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Contents

Link Master beta 0.90

What is Link Master

Quick StartStart

Quicklinks

LM Edit

Url Manager

Special Codes

Importing data

Exporting data

Preferences

System Requirements

Limitations and known bugs

Future versions

Legal Stuff

How to contact the authors


What is Link Master

Link Master is a program to organise urls, create link-list's and html-documents. You can create a link-list from a template with point and click, or with a built in editor if you prefer more control over the layout.

All the information is stored in a database, and when you have updated your collection of urls you just generate the pages again and you are up to date.

Special features*:

Fetch url in your browser and save it to your collection..
Open selected url in Link Master with your browser.
Ftp your pages to a server.

* Depending on external applications.


Quick Start

This will guide you through the creation of a link-list with Link Master

1.  Select the new button. Give the page a Title, and a filename for the finished page.

2.  Click the Quicklinks-button next to the pencil.

3.  The QuickLinks window will pop-up, and you can select categories, heading type, type of list etc.

Click OK when you are finished.

Click the Generate Html button (white document with an arrow).

That's it. If you have selected a browser to use with Link Master click the browser button and check the result.

If you don't like the layout, it's possible to use the Editor instead.
Select File->Change type, click the LM Edit button (pencil).

Here you can use standard html-codes to format the text as you like.

Note: The text formatted with <<..>> are special codes used by Link Master to get the right urls from the database, and formatting if it's a category.


Quicklinks

Quicklinks is used to create link-lists as fast and simple as possible.

Select the categories you want to include in the page, they are sorted automatically. Choose the type of separator  between categories, heading size and how the categories should be listed.

It's also possible to add other separators. Click the new-button, give the separator a name and fill in the corresponding html-code.

The Index columns is the number of columns the index will be listed with at the top of the page. If you don't want an index, set columns number to 0.

Hint: Use Quicklinks to create a default layout and convert it to an editable page with
File->Change Type to get more freedom in the page layout.

It's not possible to go back to Quicklinks after you have  changed type. Then you have to create a new page.


LM Edit

LM Edit is an editor for the more creative page design.

Important: Link Master use some special codes to get data from the database when the page is generated.

To get a feeling of the possible commands let the mouse pass over the buttons and read the tooltips.

If there's a html-code you miss, it's possible to add it with the Add New Html button.
The command will show up in the selected category-button. Next time you start the editor the command will be in the correct category on the html-menu.

Hint: Select CR=<br> in the Html menu if you want the return key to act like line a break in the finished page. Shortcut is ctrl-b.


Codes used by LM Edit

To get the right urls from the database Link Master use some special codes. All of these codes are like <<…>> with some text between the brackets.

<<Index,3>> This code says you want an index of all categories in the page 3 columns wide.

<<UrlID=13, Borland>>

UrlID=Url ID Number, and the name of the url.

This will get the correct url from the database even if you change the address of the url or name. The name part is just as a reminder for the user and will not be updated when the name changes in the database.

<<CatID=12, h2, ul, Hifi>>

CatID=Categoriy ID Number

h2=html code for heading 2

ul=html code for unordered list

Hifi is the name of the category, so you don't have to remember all category ID's

When you generate the page this will fill in all the urls within the HIfi category in a unordered list, and a heading in size h2.

These codes are filled in for you when you select a category, url  or the appropriate command.

If you don't want a heading or special list-type just delete the text between the commas.

<<CatID=12, , , Hifi>>

<<Date>>

Inserts the current date when generated.

Important: Never delete the first field or any commas in these codes. If you do this the code will not be recognised by Link Master and may produce errors. Your browser may not be able to read the pages if it finds << or >> because it doesn't recognise the code.


Url Manager

The Url-manager does what the name says. This is the place to maintain your urls.

The upper half of the window belongs to the url you have selected in the table at the bottom of the window. To edit the url just enter text in the edit fields. The changes are automatically saved when you move to the next record or close Url Manager.

The table at the bottom of the window contains all the urls in the selected filter. The filter is based on categories and don't allow you to type your own criteria. To search the selected urls for a text use the find-dialog.

Some might find the table in the middle of the window confusing. This is where you select which category the url should belong to, and a status of the url. You can give a url several categories. E.g. You may want the url to Borland to show up in the Software Producers category and in the Delphi category.

To learn more just let the mouse pass over the window and look at the hints.

Shortcuts:

Ctrl+S selects filter box.

Alt+Arrow Down opens comobox.

Ctrl+Tab moves from the category table to the url table at the bottom.

Tab moves forward.

Shift+Tab moves backwards and undoes the new record in the category table.

Hint:

Start up Url Manager when you are surfing on the net. When you find an interesting link just add it to your collection with the Get Url-button.

Use Link Master to surf with. Select url and click browser-button.


Importing data

Important: Before you import new links, take a backup of the system folder where Link Master is located or export all the urls to a textfile.

Links

The file to import from must have one line for each url and the delimiter between each field.

To import new links place a check-mark in  the fields to import. The fields must be in this order in the text-file. Choose the correct delimiter.

If a url already is in the database it's skipped and written to a file called error.txt in the same folder as the import-file. This happens for other errors as well.

It's possible to delete all urls in the database with the Delete-button. Use with caution.

Note: The category- and status-fields can contain several categories for a url.

The categories and status-values must be separated with a comma without any trailing or leading spaces.

Example:

http://www.borland.com	Borland	Delphi,Software producers	1,1

Categories can be imported too. The file must have one line for each category.
Categories found in the database will not be imported.

Note: Some tests are done to ensure the selected importfile is valid. It's still possible to use a file which not has the correct format. This may result in some data which aren't valid are imported.

Hint: Use a spreadsheet to arrange the data before import.


Exporting Data

When you export data it's possible to select only the records visible in the filter in Url Manager or all the urls.

Choose a field-separator and click the OK button.

The urls are written to the selected file with one line for each url.

Hint: In case you don't need all the fields use a spreadsheet to select the fields you want.


Preferences

The data you fill in here are used elsewhere in the program and make Link Master more convenient to use.

Supported web-browsers are

Netscape

Internet Explorer

Mosaic (currently just open url, not fetch)

(A generic web browser of your choice might work with preview)

ftp-program

Ws_ftp

Remote loacation: This is the server-location where you store the web-pages.

With ws-ftp this is the name of a saved profile, followed by the directory where the pages should be saved, if it's not the login folder.

e.g. : "Sunsite:/pub/Incoming/"

Working folder: Default location when you create new documents.

Background: Html code for background.

BGColor: Html code for background colour.

Remote html files: This will add trailing l(L) to all the html-files transferred to remote location.


System Requirements

Link Master is build with Delphi 1.0 and uses Paradox as database-engine.

We recommend at least the following when running Win 3.1:

Processor: 486 DX
Ram: 8 Mb of ram, preferable more when you use a browser at the same time.
Disk space: 1.3 Mb for the program itself and another 3 Mb for the Borland Database Engine.

For Win 95 we recommend 16 Mb.

Video card that supports 256 colours or more.


Limitations and known bugs

Ftp transfer only possible with one file at a time.

New html codes can't be edited or deleted from the database.

Clipboard is cleared on startup.

Browsers don't always behave as expected.


Future versions

This is a list of features we want to include in future versions:

•	Import urls from Web pages

•	Export urls to other applications

•	Automatic search and replace of special characters on generate

•	Network support

•	Built in FTP or support for more external programs

•	Win32 version

•	Better editing capabilities

•	Speed improvements

•	Database backup capabilities

•	More features in Quick Links (feedback wanted)

New releases can be found at http://www-ri.hive.no/˜inftek4/linkmaster/index.html


Legal Stuff

Link Master is shareware. Registrated users are entitled to an update to version 1.0 and future minor versions (1.1, 1.2 etc)

New releases can be found at:

http://www-ri.hive.no/˜inftek4/linkmaster/index.html

Registration fee: US $20.00.

Payment must be sent as an international postal money order in US dollars, or Norwegian

users may pay by check drawn from a Norwegian bank.

Payment is made to:

Bård Eiklid

3550 Gol

Norway

Link Master is currently in beta. You use it completely at your own risk (can't figure out what that should be). This software expires on April 15.

You are permitted to use this program 50 times, after that a reminder will appear every fifth time the program is started.

Copyright/License/Warranty

Link Master® Copyright © 1995-1996 by Per Åge Sørvik & Bård Eiklid.

All rights reserved.

License Agreement

You should carefully read the following terms and conditions before using this software.  Unless you have a different license agreement signed by Per Åge Sørvik & Bård Eiklid. Your use of this software indicates your acceptance of this license agreement and warranty.

Registered Version

One registered copy of Link Master may either be used by a single person who uses the software personally on one or more computers, or installed on a single workstation used nonsimultaneously by multiple people, but not both.

You may access the registered version of Link Master through a network, provided that you have obtained individual licenses for the software covering all workstations that will access the software through the network.  For instance, if 8 different workstations will access Link Master on the network, each workstation must have its own Link Master license, regardless of whether they use Link Master at different times or concurrently.

THIS SOFTWARE AND THE ACCOMPANYING FILES ARE SOLD "AS IS" AND WITHOUT WARRANTIES AS TO PERFORMANCE OF MERCHANTABILITY OR ANY OTHER WARRANTIES WHETHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. Because of the various hardware and software environments into which Link Master may be put, NO WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE IS OFFERED.

Good data processing procedure dictates that any program be thoroughly tested with non-critical data before relying on it.  The user must assume the entire risk of using the program.  ANY LIABILITY OF THE SELLER WILL BE LIMITED EXCLUSIVELY TO PRODUCT REPLACEMENT OR REFUND OF PURCHASE PRICE.


How to contact
How to contact the authors

The authors can be reached at:

Bård Eiklid,	email:beiklid@www-ri.hive.no

Per Åge Sørvik,	email:paasor@www-ri.hive.no

Also check out Link Masters homepage:

http://www-ri.hive.no/˜inftek4/linkmaster/index.html

All feedback will be greatly appreciated.