Feedback on my new LL

[mist]

I starting to get my new link list together and I feel that I would need some feedback on it. What would you add, remove or change etc.

Here it is for you to take apart, Bare Siren

[jonnydoe]

Looks OK to me but is that not a "fake" linklist? On the main page I would put your premium sites before the new links so that you at least make them look. There is also noticably absent real estate in the right column...my unprofessional, uneducated observations

[LowryBigwood]

In addition to what Johnnydoe already said, I would probably add some graphics and ads of some sort to spruce up the site a bit. It looks plain and bland to me.

[bluemoney]

I agree! especially about the sprucing up part. Also don't forget to add a description and your keywords in your tags.
I would also visit http://www.rtalabel.org/ and add their code and label ( but that's just a personal thing ).
Good luck with it!

[mist]

Thanks for the feedback! I agree, it's look rather boring, not much that will catch the eye. I will start working to spruce it up right away.

[Bill]

Have you had much of any problems working with that script, mist?

I'm messing with it myself.

[Simon]

Hiya Bill -- Just jumping in to mention that I was messing with LinkX a lot from the time it was released until about a month ago. I stopped in part because of other things needing attention, but I don't think I'll be using it just yet, not for the sites I'm developing now.

I still would like very much to use it for a few new projects, but I ran into limitations that the author agreed were just how the script does things for now. Right now I think it's a good 'version one' script for websites with a directory design, but trying to layout a more traditional link list design turned out to be more difficult than I'd want it to be.

[mist]

Bill - No I have not have any direct problems. But as Simon said, it's rather hard to get it to function as a fully traditional link list.

I think that the next version will tell in which direction JMB will develop this script and if it will be useful as a LL script.

[Bill]

I'm having all kinds of problems with it. It crashes my browser, it lost it's ability to authenticate me and kept giving me session expired messages, and it's not building category pages the way I expect it too.

I removed the first installation and downloaded a new copy and reinstalled it, so far that stopped the authentication problem, but the authentication problem didn't start right away the first install.

There might be some kind of problem with the server I don't know about, but the script isn't giving me server warnings.

Or maybe I've missed something in the general settings file.

I like the fact that a cheap script includes built in posting accounts, tho.

[Bill]

Originally Posted by Simon

I still would like very much to use it for a few new projects, but I ran into limitations that the author agreed were just how the script does things for now.

Which limitations bugged you the most about it, Simon?

The script it naturally compares to is gossamerthreads links2.0, and links2.0. I've only worked with older versions of links2.0, the "free" versions, but links2.0 was a lot eaier for me to work with, and seemed bug free.

But it didn't have built in posting accounts.

[Linkster]

mist - I really like that link list the way you have it now - it reminds me of one a real long time ago that is long gone - but did extremely well - back when the guy was still in the biz
I like simple and always have - it makes selling and trust building so much easier - I wouldnt change a thing about it

[mist]

Thanks for the input Linkster, I will try to keep it as it is now, and fill it with links and see if I can get some bookmarkers.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by Bill

Which limitations bugged you the most about it, Simon?

The script it naturally compares to is gossamerthreads links2.0, and links2.0. I've only worked with older versions of links2.0, the "free" versions, but links2.0 was a lot eaier for me to work with, and seemed bug free.

But it didn't have built in posting accounts.

Bill, I haven't worked with the Gossamer scripts, so I can't add anything about how they compare, but I'll outline what gave me some troubles with LinkX.

Note: I realize the LinkX script allows the creation of additonal database fields that kinda/sorta provide workarounds for some of these issues, but I think some of these things really should be built-in features that you don't need to add for yourself:

- I couldn't figure out a really good way to manage the different types of sites I wanted to be able to list (free sites, hfs, free-trial sites, paid trial sites, avs sites, blogs, other link lists, etc). The three built-in "types" of regular, premium or featured weren't enough, and then there are some restrictions regarding on which pages you can make those types appear.

- Posting accounts are actually a problem for me, at least the way they work right now. There are no separate "partner" accounts, so you have to restrict registration to only free site submitters unless you want everyone to be able to submit sites. Restricting user accounts to only free site submitters means you can't offer the commenting and rating features to your surfers.

- Using the "top" and "popular" features seems to require running the links through a redirect script to count the hits (I don't want to do that).

- Some template functions are restricted to only be available on certain pages. For example, the {categories} template function can only be used on the directory-category.tpl and directory-index.tpl, so there's no way to include links to categories on the -top, -new, -popular, or -search pages.

- No easy built-in way to track sponsors and HFS from sponsors; no permanent vs. submitted listings like with their AG SQL script.

- No easy way to intermix submitted free sites with hfs sites (for instance if you wanted every 10th listing to be an hfs). Actually, nowhere near enough (built-in) options for how you can display your listings.

- No way to resort/shuffle the database after importing a big block of hfs listings from a sponsor.

- Can not import categories; they must be chosen from inside the script admin. Since you can't include the category(ies) as part of the import file in LinkX, you have to import all the HFS from one category or one identical group of categories at a time. This compounds the "no-shuffle" problem; if you import a few hundred hosted free sites into the "amateur" category, those will all appear together in the listings on the New Links page or the Newest Links section on the main page (or anywhere else the latest links are featured).

- Template system is far more complex than it needs to be, based on what you can and can't do with templates in this script.

- No built-in way to indicate whether a free site contains photos or movies content.

- No integrated ad/banner manager and no integrated link trade manager.

Bill, basically the script seems way too complex and cumbersome to use from my perspective, particularly taking into account that for all the complexity I still couldn't get it to do some very simple, basic things.

Maybe we should get a thread started on LinkX. I'm sure there are other people here using/testing it. Maybe we can even get Jeremy (script author) to stop by here and talk with us about it.

[Bill]

Wow, Simon, what an excellent analysis.

I've seen many of the same problems you just described. So far I'd say it really can't be used for a real linklist, even a small one.

It could be used for something like a super hub or a linking experiment, which is what I bought it for. But, it's still irritating me every time I spend an hour messing with it.

Some of the problems I have with it must be caused by my server settings - when I deselect "use mod_rewrite to create search engine friendly urls", it creates the catgories acceptably, but I have no use for php categories.

If I select search engine friendly urls, all the content pages aren't generated.

I wonder if it requires php Virtual Directories?

It crashed my browser three times last night, too. Talk about irritating.

[Lemmy]

I have also played around with LinkX, and while I'm not nearly as tech savvy as Simon, for what it's worth, here's the short version of my experience with the script.

- Install went smoothly, no server issues, mod rewrite apparently works fine.
- The template system is cumbersome to say the least.
- Importing a large number of links would be a major nightmare.
- Parts of the documentation is way over my head.

I'll keep working on it in my spare time and use it as a hub for paysites. I don't think it's practical to use the script for a full service LL. Just my opinion of course.