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EJ3 TOPo v2.2.178
What is TOPo?
TOPo is a top web sites portal system that allows your visitors to add their site
and banner to your web site. It also allows visitors to rank the different sites
listed and add their comments about the site.
Requirements:
To use TOPo, you need to be sure your CGI account is set up. Please
see How To Request A CGI Account
for more information. You will also need to
download a copy of EJ3 TOPo v2.2.178.
The version used in this tutorial was TOPo v2.2.178.
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IMPORTANT SECURITY NOTE! Always be sure you have
installed the latest updates and/or patches for the script as well as for any
additional add-ons. Updates are very important to the security and proper
functioning of the script! Our instructions may be for earlier versions of
scripts due to the fact that we are not able to keep up with updates to every
script at all times. It is still up to the domain owner to install and use the
latest version of these scripts.
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Restrictions:
Remember that only your main account can access CGI scripts on your server. Any
hosting or extra FTP accounts that access these scripts may cause your account
to be deactivated and you'll have to contact
support.
For TOPo to work correctly, please do not put it or it's
directories inside your cgi-bin directory. If you do, the script may not work.
It's best to use a separate directory and leave the cgi-bin directory for your
smaller scripts.
Installation:
Extract the files from the ZIP archive into a new directory on your hard drive.
You may need to use a program such as WinZip
to do this.
In a plain text editor such as Windows Notepad or EditPlus
(do not use a word processor), open the file /code/inc_footer.php.
Find the following line (around line 20):
if(is_a($web,'SitioWebAvanzado')) { $db_numConsultas+=$web->numConsultas; $db_segConsultas+=$web->segConsultas; }
This will appear all on one line in the file. Replace it with the following (be
sure that all of the code below appears on the same line):
if($web == 'SitioWebAvanzado') { $db_numConsultas+=$web->numConsultas; $db_segConsultas+=$web->segConsultas; }
We are doing this to avoid some errors that seemed to happen when the program
runs on our servers.
Log into your CGI server and create a directory to put the files in. For this
tutorial, we have created a directory called topo.
Upload all the files and directories for TOPo to the new directory on your CGI
server.
Create two directories in the directory you uploaded the TOPo files to. One should
be named cache and the other data. Change the file permissons of
both directories to 777.
In your web browser, go to http://cgi.yourdomain.com/topo/install.php
replacing yourdomain.com with your actual domain name and topo with
the name of the directory you uploaded the TOPo files to. A welcome screen will
appear. Click on the Continue Button. After confirming the Directory
Structure, click the Next button. Data files will be created. Click the
Next button.
Fill in a username and a password for logging into the administrator area. Be sure
to write these down and put them somewhere safe. Click the Next button.
The config file will then be created. Click the next button.
You'll be informed that it can not delete the install file. Log back into your
CGI server and delete the install.php file from the TOPo directory. Do
not click the next button in your browser. Rather, visit your
TOPo site: http://cgi.yourdomian.com/topo/ (replacing yourdomain.com
with your actual domain name and topo with the name of the directory you
uploaded the TOPo files to).
Configuration:
On the TOPo site, click on the Webmaster Admin link.
A new window (or tab, depending on your browser) will appear. Log in using your
admin username and password. Whenever you log in as administrator, you'll be
greeted with a page that checks your installation each time. Note that at the
bottom you'll see a warning about the PHP version and an
"ERROR: TOPo don't work with installed PHP version" message. We have found
that we can ignore this message as the program still seems to work with the version
of PHP we use.
Click on the Top Config link in the left menu. Here you can change your
administrator username, password, etc. You will need to change the email to your
own so you can recieve messages from the site such as when new people add their
links, etc.
In the Top Name box, fill in the name of your web site. You can add Meta
Tags, which are keywords related to your site separated by a comma. You can
leave the others at default. If you want to use a different type of vote graphic,
enter the URL to this graphic in the Vote Graphic box. This is basically
a small button that your visitors who sign up can use on their site to encourage
people to vote for their site. Click the Submit Query button when done. The
page will reload with the same information but the changes are saved.
Use the Cutomize Top link in the left menu to customize the look of your
TopSites page. It also tells you what files you can edit if you want to come up
with your own theme or look to match your site. You can also customize banners
and refresh rates. See the EJ3 TOPo Web Site
for more information on these other features. Click the Submit Query
button when done. The page will reload with the same information but the changes
are saved. If you changed the theme, the page will change to reflect what the
theme looks like.
The Advanced Options link in the left menu lets you configure some more
advanced items. The only thing you probably should not change is the
gzip compression setting. Note that the Online Users is a setting
that determines if visitors can see how many users are online and from what country
via a link at the bottom of every page. When a visitor hovers over the link, a
popup tool tip will show the information.
The Banners/Rules/Notices link in the left menu lets you configure the
banner and site rules and notices. If you enable Top, Middle, and/or Bottom Banners,
you can enter HTML code to add a banner at those locations on your page. This is nice if you
want to add Google AdSense
to your site, for example, or your own banner rotation.
Enabling Rules allows you to add submission rules to your site that people
will need to follow in order to submit a banner to your site.
Enabling Notices lets you add other notices or information to your site
that you feel is important for your visitors to know. This is useful especially
if you decide to add the sites yourself instead of allowing your visitors to
do this. You could put a notice here with an email address where they can contact
you to add their site.
The Welcome Email box is where you can type in the text that is sent when
a user submits a site to your Top Sites listing. Note that the {ACCOUNT_INFO}
must be included so that the user will be emailed also their account
information including their password in case they might have missed seeing it
when they signed up. The site generates a random password for everyone. You may
want to remind them here how to log in and change their password for better
security of their account.
Click the Submit Query button when done. The page will reload and the
information will be shown and the changes saved.
The Categories part of the site lets you define categories (if enabled)
to put the banners into. These will show up on the site in separate areas on the
page.
The Web Sites link in the left menu is where you can edit delete any sites
that have been submitted by your visitors.
The Tools link in the left menu is where you can send an email to all those
who have added sites to your listing. This is good for letting people know of
new rules, or site downtime if you are going through and weeding out links you
do not wish displayed on the site, etc. Please use this feature wisely.
To view your site at any time, click the View Top button on the left under
the menu.
Using TOPo:
To add a link, click on the Add Site link at the top of the page.
Visitors with a banner in the listing can edit their banner using the Edit Site
link at the top of the page.
The Webmaster Admin link at the top of the page is for administrators to
work with the site. It's a password-protected area.
Use the Rate button to rate the site on a scale from 1 - 10.
The Info button gives some information about the web site in a pop-up
window. It also allows visitors to add comments about the web site in the listing.
When in the administration area, you'll notice there are log out buttons to log
out of the administrator account. The top one also has a time counting down in
minutes before the system logs you out automatically (requiring you to log back
in again). Any time you click on a button to save changes, click on a menu item,
etc. the timer will reset and give you 30 minutes again.
Troubleshooting:
I get an error saying that the version of PHP is too old and that TOPo won't work.
We have noticed this too. So far we have found that the site works anyway so at
this point you can ignore it for now, as long as you made the change to the
one text file in the installation instructions above before uploading the files
to your CGI server. Otherwise, you may find errors at the very bottom of all your
pages.
Support:
If you have any problems or questions about TOPo, please see the
EJ3soft web site.
Active Web Hosting may not be able to provide support for this program or it's
installation.
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