- Do I have to use a dedicated database for Recip Philes?
Absolutely not. Recip Philes is designed to be compatible with existing MySQL Databases if you are in a situation where you can't easily get a new database for this script. There are a few things to keep in mind, however, when using Recip Philes with
an existing database:
- If you're using Recip Philes with an existing MySQL database used by another script, take a moment to make sure there aren't any conflicts with your script. We use VERY strange MySQL table names, so odds are there's no way your current
script will be using the same table names. If you can't access the table names yourself, you can contact the support department for whatever script is currently using the database and make sure there's no conflict.
- Be sure to remember that your MySQL database will now contain tables named "rprle_category" and "rprle_user" in case you ever have to have script support work on your installation of the script that's been using
the MySQL database, and make sure any updates and upgrades they release won't conflict with these two tables. Odds are they won't but this issue is the ONLY danger involved in using Recip Philes with an exisiting database.
- If you have any questions for us on this feel free to contact support and I'll be happy to discuss it with you.
- I accidentally deleted my templates, what do I do now?
No problem! Default templates are available for download through the "help" page in the script's admin interface. Just right click/"save as" on the links to the default template to save them to your local hard drive.
- Do the database fields support HTML tags?
Yes, but we don't recommend using HTML tags inside the database for a couple reasons. The pages generated by this script are PHP pages, and we've occasionally seen unpredictable results in some browsers (IE is not one of them). The code displayed in the textarea
for submitters to copy is never affected, but sometimes the recips will sporadically fail to display properly on the "display recip" page.
Most users have font formatting and such the same on all their recips, so the best idea is to control your font formatting with the recip template. That said, whatever you enter into the database fields will be processed by the script as part of the front-end pages' HTML, so with a
little trial and error you can probably get exactly the result you're looking for.
- Can I use the "extra text" fields in some categories but not others?
Yes, provided you take a bit of care. The easiest way to do this is to use the "EXTRA_TEXT" includes in the template, then make sure you include the full <font></font> tags for your "extra text" in the database, starting with
a line break <br>.
Using this method the script will process and display the extra text for one category or another if it's present in the database, but will have nothing to process if the database is empty for a given category so there won't be any empty font tags and such messing with your formatting.
You may want to play with this a bit with one or two categories to make sure you're getting exactly the results you want before taking the script live for your submitters.
- I get an error when I try to update my templates through the Admin Interface. What do I do now?
The most common issue users face when initially setting up the script is not having permissions set correctly on the template files. If you're going to use FTP to update your templates, permissions aren't an issue. In order to update templates through the Admin
Interface, you need to set the permissions to CHMOD 666 on the following files: index.php, display-recip.php and recip-template.php. If this doesn't solve the problem, please contact support.
- How do I make sure my reciprocal links display the way I want them to on every submitter's pages?
The most common mistake Link List and TGP owners make when creating their reciprocal links is to rely on the <body></body> tags on the page for certain things like link color, font face and such. By using inline styles (like the ones in the default
reciprocal link supplied with the script) you can control font size, style, color, and anything else you like in your recip link template, assuring that your recips always look the way you want them to when the code is pasted into a submitter's page.
Another thing you should always do is use height, width and align="center" attributes in the code for your tables.
Most submitters want your recips to look the way they look when displayed on your site, and they'll love you if they don't have to tweak your recip code to make it look right on every page they submit to you. In the long run, using inline styles and full table attributes is better
for everyone.
- How do I control the text formatting of the Category Name and Category Description on the Recip Display Page?
Quite easily. All you need to do is put <font></font> tags around around the <? php ?> includes for the Category Name and Category Description. If you're not using the category description, just remove that include from your Recip Display
Page template.
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