated cron job), if you choose.