Frequently Asked Questions

Q) I am getting 'Unable to connect: Timeout of 20 reached on port 80 to domain dmoz.org'?
A) This error message has displayed because DWodp live is trying to read live ODP data (i.e. not cached) and cannot connect to the server defined in the config file (by default http://dmoz.org:80). The ODP does seem to be running slowly at the moment. If you continue to experience problems there are two things that you can do.

1. Change the variable $timeout to a higher value in the file includes/classes.php. The default version comes with this variable set to 20, however on our live version on our own site we use a value of 50.
2. In the function fileRead() in the same file edit the code to use fopen() instead of the default fsockopen(). However we do not recommend this as it could cause problems.

Alternatively you may wish to consider DWodp pro which allows you to run a local copy of the ODP database in MySQL.

Q) I am getting a permission denied message for a mkdir command. What's wrong?
A) This means that the 'cache' directory doesn't exist. DWodp live tries to create one for you but may not be allowed to by the security permissions on your server. This is easily solved by creating a directory from the DWodp live main directory called 'cache' and setting it's permission to be writable e.g. CHMOD 757

Q) What is the cache and why should I use it?
A) DWodp live can optionally cache the ODP pages it retrives. This allows you to firstly have a much faster directory as it doesn't have to call dmoz.org every time you view that page but also doesn't waste as much bandwidth or server resources for either you or the ODP. Please note that search results are not cached, only directory listings.

Q) How do I change the refresh rate for the cache?
A) In the ./includes/config.inc.php file change the variable $cache_refresh to a value in seconds

Q) How do I know if my server supports PHP?
A) Upload a file called phpinfo.php with the following in it
<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Call this file from your web browser and you should see information about your current PHP installation. If you simply see this code again PHP is probably not supported.

Q) What version of PHP do I need to use W-mail?
A) DWodp requires PHP version 4.1.0 or higher.

Q) What is short mode?
A) Short mode allows you to give the impression that your directory is simply a series of directories and files e.g.

• short mode off: http://domain.com/index.php?c=/Arts/
• short mode on: http://domain.com/index.php/Arts/

Please note that if your want to make use of this function without a file extension then it won't work on some web servers (including Windows). DWodp live comes by default with this setting disabled.

Q) I'm using short mode, how do I get rid of the index.php part and just make it look like a directory?
A) If you are using Apache you can do this by removing the file extension of index.php e.g. rename to 'directory' with no file extension and then creating a .htaccess file in the same directory with the following details contained within.

<Files "directory">
ForceType application/x-httpd-php
</Files>
DirectoryIndex directory

Q) How do I change the templates?
A) All of the template files for DWodp live are contained within the templates directory with .tpl file extensions

• attribution.tpl - The ODP attribution
• copyright.tpl - The Dominion Web copyright footer (must be included in HTML output)
• footer.tpl - The page footer
• header.tpl - The page header
• mainpage.tpl - Directory category index
• search_heavyload.tpl - Error message displayed when the ODP reports a heavy load error back from a search
• search_noresult.tpl - Error message displayed when no results are displayed for a search
• searchbox.tpl - The search box

There are a number of variables you can use across these files

• [sitetitle] - The title of your directory
• [searchbox] - The contents of searchbox.tpl (should only be used in header or footer)
• [breadcrumb] - The breadcrumb trail through the directory
• [attribution] - The ODP attribution code (must appear somewhere on EVERY page)
• [copyright] - The copyright code (must appear somewhere on EVERY page)
• [imagedirectory] - The local image directory for DWodp
• [mainlink="/link/"]Content[/mainlink] - Code for mainpage.tpl to render a top level category
• [link="/link/"]Content[/link] - Code for mainpage.tpl to render a second level category
• [dwodp] - The current script name (used mainly for the search box)
• [currentcat] - The current category (mainly used for the ODP attribution)
• [options] - Search box options to allow you to restrict the search to the current category or a global search (should only be used in searchbox.tpl)

Q) I want to restrict my directory to a category level and not the main page. How do I do this?
A) in ./includes/config.inc.php simply set the $rootcategory variable. e.g. for /Arts/ set $rootcategory = "/Arts/"; Always remember to include a forward slash at both the beginning AND the end of the category trail.

Q) What files to I need to configure?
A) You should only need to edit ./includes/config.inc.php to get DWodp live up and running but you may with to edit the template files in the 'templates' directory. No other files should need editing.