Chameleon Blog

Duplication of galleries from the template (clean) gallery with automatic insertion of reciprocal links. This step contains all tools needed to duplicate – select the number of recips per page, editable recip templates, file/folder naming options, etc. If you wish to submit a sponsor-hosted gallery (defined in Step 1), this step is automatically skipped!

Step 4: Duplicate

Duplicate Info:

• Gallery to Duplicate: Click on the Find File button to search for the gallery to be duplicated. You should have this gallery ready in its final form and without reciprocal links;
• URL of Recips: Enter the common part of the URL of graphical recips at the domain where your gallery is hosted (terminate by “/”).

Note: If you submit (different) galleries from the same hosting domain, we recommend to use the same URL of Recips at this domain for all submits.
Enter its absolute URL (e.g. “http://www.yourdomain.com/img/”). This will ensure that ONLY NEW recips (added during Database Update) are automatically uploaded into the same recip folder on your server in Step 5.
If you only enter the relative URL of Recips (e.g. “img/”), a separate recip subfolder will automatically be created in the folder of your gallery. This folder will contain only recips from the currently generated sites. We recommend to use this format ONLY if changing hosts frequently, otherwise the whole recip folder will need to be uploaded to the server prior to every new gallery submit.

If you wish to display simple text links instead of graphical recips in the duplicated galleries, check Use text links instead of image recips. All images (including those from HTML recips, whether local or hotlinked) will be replaced by a text link containing the site name. In such case you do not need to fill in the URL of Recips.
WARNING! Some sites explicitly require the use of a recip link in a particular format (e.g. image recip) and will punish non-compliance by banning you. Use this feature at your own risk!

Naming Options:
Used to specify the final naming format of the duplicated galleries (files) or their folders.

• File Naming: Select the parameter according to which unique filenames will be generated. If you do not find an appropriate combination in the list, you can modify it by simply overwriting any of the parameters available (the default combination will be offered at next submit). Do not forget to enter the file extension (e.g. “.html”)!
  During duplication the galleries will be placed in the folder of the original gallery. Recommended!

Optional: ONLY check Create separate gallery folders if you want to place the duplicated galleries (or each of them) in a separate folder.
In order to have images display correctly in galleries duplicated in this way it is necessary that your Gallery to Duplicate contain absolute links or that the Adjust relative links in all duplicated galleries option is checked (see Duplicating Options below). Only recommended to advanced users!

• Folder Naming: If you decided to create separate gallery folders, select the parameter according to which unique foldernames will be generated. If you do not find an appropriate combination in the list, you can modify it by simply overwriting any of the parameters available. The default combination will be offered at next submit.

Description of parameters:
$$origin – original name is retained (as template gallery);
$$cat – primary category is appended to the name;
$$name – this parameter is automatically replaced during duplication by the names defined in the selected text file (see Get Names from);
$$num – assigns numbers according to numbering settings;
$$site – a placeholder for the name of the site for which the gallery was created (or the first site in a sequence if the gallery was created for several sites);
$$desc – individual words extracted from the longest description entered in Step 1 will be used;
$$yy – the last two figures of the year are appended;
$$mm – the month of the year is appended;
$$dd – the day in the month is appended.

If you used the $$num parameter in file or folder naming, you need to enter the Starting Number and Step used to increment the names of duplicated galleries. If you did not use the parameter, retain default settings at 1.

Get Names from: If you used $$name in file or folder naming, click on the Find File button to search for a text file (.txt) with the list of names. You will find two such sample text files in the Chameleon Submitter folder, names.txt and letters.txt. You can modify these files anytime according to your wishes using the Edit File button or create your own text file.

Edit Names

Duplicating Options:

• Create separate gallery for each site: Check this option if you want to find out which site generates traffic or sign-ups (an additional element to your stats). Only recommended for advanced users!
  With this option enabled, separate galleries will be created for each site when you click on Start Duplication. The specified Recip Links Template will be used.
  Therefore, if you specified a Recip Links Template for 3 recips per page, three galleries with three recips each will be created and each of the galleries will be submitted to each site separately (i.e. Gallery 1 will ONLY be submitted to Site 1, Gallery 2 ONLY to Site 2 and Gallery 3 ONLY to Site 3). Similarly, separate copies of non-recip galleries are created, one for each non-recip site.
• Adjust relative links in all duplicated galleries: This option is only available when creating separate gallery folders and is recommended only for advanced users.
  When this option is checked, a BASE element containing the URL address set in the Base URL field in Step 1, is inserted in the source codes of all duplicated galleries. This will ensure that the links which are linked relatively (e.g. links to images, links to other pages on the same domain, etc.) are displayed correctly in all duplicated galleries.
  Uncheck this option if you do not wish to have them re-linked for any reason.
• Do not display file name in gallery URLs: Check this option if you wish to hide file names (e.g. index1.html, teen-pics.php etc.) in the created gallery URLs when submitting. This option is only available when using separate gallery folders and is recommended only for advanced users.

Recip Links Template:

Define the number of recip links per duplicated page and set up the table which will be automatically inserted in the galleries during their duplication along with the generated recips. As required by most sites, the recips table selected will automatically be placed at the top of the duplicated galleries.

Optional: If you want to display your recips in a different place you can enter the <!– {RECIPS} –> tag wherever you want in the source code of your Gallery to Duplicate. During duplication this tag will be replaced by the selected template.
To open this source code click on the Set Recip Table Location button, choose the location where you want to insert it and click on the Insert <!– {RECIPS} –> button. You can verify the settings using the Preview button.

Set Recip Table Location

If you are satisfied with the location of the table click the OK button. If not, change the location of the <!– {RECIPS} –> tag or click on Cancel.

Continue by selecting the number of recip links per duplicated page in # of Recips and setting up the table which will be automatically inserted in the galleries during their duplication along with the generated recips.

To define the recips table you can use the ready-to-use Default Recip Template or your own Custom Recip Template:

• Default Recip Template: If you select this possibility then a pre-defined table is inserted in the galleries containing recips according to the # of Recips per Page you have set. A recip template modified in this way is ready for use and does not need to be further modified. If you wish to modify it for any reason, select the second option;
• Custom Recip Template select, if you wish to use your own (or edit the default) recip template.
  Continue by clicking on the Edit Template button – you can then have your own template (HTM, HTML or TXT) loaded by clicking on the Load button, or you can edit the template in the open edit window.
  

  Edit Recip Template

  Insert the <recip> tags (one <recip> per generated link) in places where you want the recip links to be generated. To confirm the changes use Save, Save As if you wish to save your modified template as a separate file, or the OK button.
  If you want to discard your changes or use the selected template without changes, click on Cancel.

You can preview the location and appearance of the table containing the sample recips on your gallery directly in Step 4. Click on Full Size Preview if you wish to view the gallery at full size.

Duplicate Galleries:

If you want to verify the correct settings before duplicating click on Test Settings Before Duplicating. A dialog will display several sample full URL galleries with a final URL of Recips.

Test Settings Before Duplicating

These sample URLs are the final combination of information entered in Base URL (Step 1), in URL of Recips and in Naming Options.
If these URLs are not displayed as you wish then please change the settings in these fields until you are satisfied with the result.

Now that all options have been set, run gallery duplication by clicking on the Start Duplication button. The final number of galleries depends on the generated sites and on your defined number of reciprocal links per page. This includes specific rules of sites (e.g. no more than a single recip link per gallery).
The progress of duplication which only lasts several seconds can be monitored on the Progress bar.

When the duplication is finished the whole list of duplicated galleries with the assigned sites can be viewed by clicking on the Check Duplicated Galleries button. The list is automatically saved in the template gallery directory, in the ‘log’ folder (../log/log.html). It is for your information only and you do not need to upload it to the server.

If you are satisfied with the result of the duplication, click on Save&Continue button. This will store the information entered and you will automatically be brought to Step 5.
The submit process will not proceed correctly unless the Save&Continue button is clicked in all steps!   

• If you have your own site and want its reciprocal link to be generated in each duplicated gallery, create a Custom Recip Template.
  For example, if you want three (3) reciprocal links on your gallery (one linking to your site and two to others), select two (2) Recips per Page. The modified template might then look like this: 
  
• The “1 Recip Per Page” template will be automatically used when submitting to sites that require a single recip for galleries. For this reason we strongly recommend not to add additional links to this template – else you risk to be rejected or blacklisted!
  
• The standard sponsor statistics will tell you the URL of the gallery from which a sign-up was made but if the same gallery was submitted to several sites, you are unable to tell at which site the sign-up originated. To do this, check the Create separate gallery for each site checkbox which will enable you to identify this site using the $$site parameter. The gallery will only be submitted to the site whose name is included in the title of the gallery (e.g. http://www.yourdomain.com/galleries/5/al4a.html).
  
• To specify the source of traffic in more detail you can use the parameters <!– {SITEDOMAIN} –> and <!– {SITENAME} –> which could be entered into any gallery link to be duplicated.
  For more effective results we recommend to use them in combination with the feature Create Separate Gallery for Each Site – this feature is activated by checking the relevant box.
  In the process of duplicating, <!– {SITEDOMAIN} –> will be automatically replaced with the domain name for the site where a gallery is being submitted (e.g. www.al4a.com) and <!– {SITENAME} –>  will be replaced with its name (e.g. al-4a).
• If you want all duplicated galleries to have the same name, each of them has to be placed in a separate folder. In such case enter a common gallery name in File Naming (e.g. ‘index.html’). You will then have to select the parameters for generating names of the folders in Folder Naming (without “.html”). Only recommended to advanced users!
  
• If the $$desc parameter is used in File/Folder Naming then individual words extracted from the longest description entered in Step 1 are used during duplication to create the file or folder names. The description must contain at least 10 unique words. If your longest description is shorter than 10 words please use a different parameter or modify your description in Step 1 so it has at least 10 words (and confirm your changes by clicking on Save & Continue).
  
• If you wish to create your own text file with names (when using $$name in File/Folder Naming), it needs to contain at least 10 different names, each in a separate row!
  In addition to alphanumeric characters these names may contain “-” and “_”.
  
• You can create a new text file with names also by editing the originally selected file if you click on the Edit File button. Edit the names, and click on Save As to save it under a new name. If you wish to save the changes in the original file, click on Save. If you do not want to save your changes or just want to close the edit window, click on Cancel.
  
• You don’t need to worry that the list of names runs out while duplicating galleries. When all names in the text file have been used they will be combined automatically until names for all duplicated galleries are created.
  
• When using $$site in File/Folder Naming, all characters other than letters, numbers and dashes will be removed from the names of the sites (i.e. a gallery named after the “XXX’s.com” site will have the name “xxxscom”).
• The default “log” folder created in your template gallery folder will contain the results from submit after the submission is completed. Do not delete it before you complete the submit! If you want to review submit results later through History, we recommend not to delete this folder at all.
• When checking the list of duplicated galleries (log.html) you may happen to find the same site assigned to two galleries. This happens when there are less recip links left over for the last gallery than you have specified. By default, recip links which were used previously will be filled in (such sites are marked in the list with an asterisk *). Do not worry, only one submit is made to such site.
  
• Two links are assigned per every duplicated gallery on the list (log.html). The first link points to the gallery saved in your computer (in the gallery template folder) and is provided for you to check the gallery before final upload to the server (Step 5). The second link points to the gallery’s URL but the gallery needs to be uploaded to the server before the link becomes active!
• If reciprocal links do not display correctly in the duplicated galleries, the reason could be:
  1. You are off-line. Graphical recips will only display correctly if you are on-line;
  2. Recips have not been uploaded to the server hosting your domain;;
  3. You entered an incorrect URL of Recips;
  4. You made an error while modifying the Recip Links Template. Do not forget to insert <recip> into the code where you want the reciprocal link to be placed.
• If you are not satisfied with the duplication results, delete all duplicated files/folders from the template gallery directory. Make the necessary corrections and repeat the process.