NetCloak 3.1 User's Guide: Using Recent Articles Lists

	Version 3.1 User's Guide

Using Recent Articles Lists	Previous \| Next Contents

Allowing users to retrieve a list of articles that have been recently added to the server is a key advantage of NetCloak Pro. In fact, you may create multiple lists of recently added articles, which is one of the easier functions to implement for the server administrator.

Using Recent Articles Lists

First, using the RECENTLIST directive, like this:

<RECENTLIST> LinkText </RECENTLIST>

will automatically add the user entry to the internal database of recently added articles. See the Supplemental Directives section in the Reference Guide for details on the RECENTLIST directive.

To access the database of recently entered articles, you request a special URL to be returned by NetCloak Pro, which contains the all-uppercase text "RECENT" and ends in the suffix ".fdml" (Recent article URLs will work with any suffix mapped to NetCloak's NFORMS action for forms-processing.) Recent article links can be used on any page on your server.

Linking to "RECENT.fdml" will display for the user a list of the documents added since the last time that user accessed the list. What happens is:

The user clicks on the link to RECENT.fdml, and NetCloak Pro will search the internal database for the user's machine address.
Once found, the time and date of their last access is retrieved and compared with the recent articles list.
Documents having a later time stamp than the user's last access will be displayed in the list.
Finally, the user's last access time is updated with the current time.

There are a couple of variations on the recent article list URL that provide some additional functionality. The first is "RECENT_minutes.fdml". This version of the RECENT command allows you to specify a time frame for what is considered a recent article. Replace "minutes" with a number of minutes. For example:

RECENT_60.fdml would show the user articles added in the past hour.

RECENT_1440.fdml would show the user articles that are less than a day (1440 minutes) old.

You might need to do some multiplication to get the time frame you want (a week would be 7 x 24 x 60, or 10080 minutes).

Maintaining Multiple Recent Articles Lists

You may allow users to access one or more of up to 26 lists of recent articles by appending a single letter A through Z to the end the command. This allows you to maintain lists for several systems on your server independently. If no list is specified, NetCloak will use the A list.

In the FDML, add a space to the opening RECENTLIST tag followed by the letter designating the list you wish to include articles. It will look like this:

In an HTML document, create a link to a particular recent articles list by adding an underscore followed by the letter to the RECENT URL, like this:

RECENT_C.fdml

Note that the URL to access a recent list must contain an underscore character ('_') before the list and the minutes value. However, the syntax of the RECENTLIST directive in your FDML files does not use an underscore, it uses a space character instead.

Use of specific lists can be combined with a time frame. For example, to link to the default, second, and a specific time frame of a third list, the syntax would be as follows:

RECENT_A.fdml (or just RECENT.fdml)

RECENT_B.fdml

RECENT_C_60.fdml

Here is an example that should make use of the RECENT command clearer. A section like this might be found on your server's home page:

Click on one of these links to view articles entered...
<UL>
<LI><A HREF="RECENT.fdml">
since I last checked</A>
<LI><A HREF="RECENT_60.fdml">
in the Last Hour</A>
<LI><A HREF="RECENT_480.fdml">
in the Last 8 Hours</A>

Finally, remember that each list can contain up to 256 links. If more articles than that have been added in the time frame specified (or since a particular user's last access), only the most recent 256 will be shown.


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