In the Spotlight

Edit Content Script

I’ve been rebuilding the Browser Page Editor script over the last few weeks… it’s actually getting pretty cool.

Here are some features:

1. Automatic installation: just drop it in the cgi-bin, and open it in a browser. It creates all the subfolders it needs, and warns you if there is anything wrong.
2. One page editing: Confirmations for creating new pages, deleting pages, and editing messages all appear in an iframe, so no need to press back on your browser.
3. Template control: the script can now be completely style-sheet based, so you may change the look of your entire site by clicking on a thumbnail. Upload as many templates as you want. Or use this for giving your customers their own sites, which they can customize completely.
4. Button and Menu Customization: When you create a new page, you can now opt to include it in the menu along the top or on the sides of the content. Give menus their own title, change the sort order of the menu, or remove pages from the menu. Complete control!
5. Instantly change the type of button in the menu. Using style sheets, your buttons can be mouseover image changes, plain text, cascading menus, and more!
6. Login Memory: login once, and stay logged in until you log out. No more entering passwords every time you perform an action.
7. You can still put an edit link at the bottom of every page on your site. Clicking it will take you to the edit view.
8. Customize the header and footer of your site from the one edit page.
9. Turn off controls by disabling delete, new pages, changing templates, modifying the button-menu, and more.
10. The header of the edit script display can be customized for your own company.
11. The edit script display has a side banner for displaying ads to your customers while they’re logged in. You can change the image in the ad, and the address of the link they click remotely.
12. The edit script display is based on a CSS file. Host the CSS file on your own server, so that your customers see the ads and banners you want them to see.

As you can see, this is a very powerful, easy-to-use script. I’m adding new features, and improving install-ability every day.

If you’re interested, get it now at Intelliscript.net. When the script is released, existing users will get it for free. New users will have to pay a higher price for this script, so now is the time to get in on the deal.

~Jason

(#permalink)

Scrape Yellow Pages

A couple of days ago I completed a script for someone which scrapes the contents of the YellowPages site. It builds a spreadsheet on any category automatically.

This is great for people who want to find clients in a specific industry. In this instance, the customer wanted to contact landscape contractors and similar industries to propose building them a web site. This script collects web site address, listing link, phone number, business name, and email address.

I’m probably not going to sell this one on Intelliscript.net, so if you want it, send me an email with a PayPal donation and I’ll email you back the script.

~Jason (#permalink)

ESC - Excel Shopping Cart

I’ve just created a great little shopping cart script. I’ve called it ESC (for Excel Shopping Cart). It’s quick and easy to set up, and all products are added by uploading a tab-delimited spreadsheet. Easy!

What about customization?

You can have as many fields as you want, all customized exactly the way you want them. As long as there is a Price, a Name, and an ID column, everything else is automatic.

It’s got integrated templating and CSS, and is very fast. It learns how to use your database automatically! Hardly any setup is necessary to get underway.

Any payment solution can be integrated into the script with a minimum of effort— or you can just opt to get an email upon each order completion.

I’ve worked with some pretty big shopping carts, and I usually walk away frustrated. This is quick, easy, and headache free. You’ve got to try it!

~Jason (#permalink)

Facebook Status Updates

I haven't been blogging as much as I used to— and I'm finding I'm more interested in people's status updates on Facebook than I am anything else they post. I figure if I'm interested in that, maybe you are too… it's a good way to stay in touch with the day-to-day life details of your friends.

So, I've written a Perl script which fetches my Facebook status updates and inserts it into my blog. It's especially appropriate for Blosxom, so if you use that blogging software, send me a note and I'll hook you up.

~Jason 

 

(#permalink)