LinkEX

I've started to see more and more places where LinkEX is bad mouthed.
Can someone please elaborate on this?
What is it that people don't like about it? Is it the script, or the webmaster behind the wheel that does it?

Someone please explain this to me!

Thanks

hi!

I only read a topic somewhere where somone was saying that he could easely login to anyone\'s linkex.
He said that at a lot of people who uses linkex have the file storage.db can be opened. And than it\'s easy to crack the
md5 pass.

Doe you mean topics like that?


Greetz!
Jamo

Yes. It's things like that I would like to know!
I would like to know more issues.

Also statements like the one I found here:
http://www.gfy.com/showpost.php?p=11554797&postcount=3

Why? :)

I looked at the link at gfy.com and (without further investigation) it looks that those discussing scripts there are
making money trading links to porn. If you don´t bother to use LinkEX the right way, I assume that is a way to get
a lot of bad links.
I plan to use the script to manage links for another purpose and I simply add an "unsorted" category, which I
of course don´t show on the website. IF I get a link that I want to add to my site, I simply change to he proper
category. Problem solved.

I searched for linkex on hotscripts.com and found no less than six scripts called Linkex. It is of course possible that
it is not this script that people dislike.
BTW I wrote a short review of the script on hotscripts.com

Yeah I've noticed that too. Not the best name I have found there..
Thanks for the review, I can't see it yet, guess it has to be reviewed or something?

- v0id

Now the review has been approved.
http://www.hotscripts.com/review/58246.html

Yes I read it, I truly appreciate it! Thanks a lot! :)
It really makes the effort worth it!

- v0id

v0id, I think the script rocks.
The only thing I'd try to add in is ability to do 4-way trades.
(MydomainA links to YourdomainB, YourdomainC links to MyDomainD)

Oh, and also the ability to name the folder anything other than 'linkex'. Security through obscurity. If the upload
folder is CHMod'd 777 when the user installs the script, it should be able to write to its own folder without specifying
what the folder name is.

Magnus - the webmasters on GFY create websites just as you do, and they trade hard links between each other just as you
do. What their website is about has nothing to do with "bad" links or "good" links. No matter what
type of link script you're running, if you have an open sign-up form, any scammer can come along and add himself to your
link trade list. That's what that particular GFY post is talking about - the person has to manually check for scammers.
He probably hasn't enabled cron jobs to do it for him, or adjusted his settings so that the script pulls those links out
automatically.

What *he* wanted was a complete do-it-for-you system that he never has to think about other than putting his new
domains/sites into, and that's what he got with the other system he's using.

For folks who like to manage their own link trades, and/or specify who we do and do not want to link to, Linkex is
perfect.

well I honestly can not say I am a Hater... but I found this script to be useless...

The latest build did not untar properly... I got a completely blank document, named index and that's it... nothing...

I went back and downloaded a previous version (figuring one archive went bad) and got the proper files when untaring...

I loaded everything in my server the way the documentation (what little there is) explained... and proceeded to install


nothing...

I filled out all the information...
I click ok
the page resets

no files created
no archives built

no documentation to explain what I should do next...

and I mean NO DOCUMENTATION ANYWHERE!
looks bad all the way round...

so I have deleted the folder from my server (didn't like having a 777 folder in there anyway)

now I will not bash the program because I had problems... but I will let the author know what the problems are...

1) complete lack of usable documentation. (never assume the user is as smart as you and can figure it out... and dont
put TODO: fix documentation - in your documentation.)

2) Test nightly builds... if the program will not untar on your box... it sure as hell wont untar on someone else's
box.

That is as far as I got before deleting the script...

I left my email address for the webmaster... I have seen the script run on other people's boxes... so I know there is
SOMETHING to it... when these two issues are resolved... send me an e-mail... I am still interested, but

-Not Happy

The newest version does only include a single index.php file and documentation is provided here on board and after u run
the index.php file it will also explain installation instructions. Much better than previous versions.

I would still like to be able to use a directory different than linkex and/or be able to have better permissions than
777

ran the php...

nothing happened...

now what?

LinkEX is incredible. Small, simple and effective. Not to mention beautifully coded-- html, css and php wise.

I haven't had any security issues but even if there were... look how frequent updates are, and, how *easy* they are.

I could go on forever. LinkEX ROCKS! The haters are probably pissed off because they sell bloated, ugly, link exchange
scripts and are losing business to this beautiful, free, wonderful piece of coding genius.

F--- the haters, long live LinkEX! ;)

Hi!

Andrew i agrea, there's just to much frustration at the haters.
I had a major problem with one of the previous versions and v0id helped me very fast!

And uh, why are other (hunderds of) people able to install linkex if is bad?

Jamo
Love the script!

@Not Happy
Thanks a lot for your feedback!
I really need this kind of feedback. When I test it out, and everything works out fine, I'm releasing it. If no one
tells me that a release has gone bad, I'll never know it went wrong. What release was broken? 20070107?

I realize that the documentation is pretty lousy, but as I've said before, I'm a programmer not a writer. I'm doing this
whole project for free, so my motivation to sit and write documentation is not that big. I do however get great pleasure
in hearing about more and more people enjoying my script, so I will at some point write a proper manual, and be even
more helpful in fixing bugs, and installing scripts.

I can see why you are frustrated by the little documentation you have found, but remember the old saying, you get what
you pay for.

I'll be sure to let you know when the scripts is ready, and the documentation is done! I'd love to see you run LinkEX on
your sites!


@The rest of you guys.
Awesome! You just made my day! :) Glad to hear all the positive responses!

By the way, goto http://linkex.dk/changelog.html and check out what was added in ver.20061218 (Hint the subject is
"No more folder restriction")
Sorry for now doing more announcements on it

- v0id

Hi v0id,

I did a whole day researching testing link-exchange script and looking for the "perfect" one for my websites.
I want to skip all the compliments part since it's not attractive I wouldn't write this comments anyway. These are some
of my doubts before adopt LinkEX:

1. How the data stored, how easy is it to backup and export to other program?
2. We hire outsiders to do link exchange for us and it's critical for us to setup limited account(can't delete records
etc...) to them and a basic method to sort through added-links by their ID;
3. When you currently click on the "home" link, the panel listing all links is the most important
information(at least to us),yet it's currently incrediblely small, very frustrating if you want to see more than 3-5
links.
4. The beauty of the program is undeniable. But for any serious webmaster, the reliability is even more important than
anything else. The code is obfuscated, making it almost impossible for us to do anything. I am currently still doing
research on the program, but if you can provide some comments for above questions, that would definetely boost our
confidence in your program.

Best,

Alexdux

HI ALEXDUX,

I HAVE EXACTLY THE SAME ISSUES WITH THIS PROGRAM, IT WOULD BE REALLY INTERESTING TO SEE V0ID'S COMMENTS ON YOUR
POSTING.


Yah00

It seems that v0id dies down a little bit in responding to "linkex haters" forum questioins...!
pity

annoying

Hey hey guys.

Again sorry for the late replies. As I have stated earlier I've been moving to a new apartment, and have been busy
remodeling, which in the end left me with a lot of work at my day job.
Since I get my $$$ from my day job, I've given it a bit higher priority than this forum :)

Whats with all the cross postings?
http://linkex.dk/forums/t828-many-problems.html
http://linkex.dk/forums/t829-could-you-please-address-this.html
I'll gen banned by google for duplicate content :)

Anyway to answer your questions:

1. How the data stored, how easy is it to backup and export to other program?
------------------------------------
The data are in files, but they are serialized by the built in php function. I suggest that you create a new category if
you would like to export the data, and format the data in whatever format you may need. It's not that hard to create a
category with comma separated output, or perhaps even in some XML format.

2. We hire outsiders to do link exchange for us and it's critical for us to setup limited account(can't delete records
etc...) to them and a basic method to sort through added-links by their ID;
------------------------------------
No can do in LinkEX. Currently it's a single user environment. I have no plans on changing this any time soon, but I
have given it thought from time to time.

3. When you currently click on the "home" link, the panel listing all links is the most important
information(at least to us),yet it's currently incrediblely small, very frustrating if you want to see more than 3-5
links.
------------------------------------
Ok, what do you suggest? width:100% on the div#wrapper? I'm open to ideas.

4. The beauty of the program is undeniable. But for any serious web master, the reliability is even more important than
anything else. The code is obfuscated, making it almost impossible for us to do anything. I am currently still doing
research on the program, but if you can provide some comments for above questions, that would definitely boost our
confidence in your program.
------------------------------------
In my world, any serious web master would pay bug bucks for more prof. script, or even have it custom programmed. What
you are looking at is a very simple script to maintain a handful of links on a small website.
It wrote it because the scripts there already exists, were either expensive and way too complicated/overkill for my
need, or the simple ones were projects that were dead, and to code was to ugly for my to fix.

The code is somewhat obfuscated, it has all the spaces removed. I made a script for this, since I keep the "source
code" of it in multiple files, and it's much easier to upgrade on line with only one file to download.
A lot of PHP IDEs has a function to format the code nicely. If you need to modify it, feel free to do so.
My plan was to keep releasing new versions with bugs fixed as soon as they were found, and new features added as soon as
people would come up with them. I know I haven't been much around lately, but I'm starting to get back at it.

How was that for an answer? Feel free to comment it :) Or ask again if you have further questions.
I appreciate your post, and I enjoy hearing from users of my script.

- v0id

3. When you currently click on the "home" link, the panel listing all links is the most important
information(at least to us),yet it's currently incrediblely small, very frustrating if you want to see more than 3-5
links.
------------------------------------
Ok, what do you suggest? width:100% on the div#wrapper? I'm open to ideas.

----------------------------------------

I don't know if there is only me think the link-display-panel is too small. 100% on the div#wrapper or not doesn't
really matter as far as more links can be comfortabley seen from the panel.


Alexdux

2. We hire outsiders to do link exchange for us and it's critical for us to setup limited account(can't delete records
etc...) to them and a basic method to sort through added-links by their ID;
------------------------------------
No can do in LinkEX. Currently it's a single user environment. I have no plans on changing this any time soon, but I
have given it thought from time to time.

------------------------------------------

How about if we donate some $ and support to have this function done?!

Hey.

Regarding #3
I'll have a look on how to make the link display panel better. I think you are right on it being too small.

Regarding #2
I'm surprised and flattered that you want this function in LinkEX. I'm open to the idea of making a multi user function,
with some restrictions to the users. I'll think about it, and let you know.

- v0id

hi v0id,

you rock!
Thank you for considering my suggestions! It would be SO COOL to see updates see above features/improvements!

Here comes another one:
Why don't you add a Paypal "donation" button?! So it would be easier for people who love the program and want
to send several $? It coud be a nice little reward to your great work!

Alex

One of the most aggravating things is your use of .tar .gz compression download. Does not work half of the time. Have
you perhaps heard of a zip file? It seems that like a lot of programmers you have decided to do it your way instead of
what the user needs and wants. So this is the result you get. POed.