Ringlink's Homepage- Documentation

What is Ringlink?

The webring concept is about linking together websites of similar contents to "rings". Ringlink is a CGI Perl program for building and running such rings, and the Ringlink approach to the webring concept is made up of the Ringlink program and the Ringlink project.

The Ringlink program

The program is available for free to download and use. It's an open source software, distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

These are the intended fields of application:

1. Install the program on your own server or webhosting account, and run one or a few own rings.
2. Install the program on your own server or webhosting account, and provide a small-scale ring service, offering a few other ringmasters to run their rings at your Ringlink installation.

The Ringlink project

Ringlink is also a living open source project. One goal is to uphold a core group of Ringlink developers, who

• maintain the Ringlink homepage and related resources,
• provide user support, and
• lead the further development of the program.

The Ringlink homepage, including the Ringlink area at SourceForge, includes means of communication and other resources to support the community of active Ringlink users, and encourage them to help each other and exchange ideas. To be able to recruit quite enough developers, a reasonably large number of active Ringlink users is an end in itself.

The ring community

The ring community consists of all those people who like and support the webring concept, irrespective of which software and/or service they make use of for running their rings. Ringlink is part of the ring community, and the active Ringlink users are encouraged to participate in the general ring related discussion at Ring Manager.

Why choose the Ringlink approach?

Ringlink offers at least these advantages over those services which make use of propriety software:

• Independence - If you have installed Ringlink yourself, you are in control.
• Unlimited customization possibilities for the advanced user
• As for advertisements, the Ringlink hosts can opt between offering ad free rings, or arrange with advertisements from which they benefit themselves.

And in relation to other ring scripts, some of which are free and some not:

• Ringlink is free.
• Ringlink is open source, which means that the community of active users are in a position to ensure that the development of the program does not cease.
• And last but not least: Ringlink is "created by ringmasters for ringmasters", which should ensure that the program's features are selected and designed in the interest of the ringmasters and their members.

Characteristics

These are a few features that distinguish Ringlink from some of the other ring management programs:

The listpage
When you list sites in a ring, it appears as if the ring has no beginning or end. If you include a site ID when you call the list.pl file, like you do when you click "List" on a site's navigation bar, the list begins with the site of the stated site ID; otherwise it begins with a random site. This means that you avoid any concentration of ring traffic to the "first" sites in the ring.

Separate URL for the page with the HTML code
A webmaster can register both a "Site entry URL" and a "HTML code URL". The first URL is the location to which ring traffic is directed, while the second location is the page with the HTML code. This makes it possible to let the validity checker do its work, even if the HTML code is not located at the same page as the one to which the ring visitors are directed.

Customization
The ringmaster can save customized settings for

• the HTML code,
• the page shown when a new site has been added,
• the message sent to the webmaster when a new site has been added,
• the comment preceding the code at the page where the webmasters can get their customized HTML code.

Besides these possibilities, the ringmaster can customize "on the fly" the email messages that are sent to the webmaster when a site is activated, deactivated or removed (or decide not to send any message).

The ringmaster can also customize the appearance of the list page. The maximum number of sites per page can be set to 5, 25 or 50, the colors can be modified (including a possibility to use background images) and the URL of a ring logo can be registered.

Master admin
The administrator of a Ringlink installation has access to a "Master admin" menu, making it possible to reach and edit all rings and sites without entering more than one admin password.