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PowerSeek Ver 4 Now Available!

PowerSeek Ver 4 is now available! Many internals have had changes to optimize code and to ensure low resource usage and increased speed on many sections of PowerSeek. The look and feel also had a total overhaul to ensure a pleasurable experience when working with the Admin Interface. Amongst the core new features implemented is the ability to create 'upload' fields where any file types can be uploaded with link listings. This opens the door where PowerSeek can literally be used for any kind of Directory that requires multimedia. Examples of where this functionality can come in very handy is that you can use it to build the following types of Directories:

• Videos Portals where videos are offered with listings
• Image Galleries
• Classified ads where you would like users to submit photos or images with listings
• Travel Directories where images or videos needs to be with listings
• Software Download Portals (where file downloads are offered)
• Complex Portals or Directories where listings have images or files attached for downloads

Other core features includes the ability to create advanced searches. The advanced search functionality has the ability where almost any kind of search can be created. We will be writing some blog articles in the near future on powerful examples to create specific types of searches.

With Ver 4 each section of code has been checked carefully while updating the look and feel of the Main Admin Interface. This resulted any many small tweaks and optimizations. Visual enchancements have also been added (with Ajax/Javascript) to many sections where it would make it easier to work with many parts of the Interface.

New much needed plugins has also been added like the 'Emty Category Checker' Plugin that would tell you which categories was empty. This can come in very handy if you have thousands or tens of thousands of categories. A duplicate checker plugin has also been created so that you can wead out duplicate links inside your Directory. This was also a feature highly requested by many.

With development it would always seem that there is not enough time for everything but as time goes by great things can be built. So it is with PowerSeek. Over the years it has gone from a simple idea to a gigantic one with literally hundreds of features and thousands of our users asking us to implement new features. We thank everybody for their ideas and will continue adding new features and continue building one of the most flexible Directory scripts available today.

New Features/Enhancements/Updates in PowerSeek Ver 4

• A new look and feel that is more organized has been implemented with many enhancements to the basic interface. It has especially been created to enhance the user experience when working with the Admin Control Panel.
• Edit/Move/Copy/Delete options is now available for individual links inside the 'Directory Manager'. This makes it easy to quickly Edit/Move/Copy/Delete an individual link while viewing it without loosing your place while browsing the Directory Manager.
• When creating or editing a category, ‘Custom Template Sets’ can be assigned to the category or directory that is being created or edited.
• 'File Upload' extra fields are now supported. A File Upload Field lets you upload files like image files, pdf files, videos, etc for link listings. It can also enable visitors (users doing submissions) to upload images, pdf files, videos, or any other file types with their listings. You can for example use a File Upload Field to display images with link listings. You could also for example use it to provide .zip or .pdf downloads with link listings. It could also be used to display videos with link listings to create a Video Portal for example. Note that the use of !!link_file!! is now depreciated as it is easier to use 'extra upload fields' to manage file uploads with link listings. (!!link_file!! will still be backwards compatible with older versions of PowerSeek)
• RSS feeds are now supported for the 'Whats New' and 'Popular' pages. To enable the display of the RSS graphic with the 'Whats New' and 'Popular' pages add !!rss!! to the 'Whats New' and 'Popular' templates. The names of these templates are: whatsnew_main.html and tophits_main.html
• The Importer (when the 'Import' button is clicked from any category in the 'Dir' Manager) has been rewritten and now has options to specify the format (order of fields) of the file to be imported. This functionality lets you import files where the field order of the links contained in the file can be in any order. This makes the 'Import' function very flexible.
• Up to 40 Extra Data Fields can now be added. Previously only 20 Extra Data Fields could be added.
• Functionality is now available to create any kind of advanced searches using custom or unique search templates. This functionality
  enables you to set up searches that will for example search price ranges, certain fields combined with others, searches to list the highest rated links, etc. Advanced searches can be created by going to the:
  Control Panel >> settings >> Create/Configure Advanced Searches
• A 'Favorites' option is now available. What this means is that an 'Add to Favorites' link can be available with any link. When clicked by a visitor the link will be added to his/her own favorites list. The visitor can then click a 'Favorites' link from anywhere in the Search Engine & Directory to view his/her favorite links that he/she flagged as his/her favorites.

To implement, users upgrading from PowerSeek ver 3.x or 4 will need to do the following:

Open any PowerSeek template where you would like to place a 'Favorites' link or button. When the template is open add the following to it:
<a href="http://www.focalmedia.net/cgi-bin/blog/fav.cgi">Favorites</a>
(You could place this in defdir.html, searchres.html, or you could also place the link in any 'Template Include')
When end users click this link they will be presented with links they they added to their 'Favorites list'.

Inside the link style templates place the following:
<a href="http://www.focalmedia.net/cgi-bin/blog/favad.cgi?id=2">Add To Favorites</a>
This will indicate a link that end users can click to add the displayed link to their favorites list.
You could place the HTML code in the following templates:
tmplsearch.html
tmplsearch_prem.html
lsearchres_loc.html
lsearchres_loc_prem.html
etc..

• When viewing or searching for user accounts the number of links available with accounts are now displayed in brackets next to user account matches/lists.
• The uploading of banners is now supported when adding or editing banners from the Banner Manager.
• Banner Group Statistics and Banner Statistics from the Banner Manager now has 'Date Drop Down' boxes to get statistics for selected time periods.
• A new setting is available where premium links can be listed first in search results. To set this setting go to the
  Control Panel >> Settings >> Global Engine Settings >> 4. Search Settings >> Look for the setting reading: 'List 'Premium' first that matched keywords in 'Search Results'?'
• The crawler where the 'Crawl' button can be clicked from when in a category in the &lsquo;Dir Manager&rsquo; now has options to extract links/URLs from URL addresses. This gives you the ability to extract URLs from a specified web address and then crawl the URLs that has been extracted. The crawler is now also multithreaded which makes crawling 10+ times faster. The URL extraction section also has filter options to exclude specific URL addresses from the addresses being extracted.
• When in the 'User Manager' User Accounts can be selected with a tickbox and then deleted. This gives the functionality where multiple user accounts can be deleted with one action.
• The Template Manager has had a face-lift with more organized displays.
• There are now 'previews' available while editing any template from the 'Template Manager'. The previews include the original state of the template where it is un-rendered and a rendered 'preview' where the template is rendered which displays how the end result looks like.
• The Front Page generation functions has been rewritten where each Front Page Creation method uses it's own settings. Front page
  generation is backwards compatible with older versions of PowerSeek.
• The 'New and Premium Link Includes' plugin has a new option where only New or Popular Premium links can be chosen to be displayed for the Include.
• Extra field/key values can now be displayed inside the Rating (rate_it.html) and Comment/Review (review_it.html) Templates. What this means is that extra fields are now supported inside the Rating and Comment/Review templates.
• Listings can now be displayed in up to 6 vertical columns inside categories. This can come in handy when using PowerSeek to build an Image Gallery, Video Portal or complex catalogue for example. To achieve this edit defdir.html and place %%searchresults%%, %%searchresults2%%, %%searchresults3%%, etc. (up until 6) into a table containing the number of columns required. Each column will then have a variable (%%searchresults%%, %%searchresults2%%, %%searchresults3%% for example) which will display listings.
  The section displaying links inside defdir.html could look like this for example:

  <table border="0" cellpadding="7" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
  <tr>
  <td valign="top" width="25%">%%searchresults%%</td>
  <td valign="top" width="25%">%%searchresults2%%</td>
  <td valign="top" width="25%">%%searchresults3%%</td>
  <td valign="top" width="25%">%%searchresults4%%</td>
  </tr>
  </table>

• The 'Custom Category' section where 'Custom Category Template Sets' can be created and edited now has a preview option to preview 'Custom Category Template Sets'. (When editing or working in the 'Custom Category' template set section)
• A 'Search Cloud' plugin is now available to display a 'Search Cloud' in any PowerSeek template or web page. The plugin will record keywords from Searches made by end users and create a 'cloud' display of keywords being searched for. Each time a search takes place the keyword is added to the cloud for display. Features for this plugin includes the ability to customize the look and feel of the keywords being displayed and other options.
• A Duplicate Checker Plugin is now available that will check the Directory.
  Features of this plugin includes:
  • Options to delete all links that creates duplicates or to delete the original links + their duplicates
  • Lists duplicate links with 'Editing' and 'Deletion' options.
  • Filter to list only duplicates or duplicates with their originals

• An option is now available after logging in that will display the configuration paths and information of PowerSeek. To access this information click on 'Configuration Info' after logging in.
• There is now an 'Account Cleanup' option to remove dormant User Accounts that has no links. It is available when the 'User Manager' tab is clicked from the Control Panel.
• The 'Premium Link Browser' under the 'Control Panel >> Plugins >> Premium Link Manager >> Browse/Edit Premium Links' will now also list extra fields/keys if extra fields have been added.
• Individual 'Approval' options for links from the 'New Submissions Approval' area is now available. This makes it easy to quickly approve new submissions for individual links.
• The Importer Plugin would allow underscore characters in category names which would conflict with PowerSeek's category naming conventions. Underscores will now be removed from categories being imported fixing this bug.
• The setup script has been rewritten to break down the setup steps more evenly.
• A bug was fixed where links from hidden categories would be displayed with the 'Popular & New Link Includes' plugin. Links from hidden categories won't be displayed with this plugin anymore.
• An 'Empty Category Checker' plugin is now available that will display categories that has no links. The categories displayed can be clicked to add links to the empty categories.
• The 'Master Template Importer' plugin now has an extra option where a variable can be placed inside a template to be implemented to indicate page titles of templates.
• When using the JavaScript 'Method' for the Front Page categories the categories would be in the cache of the browser and when any of the main categories would change the changes would not show immediately as the JavaScript would be cached in the browser. Changes has been made where the caching problem has been solved.
• There is now a new settings where keyword logging can be enabled or disabled. There are also new settings available regarding keyword logging. These settings can be set when going to the Control Panel >> Plugins >> Search Term Statistics
• A new setting is now available where duplicate titles or URLs can be removed from the Search Results. This setting is available inside the Control Panel >> Settings >> Global Engine Settings >> 4. Search Settings
• By default MySQL is configured to only allow 16 searchable fields. This caused issues when adding more extra fields that are searchable.
  This has been fixed not to allow more than 16 searchable fields to be added.
• When adding or editing a 'Popular or New Link Include' a 'Browser' link is now available to browse categories to assign categories to be used. The browser has options to choose a category by browsing the categories.
• When an incorrect user name or password was entered when a user tries to login to administer his/her submissions a message would wrongly appear that the account was not validated when the user name and password was incorrectly specified. This has been fixed. The correct message will now display. (That the user name or password was incorrect)
• Fixed a bug from the 'New Review/Comment' approval area where the Link Listings of reviews/comments would not display properly in some situations where extra fields has been added to links.
• Reviews/Comments will now contain page breaks where carriage returns is found. This is to properly format and display reviews/comments.

Date: Jul 28, 2008 | By: Developer

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