Sun Zoom Spark
Wed, 28 Jun 2000 01:27:43 -0700
This message continues the thread on remotely-hosted Open Directory resources. PortalScripts offers a free Open Directory with no banner ads. It is superior to the Digital Windmill resource in many ways - it does not use Javascript, so all browsers can access it, and navigation is normal. Although it is offsite, you can customise it to look exactly like all the other pages on your own site. Email-only signup and maintenance is very easy - though you cannot use GetWeb for the customisation form. Procedure ~~~~~~~~~ 1. Use one of the web-to-email servers, eg: GetWeb, WWW4Mail, to fetch http://www.portalscripts.com/Remote_Services/remote_services.shtml 2. It returns a page containing a simple form. To sign up, you provide four items of information: your name, a username, an email address and your URL. Your PortalScripts directory will be the same as your username, so think carefully. IMPORTANT: The username must be 4 to 8 characters - 'websitebyemail' was too long, so we chose 'emailweb'. 3. Submit this form. 4. It sends a password to your email address. 5. For the next stage, use one of the more advanced web-to-email servers (GetWeb will not work). We use [EMAIL PROTECTED] ... XURLCODE http://turkiyem.com/cgi-bin/odps/signin.cgi 6. Submit the sign-in form. 7. It returns a page informing you of your new URL http://turkiyem.com/cgi-bin/odps/<username>/main.cgi and a customisation template. 8. Use a web-to-email server to fetch the unmodified source HTML of your new URL. You will need it to compare it with the default template, and to design your customised template. It would also be helpful to fetch a typical category page, eg: http://turkiyem.com/cgi-bin/odps/<username>/main.cgi?/Regional/ 9. Customisation is VERY easy. Design a web page that looks like all your other pages. Make sure that all links to pages and images are absolute, not relative. Where you want the ODP table to appear, insert ODP_CONTENT That's all. If you want to look at an example, fetch the source of http://turkiyem.com/cgi-bin/odps/emailweb/main.cgi and/or http://turkiyem.com/cgi-bin/odps/emailweb/main.cgi?/Regional/ "ODP_CONTENT" is everything that appears between the comments <!-- BEGIN ODP customisation --> and <!-- END ODP customisation --> When you are ready, paste the HTML into the form and submit it. 10. Link from your site using the top level URL or one of the sub-categories. NOTES 1. portalscripts.com and turkiyem.com are the same organisation. 2. The Open Directory pages are generated dynamically by a Perl program called ODP++. Of all the Open Directory scripts, this is by far the best. 3. If you have access to a cgi-bin for your own Perl programs, Portalscripts offer ODP++ free to noncommercial users. The URL for more information is http://www.portalscripts.com/ODP__/odp__.shtml .............................................................. For list info & help, including subscription options, email message "intro website-by-email" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web URL is http://www.netnormal.com/users/websitebyemail/