2. The Basics in 20 Minutes

PowerSeek should be very easy to use and is mostly self-explanatory. Please read this guide as it will save you time. This section has been written to get you started in the shortest time possible. It provides you with the basics of creating your Directory & Search Engine. It will also give you a good feel of how everything works together.

Step 1. Create your Category/Directory Structure and add links.

Your Directory Structure is the Categories you would like to place links in. You can create your Directory Structure by going to the Admin Control Panel. Then click the 'Dir Manager' tab button. Once you are in the Directory Manager, click on the 'Add Dir' button to add categories or also referred to as 'directories'. Once categories/directories has been added, click on their names to enter them. Once you enter a Directory through the 'Dir Manger', you can add links to the directory by clicking the 'Add Link' button.

Note that you can also add Multuple Directories/Categories at a by clicking the 'Add Multiple Dirs' button.

Experiment by adding Directories and Links, Moving Links, etc. You can also preview the Directories/Categories by clicking the ‘Preview’ link next to each Directory/Category in the ‘Dir Manager’

See the following for more detailed information on directory and link creation: 4. The Directory Manager

Note that there is an ODP importer and 2 Crawlers to speed up the process of adding links. You can find out more about these by clicking the links below:

• 4.13.2 ODP Link Importer

• 4.15 Crawling for titles, descriptions and keywords

• 9.12 The Link Crawler Plugin

Step 2. Customize/Creating Your Front Page

The Front Page can also be referred to as the Index Page of your Directory. There are a couple of options available to create your Front Page. The easiest method would be to use the JavaScript method.

To use the JavaScript method do the following:

First create a file called index.html that will be the Front Page of your Directory. This file could be the Front Page of your domain for example.

Log into the Control Panel and click the 'Templates' tab. Now click on 'Create/Configure Front Page'.

The first option will read: '1. Setup/Configure Front Page'. Click this option.

Now choose the 'Javascript Front Page Categories' option.

You will be presented with options on how your Front Page Categories will look like. (The font styles, sizes, etc.) Choose or change any of the options and click the 'Next' button.

You will now be provided with JavaScript to display the categories and HTML code to display the Search Box.

Copy and paste the JavaScript and HTML code into index.html (the file you created) where you would like the categories of the Directory to display and the where you would like the Search Box displayed.

From where you got the JavaScript code and HTML code, there are also a help option listing the links to the various PowerSeek functions. It will provide you with links to the 'What's New', 'Popular', 'Login', etc. pages. Also create these links inside index.html so that they can be available from your Front Page.

 

 

Step 3. Customizing the look and feel of your Search Engine

PowerSeek uses HTML templates for the look and feel of your Search Engine & Directory. The templates can also be thought of as skins. All aspects of the templates can be customized to your liking. You can use any type of design. Note that PowerSeek uses no HTML code of it's own. It relies on the HTML code obtained from the templates to put everything together. The templates are ordinary HTML files.

The Template concept in a few short words:

The templates that is used by PowerSeek is just ordinary HTML files. The only exception is that the templates or HTML files contains variable words that PowerSeek uses for pointers where it needs to place data. You can basically open the HTML files with your favorite web editor or with what ever you prefer and edit away. Some templates use other templates in combination with each other. In other words, some templates combine into each other to form an entire page.

How to edit the templates:

You can edit the templates from the Template Manager. To go to the Template Manager, go to the Control Panel. Then click the 'Template Manager' tab. Click on any of the template links in the template manager to edit templates.

Templates can be edited by copying and pasting the HTML code directly into your web editor when editing templates from the Template Manager. Once you have changed the template contents, you may copy and paste it back into the edit box and save it.

You may also open the template files directly with your Web Editor to edit them. The templates are stored inside your PowerSeek ‘data’ directory.

What is the variable words in the templates/HTML files?

The variable words are enclosed by !! or %% characters. Examples of such variable words are:

%%date%% or %%pages%% etc...

These variable words are replaced by chunks of data supplied by PowerSeek when users browse your Search Engine & Directory. The location of the variables in the HTML template acts like pointers where PowerSeek substitutes the variable words with data. In some cases templates are combined with each other via these variable words.

For example:

%%date%% is replaced by the date of a link listing and %%pages%% are replaced by the number of pages that contains link listings, etc...

Note: It is very important that most of these variable words are present in your templates. Without them your Search Engine & Directory may not function correctly. Only remove variable words if you know what they do.

Template Customization – Default Directory Template Customization Explanation

This section explains how to customize the Default Category/Directory Template set. The Default Category/Directory Template set is used when displaying categories with links.

You can customize the Default Directory Template set by going to the Template Manager in the Control Panel. Then click on '1. Default Category/Directory Templates'.

Explanation of each HTML file or template used in the Default Directory/Category Template Set :

Main Category/Directory - defdir.html

This is the main template used when displaying the links/contents of your Categories or Directories.

This template and tmplsearch.html, tmplsearch_prem.html, subdirs.html, directories1.html, related1.html and related2.html is combined to form a category page.

Links Style - tmplsearch.html

This template is used in conjuntion with defdir.html - It is substituted by the %%searchresults%% variable in defdir.html - In other words, %%searchresults%% is replaced by the HTML code of tmplsearch.html in defdir.html

This template indicates the actual style of the link listings. The HTML code for this template is repeated for each link that is displayed in a Category.

Note that <html> and <body> must not be present in this template.

Premium Links Style - tmplsearch_prem.html

This template basically does the same thing that tmplsearch.html does, but it is only used for premium listings so that premium listings can have a different look or appearance.

Note that <html> and <body> must not be present in this template.

 

Sub Categories/Directories Style 1 - subdirs.html - Sub Directories/Categories Style 1

This template is used in conjunction with defdir.html - It is substituted by the %%subdirectories%% variable in defdir.html - In other words, %%subdirectories%% is replaced by the HTML code of subdirs.html in defdir.html

The HTML code of subdirs.html is used for displaying sub categories/directories of the current category/directory when browsing the directory.

Note that <html> and <body> must not be present in this template.

 

Sub Categories/Directories Style 2 - directories1.html - Sub Directory Link Style 2

This template is used in combination with subdirs.html - The function of this template is the actual style of each sub directory/category displayed. You can add a graphic next to each subdirectory in this template.

The variable %%substyle%% that is used in this template is replaced by actual category/directory names.

Let's say you want to add a graphic next to each category displayed. Then the contents of directories1.html would look something like this for example:

<img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/smpdirl.gif"> %%substyle%%

Note that <html> and <body> must not be present in this template.

 

Related Categories/Directories Style 1 - related1.html – Related Directories/Categories Style 1

This template is used to display related directories/categories for the existing directory/category. This template is used in combination with defdir.html

It is substituted by the %%related%% variable in defdir.html - In other words, %%related%% is replaced by the HTML code of related1.html in defdir.html

Related Categories/Directories Style 2 - related2.html - Related Directories/Categories Style 2

This template is used in combination with related1.html - The function of this template is the actual style of each related category/directory displayed.
 

 

Link Info - linkinfo.html - Extra link information template for standard links

This template is used to create an individual page for each standard link in your Directory. This means that each link can have it’s own page.

If the variable !!more_info_url!! is present inside tmplsearch.html or tmplsearch_prem.html  then each link displayed in your directory will have a link to an extra page where more link information can also be displayed for example. You can for example display more extended information about the link on the extra page. The extended information could be contained in extra data fields.

 

Link Info Premium - linkinfop.html - Extra link information template for premium links

This template is used to create an individual page for each premium link in your Directory. This means that each premium link can have it’s own page.

If the variable !!more_info_url!! is present inside tmplsearch.html or tmplsearch_prem.html  then each link displayed in your directory will have a link to an extra page where the link information can also be displayed. You can for example display more extended information about the link on the extra page. The extended information could be contained in extra fields/keys.

You can find out more about premium links here:
9.1 The Premium Link Manager

 

General Template Guidelines

A lot of the templates work in combination with each other and others work independently where they are not combined with other templates.

The rest of the templates work in more or less the same manner as explained here. The moment you open (with your web editor) a template you should know or have a good idea where it is to be used.

Probably the easiest and best way to know exactly how the templates work is to experiment and play around with them. If something went wrong and your Directory doesn’t seem to be working anymore because of template problems, you can just go back to the default templates that were present when you first installed PowerSeek. You can go back to the original templates by clicking the ‘Restore Default’ button when editing templates from the ‘Template Manager’.

Also look carefully at the templates that was present when PowerSeek was first installed to get a good idea of how they work and what each variable word does. You can find these in the .zip installation file.

See the following for more detailed information on template customization:
5. Customization (Look & Feel)