Running CuteMarks

Some basics about how it works

The "tricky" (in fact, it's really quite simple) part is, that the information about the category nodes, that shall be displayed in an exploded view, are handed over the script as parameter within the URL. Each link in the tree conserves the full state of all opened category nodes...confusing? It just means, that if you click on another part of the tree to explode or implode if partially the script "remembers" also all other category nodes that shall be exploded. Because this information can be "hidden" in the URL completely there's no need to use cookies or Javascript - which makes CuteMarks not only usable even for the oldest or smallest browser app but also for other platforms like WAP which don't support such frisky features.

The main object - see below on a description how to use it in your own code - works quite simple: When initialising it reads all nodes from the database into memory. This might look like as an expensive operation but in fact it isn't: The amount of a "normal" bookmark collection data is normally quite small and the database handles "SELECT *" queries really, really fast. Of course, handling a 40K+ bookmark collection can be though of very memory consuming, but you may want to use something other than CuteMarks for such a large collection anyhow. And because the whole collection is now in memory the remaining stuff can be done really fast as no further database reads are necessary. Some arrays are created in memory from this data which help to display the final tree and finally the tree itself gets drawn node by node. Please have a look in the - I think ,-)) - well documented code for further details.

Using the object interface to the tree view

This section is intended to be used if you plan to have the tree displayed somewhere from your code. You may create a wrapper or whatever with just a few line of code. If someone writes a wrapper for a portal like phpNuke, please drop me a mail as I'd like to include this in the core distribution of CuteMarks.

[# Interface to be described here #]

Use CuteMarks from a public users view

The user interface is quite simple

• Click on "[+]" to expand any category nodes
• Click on "[-]" to implode them.
• Click on the url to be transfered to the url
• The number of hits each URL had already is shown at the right of each link. If you use the provided stylesheet, this is a broad grey, because I consider this as a minor important information at therefore it gets displayed in a minor noticeable style.

Use CuteMarks from an admins view

This is also very straight forward. Additionally to the above user provided functions each link and category features a set of additional functionalities, each of them accessed by clicking on the appropriate text behind the URL or category name:

• [add link]: Adds a new link to a given category
• [add cat]: Adds a cat beneath the current category
• [move]: Moves category or link to another parent
• [rename]: Renames the category
• [delete]: Deletes category or name. ATTENTION: Deleting a category deletes all it's subcategories and links without any request.

When you move something anything you're presented with a new screen, asking you for the appropriate details.

If you want to setup the script in a way that by clicking on a link a specific part of the tree gets already opened, just add a "?node_exp=<cat_id>" to the "index.php" HREF-link as parameter where <cat_id> is the id of the category you want to have shown. If you want to show more than one category in exploded view just put them one after another separated by a comma.

Sorry guys, no magic, just some simple stuff *gg*

Customising CuteMarks

Customising CuteMarks is easy and makes fun ,-)) Read the following section and setup you personalised version within a hour (or so... g)

Templates

Every PHP script has a name matching template in the ./templates directory. E.g. the index.php uses ./templates/index.tpl. So if you want to add graphics, modify colours etc. you just need to change the template(s) and replace the ones that came with the original distribution of CuteMarks.
Just be patient - please! - with the placeholders used to display dynamically generated code from the scripts. The placeholders can be easily determined:

• Either they appear in braces like "{WELCOME}"
• Or they may appear as a complete block which consists of a HTML-comment as start and mark "<--BEGIN msg_no_cat -->"

You could easily also translate CuteMarks as a whole just by translating the text in the templates. If you have done this, please drop me a mail and probably a translated version of the templates. I'd like to include the templates either in the distribution directly or mark you as contributor for a translated version (if you like) where other people can request a version directly.

Using another css-style sheet

Because CuteMarks comes - currently - without any graphics there is no need to change the templates if you don't plan to translate them. I strongly recommend to use the css mechanism to change this which is also natural to the WWW itself, of course.

There're a number of fixed names for various styles you may use. If you alter the names, ok, you're on your own. Because you have to change this on the next release again as I surely will not change my css to reflect you personal changes (and that of several other users too,-))

Anyhow, if you think you'd like to see a css-enhancement (another style for an additional element) or something is really weird in the current original stylesheet please drop me a mail or use the SourceForge bug reporting system.

Currently the following custom style names are used (and can be used in customised templates without harm as they will be supported in the future):

• .cm-cat Applied to a category node
• .cm-lnk Applied to a link node
• .cm-welcome Applied to the caption at the head of index.php's output
• .cm-hint
• .annotate Applied the the number of hits for a link
• .cm-error-msg All error messages (database mainly) are displayed with this style