PAD Site Scripts FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

1. What is the current version of 'PAD Site Scripts' set?
2. How do I change the appearance (images, colors etc.) of my site?
3. How do I submit PAD URLs list to my database?
4. How do I manage new submissions?
5. How do I update the existing listings?
6. In which cases do PAD errors arise?
7. Is there a way to submit a software without PAD file?
8. How strong is the protection against PAD spam?
9. How do I become an affiliate at RegNow, Share-It, eSellerate and Plimus?
10. How do I link to a custom download URL for current listing instead of specified in PAD file?
11. How do I specify listings for random displaying in 'Featured' section on front page top?
12. How do I remove unwanted reviews posted by site visitors?
13. How do I sign up for Google AdSense?
14. How do I submit my XML sitemap to search engines (Google, Yahoo etc.)?
15. My question is not answered here

1. What is the current version of 'PAD Site Scripts' set?

The current version is 3.6c, released on June 16, 2010. It implements PADmaps support, adds results displaying options on list.php (sort + filter + results per page), has improved pagination in list.php, featured.php and reviews.php, adds navigation tabs on all progid dependent pages (details, download, buy now etc.), contains other small improvements and bug fixes. Previous version 3.5 was released on Oct. 19, 2008, its main features were visual skins support (distribution pack now comes with 6 ready-to-use skins) and required email confirmation for newly submitted PADs to reduce PAD spam (requires small modification of the DB structure, the modification script and full update instructions can be provided for free to all our previous customers).

2. How do I change the appearance (images, colors etc.) of my site?

Starting from version 3.5, you can select among the existing skins, modify them as you like and create your own in 'skins' subdirectory (for more details please refer to 'readme.txt' in 'skins' subdirectory). If you want to change your current skin, simply replace its name in 'config.php' with another one. When changing the logo, award graphics, 88x31px button etc. you have also to replace the default prefix for graphics (ysn, abbreviation for 'Your Site Name') in 'config.php' with your own.
Note: We recommend you to keep width and height for your images unchanged, otherwise you will also have to edit all PHP scripts containing appropriate <img> tags!

3. How do I submit PAD URLs list to my database?

Go to 'New Submissions' > 'Submit multiple PADs' from where you can submit multiple PAD URLs both by filling text field (one URL per row) and/or by uploading text file containing PAD URLs (one URL per row). As soon as the submission thread has started, you can close the browser window (this will NOT stop the process!) and wait for email notification upon finishing.

4. How do I manage new submissions?

Go to 'New Submissions' > 'Manage Confirmed Submissions' where you can find all new submissions by PAD authors that have been confirmed by clicking on confirmation link in email message sent to the contact email address as specified in PAD file. There are only the first 30 submissions displayed in the list by default, but if you want to get the whole list, just click on 'Show all' link on the top of the page. From there you can check the most important data (short description is displayed as a tooltip when pointing mouse cursor on program title) and refer to author's web site, program home page, PAD file and program download. If the submission meets your requirements, click on the appropriate 'Accept' link to add the listing to your site, otherwise click on 'Decline' link to reject the submission and remove it from your DB.
To reject and remove multiple submissions from the same IP or by the same Company Name go to 'New Submissions > Delete Multiple Submissions' page and fill the appropriate field. To prevent further submissions by persisting abusers you can add the domain name part of their PAD URLs (e.g. domainname.com) to your Black List at 'Black List > Add Domain to the Black List' - each new submission is being checked against the black list, and if its domain name matches a domain name in the black list, it is automatically rejected.

5. How do I update the existing listings?

Go to 'Active Listings' > 'Poll PADs for updates' and establish the range for PADs to poll. As soon as the polling round started, you can close the browser window (this will NOT stop the process!) and wait for email notification upon finishing. Do not forget to poll PADs daily, this will keep your database up to date and reduce the amount of resubmissions for listed software.
NOTE: Starting from version 3.5 you can use cron job to run PAD polling task automatically (supported only on UNIX-based servers). For more details please refer to 'readme.txt' in 'cron' subdirectory.

6. In which cases do PAD errors arise?

PAD errors arise during PAD polling rounds in the following cases: broken PAD URL, broken XML structure, missing obligatory field(s), invalid release date, broken or invalid download URL (e.g. taking to a web page instead of a downloadable file) etc. When PAD polling script gets error(s) on a particular PAD, it emails error notification to the author and increases errors count for the appropriate listing in DB. If reported errors are fixed before the count reaches 5 (this can be changed by modifying the appropriate value in padpoll.php), the counter is being reset to 0 once the PAD file has been successfully parsed, but once the number of consecutive errors reached 5, the listing is automatically removed from DB and you get a copy of removal notification email sent to the author.

7. Is there a way to submit a software without PAD file?

No there isn't, moreover, we do NOT even plan to add this feature! Implementing this will break the most of the advantages of PADs (automatic updates, no need for author accounts etc.). As of today, PAD generator software is available for FREE on ASP-Software.org site, so if some authors do not want to bother themselves about creating a PAD files and reading PAD specification to keep them free of stupid errors, why should we?

8. How strong is the protection against PAD spam?

We have created the multilevel protection system. First, when submitting a PAD file, the authors need to confirm their submissions by clicking on the confirmation link within the emails sent to the contact email addresses as specified in PAD files. Second, each submission is checked against Black List for domain name matches and all found matches cause automatic rejection. Third, when you add a new domain to the Black List, all matching submissions are automatically removed from the pending submissions list, and all matching listings can be removed manually directly from there.

9. How do I become an affiliate at RegNow, Share-It, eSellerate and Plimus?

First you should sign up for your affiliate accounts at RegNow, Share-It, eSellerate and Plimus (other popular registration services, e.g. RegSoft, SWReg, eMetrix etc., do NOT currently support affiliate partnerships). Then, open 'config.php' file and replace the existing affiliate IDs with yours for each payments service - this will apply for all listings containing affiliate data on your site and set affiliate tracking cookies on user's PC when downloading the software via your site (eSellerate does NOT currently support cookies). After that you will be able to become an affiliate for software products sold via appropriate service by submitting your affiliate partnership request to the product vendor (if you encounter any difficulties with managing your affiliate accounts, you can find illustrated affiliate.pdf tutorial in 'tutorials' folder).
Note: Be aware of adding affiliate data for all submitted products without thoroughly checking authors web sites as many of software developers use different cheat techniques to prevent affiliate cookie tracking (e.g. link to another registration service then they submit to affiliates, specify fake affiliate ID in purchase links to overwrite the real affiliate cookie on user's PC, certify mirror sites while using other registration service on their main site etc.)

10. How do I link to a custom download URL for current listing instead of specified in PAD file?

Go to 'Featured Listings' > 'Add/Modify custom download URLs', specify the ProgID for current listing and the Download URL for custom build (starting with 'http://') and click 'Submit' button to apply changes. After that the new Download URL will be called for current listing from 'dl.php' download redirection script instead of the original URL, and the appropriate listing will be additionally included in your 'Featured Listings' section and displayed in random order with other featured listings on the bottom of all pages of your site.
Do not forget to rate the software product before adding its listing to 'Featured' section, to do this you should go to 'Active Listings > Rate software', specify the ProgID and select rating value, additionally you can add '100% clean' award by checking the appropriate checkbox and write your comments to developer.

11. How do I specify listings for random displaying in 'Featured' section on front page top?

Open 'config.php' file in any text editor, find the $fpprogary variable in 'Front Page settings' and add/replace the existing ProgID values (coming after '=' inside round brackets, comma separated) with your own, save the file and upload it back to the root directory on your server.

12. How do I remove unwanted reviews posted by site visitors?

Go to 'Users Reviews' > 'Manage/Remove users reviews', specify the date interval from when the review has been posted, find it in generated list and click on appropriate 'Remove' link on the right.

13. How do I sign up for Google AdSense?

First you shoud register at https://www.google.com/adsense to get your own AdSense ID. Then open 'config.php' file in any text editor and replace the existing ID with your own - this will apply for all Google Ads on your site. To specify the appropriate colors for borders, text, links etc. please edit 'ads_style.php' file in the appropriate skin subdirectory (see /skins/).

14. How do I submit my XML sitemap to search engines (Google, Yahoo etc.)?

First you shoud register at http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps (Webmaster account on Google), http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit (Webmaster account on Yahoo) and http://www.bing.com/webmaster (Webmaster account on Bing, former MS Live) and upload tracking files with custom filenames to your site to get authorized (see detailed instructions inside each account). Then you can submit your XML sitemap from within your accounts by specifying the full path to XML sitemap as 'http://www.your-domain-name.com/sitemap.xml' (the XML sitemap is generated on-the-fly and gzipped with sitemap.php script located in your root directory).

15. My question is not answered here

You can always get assitance from our staff by sending email to .