System Requirements

You need PHP 4 or higher to run DynamicPAD scripts and a MySQL DB to store its data. DynamicPAD was tested with the Apache web server. The scripts are cross-platform and you should be able to install and run them on a Windows host with MS IIS .

DynamicPAD uses the Apache mod_rewrite by default. Alternatively, you can use Error 404 redirection.

Installation

DynamicPAD consists of two parts: a server-side PHP package and a client-side editor. First, you need to download and install the server-side part. Read the server-side package installation instructions below.

Then you need to download the DynamicPAD editor, PADManager. You can use this editor to create static PAD files as well. It fully complies with the ASP PAD specification. Here you can find instructions on how to prepare your DynamicPAD data with PADManager. RoboSoft users do not need to download PADManager since all its functionality is included into RoboSoft.

Installing DynamicPAD Server-side Scripts

Download the scripts package (dp.tar.gz) to your web host. We recommend you install the DynamicPAD scripts into the “dp” folder of your web server root. Extract the package using the following command:

tar -xzpf dp.tar.gz

This will create the “dp” directory and put DynamicPAD scripts there. This command will also automatically set appropriate file permissions.

If you use your FTP client to upload files and are unable to run the command above, make sure to set the following file permissions:

“data” folder – 777
dp_conf.dat – 666

If you install DynamicPAD for the first time, you need to rename “dp_conf.php.inc.default” into “dp_conf.php.inc” and “dp_conf.dat.default” into “dp_conf.dat”.

If you upgrade an existing DynamicPAD installation, do not rename these files. Instead, delete the “install.php” file.

Open the dp_conf.php.inc file in a text editor and set the following values:

DBHost. Your MySQL server address. Normally, a local database is used and the address is “localhost”.

DBName. The name of a MySQL database where you wish to store your DynamicPAD data. You can specify a name of an existing database or DynamicPAD will try to create a new database using the name specified.

DBUser, DBPass – login and password that will be used by DynamicPAD to access the MySQL database.

TablesPrefix – specify a table prefix that you wish to be added to the DynamicPAD MySQL table names.

Login, Password – specify the login and password for your DynamicPAD control panel.

HomeDir – absolute file system path to your DynamicPAD installation. Example: /home/john_doe/public_html/dp If not sure, type there whatever you wish. The installation script will check this value and suggest to you the right path to specify.

DataDir – absolute file system path to your DynamicPAD data folder. By default, it is the “data” subfolder of your DynamicPAD installation folder, e.g.: /home/john_doe/public_html/dp/data

You can leave the other options “as is”.

Navigate to the install.php script with your web browser. The URL should look like this:

http://www.yourwebhost.com/dp/install.php

The installation script will check your configuration and create a MySQL database. If everything is OK, the installation script will open the DynamicPAD Control Panel. Now, you should remove the install.php file for safety reasons.

 

Preparing DynamicPAD data with PADManager

Open the DynamicPAD tab in Product Editor.

Dynamic PAD Tab

DynamicPAD editor allows you to override any PAD field with any number of alternative values.

Dynamic PAD Editor

Currently, there are three types of overriding available: By Site, By Language and Unconditional. The "By Site" ruleset has the highest priority. If there is an alternative value in the "By Site" section for a specific site, it will be used on that site regardless of any other options and conditions presented.

In addition to providing alternative PAD values to specific sites, you can also chose  from either "By Language" or "Uncondinional" types of overriding for each field. They are very similar to each other except that "By Language" is used only on download sites with of a specific language. There are two modes of operation available for these two types of overriding: Random and Selected. In the random mode, all the alternative values are used. DynamicPAD will randomly select on of the altaernative values for each site. NOTE: While values are chosen randomly, DynamicPAD will send the same value to the same site if you repeat the submission or the site is polling your PAD file. This is to prevent false positives when download sites check your PAD file for changes.

Dynamic PAD Settings

Then use the "Upload" button in the DynamicPAD Settings dialog. Your DynamicPAD data will be uploaded to your server. You can access it then using your DynamicPAD on-line control panel.

Dynamic URLs

The main purpose of the DynamicPAD scripts is to generate PAD files on-the-fly according to the info contained in the request URL. All the URLs are processed by the same PHP script. When you use RoboSoft to submit your products, it generates unique URLs for each site automatically. Though, sometimes you may want to provide a PAD URL manually. The URL should look like this:

http://mysite.com/dp/app-00480263102/site-00381b4bbdb/lng-eng/myprog.xml

app-00480263102 - Your product's Unique Identifier. You can find it in your DynamicPAD Control Panel.

site-00381b4bbdb - Unique Identifier of the site where you submit the URL to.

lng-eng - Language tag. If set, appropriate "By Language" values will be used. You can use full language names ( english, french, german... ) or their 3 char aliases ( eng, ger... ).

myprog.xml - a virtual filename for your PAD file.

Only the product UIN section is mandatory. The other sections can be skipped.

Note: All the URL sections should be in Lowercase!

In addition to the PAD file, dynamic URLs are used to download your product. DynamicPAD will process such URLs and redirect the user to your actual download URL. This allows you to provide alternative distributives to specific sites and to gather the download statistics. Product URLs are constructed the same way as PAD URLs. The only difference is the "distr" section:

http://mysite.com/dp/distr/app-00480263102/site-00381b4bbdb/lng-eng/myprog.xml

Statistics

Another important DynamicPAD purpose is to gather statistics of your PAD file and your product downloads. On the main statistics page you can find the top download sites list containing the data gathered since you installed DynamicPAD. DynamicPAD provides much more accurate statistics since it uses unique site IDs instead of the referrer field to determine from which site your files were requested.

Top Sites

There is also a Calendar panel. You can use it to get the stats and log records for a specific period of time.

Calendar