Simple Mini Site Script

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A great alternative to domain parking. Make money with ebay and your favorite ads. Build a simple mini site, using your favorite feeds. Mini Site is simple to install. It will use rss feeds automatically provided from ebay, using your keywords. Caching features are built-in to the script for speed. You will end up with a search engine friendly site, with multiple pages. The template (index.php) is easy to edit with your favorite html editor if desired. Add your own advertising, sell links, or move things around. You can create your own templates with ease or use the template included and any of the various color styles. Other possible uses; domain parking, blog portal, cam girls, microniche site, adult niche site, ebay store, youtube video site, latest niche news, unlimited.

Demo

A sample demo has been created at houdini2.com.
Don't want to use an ebay store? Versatile enough to use other feeds. See: eskimoes.com.
There are currently 15 different styles you can use. View them here.

Download

I tend to rewrite and update often while working on a script. You should always download the latest version here just before using the script. Usually, you should only need to replace common.php when updating.

Download link: minisite.zip
Last updated: October 03 2010 00:30:06 PST
The version number can now be located at the top of common.php

Quick Install

Complete Install

Frequently Asked Questions

I've installed it in a subfolder, how can I get it to work? - edit .htaccess and change Rewrite Base / to your new path. ex. RewriteBase /houdini/
How do I change the text from Houdini to my own? - edit the index.php template and make as many changes as you wish. Customize it completely with; meta tags, email, google adsense or other ads, etc...
How can I show a random feed on the home page? - edit keywords.txt and make the top keyword say 'shuffle' otherwise the default behavior is to display the 1st feed in your keywords.txt
How can I customize the home page with my own html? - create the file home.html that contains the html you want to display on your default home page.
How do I customize the '404 Not found' page? - create your own 404.html page and it's contents will be displayed instead.
Why does my page just say Empty? - If there are no items to display, the script will display 'Empty.' on the page. You can customize this output by creating a noresults.html file with the html you want to be displayed.
Are there any other pages I can add or customize? - Yes. To expand your mini site with additional pages, articles, or other that are not feed based, use .tpl files. For example, to add a custom page named houdini-biography.html to your menu and site:
1. add the keyword phrase houdini biography to keywords.txt
2. create the file houdini-biography.tpl that contains your custom html
Note: If you don't wish to use the scripts built-in templating, just create your own houdini-biography.html file.
How do I replace the image? - Just replace the included images/logo.jpg with your own image.
Can I use a custom image per page? - Yes. Add as many as you want. If your page is harry-houdini.html, add a desired image with a matching name as images/harry-houdini.jpg
I'm getting a 404 error for pages that should work. - Make sure the included .htaccess file was uploaded. You may need to have your host allow the .htaccess file to work.
How do I use another theme or color? - edit index.php and change the styles="styles/halloween.css" to the color of your choosing from this selection.
How can I make the width of my page larger? - Carefully edit the width variables at the top of styles/style.php
How do I keep others from looking at my keywords file? - add the following 4 lines to your .htaccess file:
```
<Files keywords.txt>
  Order allow,deny
  Deny from all
</Files>
```
I don't have mod_rewrite on my host - ask your host to enable it for you, optionally you can add this to your .htaccess and try it:
```
Errordocument 404 /index.php
```
Some feed images are too wide - you can use a bit of javascript in your index.php template. This snippet says if images are larger than 600 width, force them to be 600 width in the browser. Add this in the header section of your page, which usually means just above the </head> tag.
```
<script src="imagehandler.js" language="javascript" type="text/javascript"></script>
```
How do I add a random banner? - A simple random banner rotation is built-in. Just create a file that contains your banner html, one line per banner html. Let's say you have one called banners-728x90.txt for example that contains your 728x90 banner html. Be sure there are no extra blank lines. Then add the function to your template like this:
```
<?php print get_banner('banners-728x90.txt'); ?>
```
If you want to use it for random thumbnails and display 5, you might extract them like this:
```
<?php print get_banner('thumbnails-88x88.txt',5); ?>
```
Will this generate a sitemap.xml? - Yes, a valid sitemap.xml and sitemap.xml.gz is generated.
Will this generate rss output? - Yes, your feed is http://www.yoursite.com/feed/
How can I add the privacy policy template? - Add 'privacy policy' as one of your last keywords in keywords.txt and it will include the text from privacy-policy.tpl. You should change each instance of houdini2.com in the privacy-policy.tpl first.