To signup new accounts you will need to use the accounts.cgi interface. Just point your browser to the URL of accounts.cgi on your server and you will see a page that collects the user information. This page is controlled by the _account_add.htmlt template, so you can make changes to it's look by editing that template. Once the user has filled in all the fields and pressed the button, they will be taken to a page confirming that their data has been recorded. This page is controlled through the _account_added.htmlt template. If you have the option enabled to e-mail members when they signup, the contents of the _email_added.etmpl e-mail template will be sent to the user. The account will be instantly added to your database, and ranked among the other sites the next time the list is updated. Remember, sites must send the minimum required hits before they will be listed.
One of the things you want to make sure you do is to provide your members with the types of links that you want them to use when sending visitors to your site. Each member will have their a unique URL which they need to send hits to, and that URL will include their username. There are two places where you can provide your members with link syntax. The first is the page that they see immediately after signing up. This page is controlled through the _account_added.htmlt template. You can also include the link syntax in the e-mail that is sent when a user signs up. That e-mail is controlled through the _email_added.etmpl template file. On these templates you can use whatever types of links you want, from plain text links to banners, and even javascript. Deciding on and creating your links will be your responsibility. Once you have them created, you can add them to the template of your choice. To get the correct URL that all your member links should point to, use the #%TRACK_URL%# template value.
Reranks Lets start off with reranks. A rerank is when your HTML pages are updated with the current members and hit counts in the database. All of the sites will be ranked against each other, and the results will be printed out to your HTML pages. Your reranks should happen more often than your resets. A fairly common setup is to have a rerank occur every hour, and a reset every 24 hours. Resets Resets are when the in and out hit counts are reset to zero. This does not affect the total in, total out, or average hit counts - it only affects the current in and out hit count. Generally, these occur once a day, week, or month, but you can have them happen whenever you want. They should occur less frequently than reranks. It is possible to have the list never reset by entering a -1 (minus one) in the reset time field of setup.cgi. If you are using cron for updates, and do not want the list to ever reset, simply remove the crontab entry that runs the reset.cgi script. This "no reset" feature has been included, however it is really not necessary. The script tracks total hits in and out, and can rank based on those values, so there really is no point in never having the list reset. You should also be aware that if the list never resets, there will not be detailed stats for the administrator or members to view. Why isn't my list updating? You will need a steady stream of traffic coming through rankem.cgi in order to see regular updates (this includes both reranks and resets). The rankem.cgi script must be executed in order for the software to check the time and see if it needs to update. If no hits are coming through rankem.cgi, it is not being executed, and updates cannot occur. Until you have a steady stream of traffic coming through rankem.cgi, you may need to do manual reranks and resets from admin.cgi. We define a steady stream of traffic as at least one hit coming in every x minutes, where x is the number of minutes between reranks.
You can manage all of your member accounts through the administrative interface. If you know the username of the account you want to work with, you can use the feature to display the account details for the username you enter. If you do not know the username, you can view all of your accounts. Viewing All Accounts ![]() From the screenshot above you can see the function you need to use to view all of your member accounts. When using this function we recommend that you limit your viewing to 40 accounts per page. When you run this function you will be taken to a page with a list of your member accounts. From there you can put a checkbox next to any of the accounts, and then edit, delete, or e-mail them. Viewing a Specific Account ![]() From the screenshot above you can see the function you need to use to view details on a specific account. When you run this function you will be taken to a page that will display all of the current information on file for the account. From there you can select to edit, delete, or e-mail the account holder with the drop down menu of selections at the bottom of the page.
The timezone offset allows you to setup the list so that it displays the current date and time in sync with the timezone you are located in. Many times you will not be located in the same timezone as your server, so this can be useful for you to more easily track the time on your site. The easiest way to calculate your timezone offset is to do the following.
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