Article Dashboard Integrated Top Ten List

Would you like a copy of the Integrated Article Dashboard top ten list, as can be seen in the right sidebar of the Articles4Reprint.com website?

To make this work for your site, I will be including the code here for you to copy to your site, along with the instructions for its setup.

First things first, make a backup copy of your templates/indexnav.tpl and call it indexnav_original.tpl

Be sure to set the permissions on both files to 644. (As a security precaution, all of the files in your template folders should be set to 644 and/or you should also have password protection set up for those directories.)

Inside your new indexnav_original.tpl file, include the following code where you want it in the template:

Code:

The <div class="rightnavbox"> is the standard content box that feeds into the right sidebar of the Article Dashboard template. This is actually the same box that includes the navigation boxes on the standard Article Dashboard install.

If you do not want to box the information, then you need to include only the <TOP10ARTS>

The second step is to save the following code into a file in your root directory or the directory where your Article Dashboard software is installed. You will need to name this file top_articles.php

Set the permissions for this file to 644.

There is one customizable line of text in the script. That one line of code enables you to set the number count of your list:

$topart_count = "10";

This number can be set to Five, Ten or Twenty, whatever suits your desires.

Of course, it would not take a rocket scientist to remove the link back to this page, and although we do not require that you keep the link, we would appreciate it if you do choose to keep the link.

Code:

<?php
//=========================================
// Integrated Article Dashboard Top Ten List
// Copyright © 2007, Bill Platt
// http://www.StewartConsultants.com
//
// Free Version 
//=========================================

include("setup.php");
$topart_count = "10"; // Top Ten List? Top Twenty List?

//=========================================
// There is nothing to edit below this line
//=========================================

$basecat = $baseurl."/Category";
$baseart = $baseurl."/Article";

$link = mysql_connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpasswd)or die ("Could not connect to mysql because ".mysql_error());
mysql_select_db($dbname)or die ("Could not select database because ".mysql_error());

$query1 = "SELECT article_id, article_title, article_downloads FROM `".$table_prefix."articles` WHERE `status` = 'A' ORDER BY `article_downloads` DESC, `posteddate` DESC LIMIT 0,$topart_count ";
$result1 = mysql_query($query1) or die(mysql_error());

while ($row1 = mysql_fetch_array($result1))
{

$art_name=$row1['article_title'];
$art_id=$row1['article_id'];
$reads=$row1['article_downloads'];
$title=preg_replace("/[\s|\?|:|']/","-",$art_name);

$toparts_body .= "<li><a href='" .$baseart. "/" .$title. "/" .$art_id. "' title='" .$art_name. "'>" .$art_name. "</a> [" .$reads. " reads]</li>\r\n";

};

$toparts_output = "Top $topart_count Articles: " . "<UL>" . $toparts_body . "</UL>" . " <a href=http://stewartconsultants.com/x.pl/sc/software/ad-top-ten.html target=_blank>Get a copy of this script for your " . "Dashboard directory</a>.";

$save_nav_filename = $base_path . "/templates/indexnav.tpl";
$nav_filename = $base_path . "/templates/indexnav_original.tpl";
$nav_handle = fopen($nav_filename, "r");
$nav_html = fread($nav_handle, filesize($nav_filename));
fclose($nav_handle);

$nav_html = preg_replace('/<TOP10ARTS>/', $toparts_output, $nav_html);

$handle = fopen($save_nav_filename, 'w+');
fwrite($handle, $nav_html);
fclose($handle) or die ("filesave error");

exit;

And for the third and final step, you need to set up a Cron job for this new file to fire at regular intervals. I am firing this script every 15 minutes on my Dashboard site.

Set your Cron job to look like this:

Code:

If you use Advanced Unix settings, set the Minute to */15, the Hour, Day, Month and Weekday to *

I hope you find this useful. If you have any problems, do Contact Us through our website.

Bill Platt
Stillwater, Oklahoma
405-780-7745 Mon-Fri 9am-6pm CST

Last Update: 2007-11-13

Have you heard about the benefits of publishing an ezine via Dynamically Created RSS/XML Feeds? If not, then please take a few minutes to explore the promise of spam-free, accusation-free publishing with the Quikonnex Publishing System.

Revenue, is the first magazine dedicated to the performance marketing standard. Subscribe today and get immediate access to great design ideas, hot search engine strategies, marketing industry news, interviews with industry leaders and opportunities to raise your level of revenue right now.

Link Building Service