For anyone who has used or is using phplynx, what do you think of it? I gave it a whirl a while back and found the install, etc. straightforward enough and to be honest, the category creation option delightful, but some of the default settings left me scratching my head. I couldn't for the life of me work out why the default was not to include links, for example. I also found the links area very small in relation to overall screen area and very fiddly to use and it appeared to me that I was going to have to continually wade through pages and pages of links just to get to the page where the new links had been submitted. Could be wrong there as I must admit my patience began wearing thin trying to figure out how it all worked, party because I felt the default settings should have been set up for 'install and go' and should not have required me to figure out the settings just to get a working directory going straight off the bat. Anyone else? What are your thoughts?
I never used it, but would like to try it too. mcfox - have you ever tried phpLD script ? what is different ?
You should download phplynx and give it a try and also do the same with phpld - it's probably the only way you can accurately compare them. In answer to your question, yes, I've used phpld for years - it's a great script. I am curious to know what other people think of phplynx, however. My first impression was good but that did wear off once I began encountering some glitches (outlined above).
Well my first view of phplynx, it looks exactly the same as phpLD. When I find this "phpld Vs phplynx" after that I was change my mind. Remember this is phplynx view of the comparison and not phpLD. But I still missing some web 2.0 features, I am still asking the question, where is it?
It's nowhere near the same as phpld, there are far more features in phpLynx and many of them are definately leaders in the directory script market. Examples are, to name a few, 1. Anti-bot text and image captch system where you are empowered to upload any images you want, make up questions as you go and change them at any time. phpld have a captcha system that is so old that even the bots can beat it. 2. Payment packages, in phpLynx you can have up to 7-10 payment levels by default, we can make it even more on request. All these can be swithed on or off and manipulated to offer different features. phpld only have a featured or standard link method. Tell you what, before going into a fair comparison I'll run off and install the full phpld and then comment, at least I won't be talking based on version 3.1 then. Thanks.
You did ask. *shrug* That's all well and good but I wasted a day installing it and getting people to submit their sites only to discover after the fact that the default was no links, which for a webmaster directory is pointless. The default should be links on and if someone wants to set it up as a Yell type directory (a yellow pages in case anyone doesn't know) they can turn them off. You can set phpld to display 20, 50 or 100 (I think) links at a time. What really irritated me about this set up was (a) the tiny number of links displayed (b) that in order to hunt down the pending links I was going to have to search, either by jumping to the end pages or use a search function. As a directory owner I don't want to search for anything. I want a single link I can click on that takes me to the pending links page and these are all displayed in an easy format I can work with - 20, 30, 50 links at a time - my choice. I understand that but if phplynx is ever going to make any headway with webmasters the developers are going to have to set it up to run the way webmasters need it to run. They don't want to sit for a week trying to figure out what needs to be turned on just to make the basics work.
That is one I have been asking for on phpld for a long-time but again in v3.3 it did not materialize :-( phplynx sounds good but I still have a bad taste in my mouth because some of the folks that promote it here can be very annoying.
Agreed and we're doing a tutorial on how to configure as we speak. The problem is many people cut their teeth on phpld which is as basic as it gets for a script (no disrepect meant, it just is). When they come along with a script with far more options and settings it does get a bit daunting even for people like me, so we plan to do something about that. Do you mean in the admin or front end mcfly? In the admin you can't, I'm on version 3.1 now, but will comment on 3.3 later. If you mean the front end you can add an unlimited amount of links and we even have a pagination system where you get to tell it when to paginate at any time. This may also only be an issue with phpld 3.1 but the link search in the admin doesn't even work. Your 100% correct on that one mcfly, but the same could be said with phpld or any other script. It shouldn't be taken for granted that people want live links or the opposite for that matter, it's like buying a new car though, have you ever bought one with a ton of features and know where every button is that does what? I know I still haven't got a clue how to work out my cruise control or even where the fog light is. That said, we are definatly going to do a walkthru of how to configure so that it helps people set it up to a default status. @ jg; I know where your coming on that but would ask you not to let that cloud your mind. Not sure where your from but in the UK we have an advert for a company called Sainsbury's, it's promoted by the most annoying twat on the planet called Jamie Oliver, but that doesn't make me not buy their food as it's shit hot.
You're using quite an outdated version of phpld - the latest version is v3.3. v3.2 was a kickass upgrade from v3.1 and 3.3 is a kickass upgrade from 3.2. Haven't really encountered that personally but I've obviously missed it. I think maybe an apt description might be 'evangelical'?
Had time to look at the upgraded version and have to say it's a huge improvement on the last and its nice to see the search working in the admin. but I have a question. Why should the default setting be links? Because phpld is? I did say that phpLynx was made as a business directory script, not a links directory script like phpld so the default was set accordingly. I'd complain if you couldn't change it to accept links, not because it's set automatically to on or off. My preference would be to have it set to off so who's do we choose? you can set it to an infinite number of links to be displayed, and no doubt someone would end up doing that only to see their page freeze as it tries to load whether it be from the cache or the mysql database. Again it's personal preference, and as long as the search is powerful enough to search every link via url, description, keyword then having just 10 links on that page should't be a problem. I couldn't agree more, but how do you decide what webmasters requirements is and what another one's isn't, you can't cater for every individual taste. The hard fact is mcfox is you don't, you simply leave the webmaster to their own devices and if they want it set up with live links they can do this by the click of a mouse.
lol, I appreciate the questions and comments mcfox, they allow us to listen and learn. We haven't got everthing right but we're prepared to go that extra mile to get there, and we need this feedback to do so. I noticed one part of your OP where I didn't pick up on... All submitted links should be set to pending, if you never you'd end up having an un-monitered directory wouldn't you? At the top of the listings you'll see a selection of 7 status links... ...here you can see if any links are there or not, what status they and, which you can change all, by checking the respective bulk box to accept/decline or whatever other option you wish. Again it's all personal choice really but to me this is as simple as it gets and is far easier to navigate than phpld, definately the new release as I found it very good but still daunting. It really depends on your level of experience with this kind of thing, and as I said earlier, it's kinda like having a new car, it takes a flippin age to find all the controls and set it up to drive as you want it to.
I have played around with phplynx quite a few times and if memory server me correct I only have to modify the show / hide fields area and also the mandatory fields area from within admin. I did notice the free listing does not give a live url link, but this is how i wanted it so I did not have to change the template file, in saying that its a 5 minute job to add a live listing to the free listings, just simply edit the links.tpl.html file from the template>>includes directory. Just like adding a mod into phpld, its smarty based and easy to do. You could also just upgrade a free listing to a higher level which does have a live url, which I know the default templates on both the full and the free version have. Other then them and the site defaults such as name, meta tags, and such I would say there was less to configure then phpld. Thanks aubenrey
I haven`t looked at phpLynx for a while, the main reason being that it was encoded. Being a programmer I love to change things and play around with source code But on the flip side I do understand the reasons why it is encoded. When the other guy was around, can't think of his name now... I did make the suggestion that the owners should offer a decoded version but with a higher price tag so that people like me could get our hands on the source and make changes. Not sure if that ever materialized but he did say he would suggest it? There is another software company doing this with their 'eSupport' system, they basically offer two versions. One which is fully encoded and one which is fully decoded except for one file which controls the license to ensure that it can't be used on hundreds of sites or sold on, etc.
That's exactly what we intend to do, and are working on which codes to release and what to keep protected to prevent ripping like they've done with vbulletin. I know it's not going to be easy but we're going to try and accomodate as best we can. I'd say at least 98% of the code will be released though.
The features I mean is the languages and the user interface. Language: I think languages is the important thing in the future. How many people spells correctly to day? And how good is it if your directory is full of spelling mistake? Probably no one wants to visit your site. I want to have feature that will reduce the time to investigate every site, have you spelt correctly. So a spelling tool which the webmasters can translation or change the misspelling word(s) in real time. I think this is important for other languages not only for English. User interface: Most of the directories is focus on webmasters. But who is going to use them? Users or webmasters? Or both? Want to have a directories which is more focus on users, membership, vote for you favorite directories and last directories visit for users.