Introduction

SiteLinks is a multi-purpose link/object listing utility. SiteLinks features multiple categories, per-category user-defined object types (ie. real estate listing, classifieds, careers, software, song, employee, etc.), automatic SiteSearch integration, user-contributed listings, user ratings or admin-controlled ordering, RSS listing syndication, and much more. SiteLinks is Sitellite's swiss army knife add-on, solving a wide variety of solutions with ease.

Installation

1. From the Unix command-line, enter the following:

mysql -p -u USER DBNAME < inc/app/sitelinks/install/install-mysql.sql

Then enter your password when prompted. You may also use an alternate MySQL client, such as phpmyadmin, if you prefer. This will create the necessary database tables that SiteTracker needs to store your site traffic information.

2. Copy the SiteLinks collection definition file into the global location:

cp inc/app/sitelinks/install/sitelinks_item.php inc/app/cms/conf/collections/

You should now be ready to start creating links for your web site.

Accessing Site Links

To access your SiteLinks listings, either provide a link on your site or create a web page that is an alias of the URL:

http://www.example.com/index/sitelinks-app

This will load the main SiteLinks screen.

The Site Links Admin UI

SiteLinks comes with a built-in statistic screen, which shows you the top viewed links, the top click-throughs, and the top rated links as well. You can view each of these for any day, month, or year.

The SiteLinks admin user-interface also tells you if there are any pending user-contributed submissions for you to approve, how many, and provides a link for you to view them in the Sitellite content browser.

The SiteLinks admin user-interface is accessible under the ControlPanel > Tools > SiteLinks select box.

Custom Types

New content types can be defined in SiteLinks by adding INI files to the inc/app/sitelinks/conf/types folder. These files define the additional fields available to that custom type. An example INI file is shown below:

;<?php /*

[Type]

name = Software

[version]

type = text

[cost]

type = select
setValues = "eval: formdata_get ('types_software_cost')"

[platform]

type = select
setValues = "eval: formdata_get ('types_software_platform')"

; */ ?>

The formdata_get() function calls are retrieving lists of select options defined in inc/app/sitelinks/conf/properties.php

Additionally, you can define custom templates for the summary and full display of each custom type by adding them to the inc/app/sitelinks/html/summary and inc/app/sitelinks/html/full folders. These templates are in SimpleTemplate format.

Configuration Options

All of the configuration options for SiteLinks are in the inc/app/sitelinks/conf/properties.php file. Each option has a description of what it does in the source of the file itself. Some of the main options include:

• Default type - allows you to control which item type the add/edit/submission forms should default to, globally as well as per-category.
• Item pages - allows you to specify whether listings should have a full-page view, or simply a summary.
• User ratings - whether or not you want users to be able to rate links.
• User submissions - whether or not you want users to be able to contribute links of their own.
• Index screen - what to show on the main screen of the SiteLinks app. This can be a list of categories, the top rated items, the most recently added or updated items,or a simple default list, which is useful for single-page link lists (because you don't have to use SiteLinks to the max to use SiteLinks).
• Category screen - whether to show summaries of the items, or simply a bulleted list to complement the default index screen view.
• Show related - whether to show related items, which are items added by the same contributer.
• RSS links - whether to offer RSS news feed links in the SiteLinks navigation, or you can keep the RSS links private.

License

SiteLinks is released under the Simian Commercial Software License.