Whether this is doable, practical or of interest to anyone else, I have no idea, but I’ve been trying lately to reduce the number of scripts I use by making use of EE as much as possible, and I ended up wondering if it would be possible to do a webring module for EE?
I currently use an off-site service for my webring, but I would much rather integrate it into the site, so I have been looking at various php scripts. However, having it all within EE would, naturally, be the ideal solution. 😊 Provided, of course, that it could work so that only the ‘central site’ needs to be EE whereas the joining sites don’t necessarily need to use it.
Generally, they include some form of submission process, allowing prospective members to submit their site for approval. They’re then placed in a queue, and the webring’s owner can check the site out, determine if it fits the requirements, and if so move them to the active listing.
Each site in the ring places a piece of code on their site, including an ID that is unique for their site. The code enables visitors to navigate to the previous or next site in the ring, and may also allow them to jump to a random site or get sent back to the ‘hub’ (the central site) for a list of all member sites.
Most webrings also have some management features that allows an automated check of member sites to make sure the site still function and have the required code on their entry page.
I am probably missing quite a bit, but I think that’s more or less the basics. A better idea might be gotten from this page:
http://www.greywyvern.com/ringmaker.php?Help – This is the help page for the webring script I was looking at installing as a replacement for the hosted service provided by http://www.ringsurf.com/.
Wow, I did not know they were so involved. This is doable, but the trick is getting someone to build it for you. 😉
In the meantime, the best way to do this with the tools available might be to simply setup a form for submissions, and then maybe a weblog that is formatted to look like the webring. If you use the form from Solspace, all the submissions get put into a table that is easy to look through. You would have to manually check the websites to make sure they are still up.
I have been trying to build some modules as I learn PHP. I can take a look at it after I clear my plate.
Doing the listing would be easy enough, manually or automatically, but I think the main problem is the navigational code that goes on each member page, since that uses some scripting. 😊
And yes, I imagine the trick is getting someone interested in building it. But hey, I figured that if I don’t ask here, there’s no chance. Maybe someone else will be interested who just loves building modules. I’d certainly love to test it out if you were to give it a shot, but I have no idea how difficult or not it would be to do it. 😊
I wonder if it might also be possible to do a ring module for EE in such a way that it works with both EE and non-EE member sites, but where there’s added functionality for the EE-sites. Perhaps some way of detecting updates on those, for example?
Of course, just getting such a module in the first place is a good first step. 😉
Figured I’d bring this thread to life again, and see if maybe we have someone who is able to code who has some interest in this? The webring I am currently using has become almost totally impossible to keep open due to it having no spam protection, so I will have to make the switch to a non-hosted solution anyhow, but I would really love for it to be an EE solution. 😊
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