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  Conclusion
  Features
  Pros
  Cons
  Review info

Conclusion
CNcat has proven itself to a reliable and simple directory script. With all the basic features along with several more advanced options, this directory script offers everything a new directory needs in order to run smoothly. An added plus is the simplicity of adding, editing and managing various aspects of a web directory with CNcat. All in all, I believe that CNcat deserves a rating of 9/10 (A-).

Visit CNcat’s Official Homepage: http://www.cn-software.com/cncat/.

Features
CNcat allows you to make your own web directory. It’s fairly simple to install and customize. It’s not quite as complex as many other directory scripts, but it allows you to do all of the basic things to make a pretty decent web directory.

CNcat includes the follow features:

• Control Panel: it allows an admistrator to manage the directory, edit the template and back-up the files, in XML format.
• Link Management: Allows you to write, edit and delete descriptions about websites in your directory. You can either link to the websites in your directory by using the jump.php or directly linking to the websites. Administrators can also use the ?Multiple links confirmation” plugin to add several sites at the same time.
• Catagory Management: You can add, rename, and delete catagories. You cannot, however, move an entire category, with one click.
• Duplicated Link Warning: It will alert you if a duplicated link is submitted.
• Broken Links: Allows users to alert you, if there is a broken link.
• Confirmation Email: Can send an email to tell people, who submit their websites, if it is accepted or denied.
• Customizable Template: You can change the look and feel of the directory through the control panel.
• Plugins: You can write your own plugins to fit your needs.
• Importing: By using the included plugins you can import directly form PHP-nuke, or from XML files that are exported through CNcat.
• Exporting: You can export links, directory structure, and design into XML files (plugin).
• Visitors can submit links

Pros

• CNcat is very easy to use.
• It’s very easy to modify.
• Pretty well documented in the manual.
• Free, unless you want to take off the “Copyright by CNcat”
• It only costs $10 to remove the “Copyright by CNcat” at the bottom of every page.
• Includes all the basic features a directory script should have.

Cons

• There were a few bugs, but they weren’t very hard to fix. They weren’t very major, either. I’ll document them later. Generally, if you just use the default set-up you should be fine.
• No symlinking
• You can’t move an entire category, unless you want to do it manually entry by entry.
• The search script is kind of bad.

Review info
This review is based off of my experiences, over the past month (starting on 6/1/05) using CNcat 2.0, while creating SciFi Directory. I made a few modifications to the script, most notably I did a mod-rewrite to make the directory use a static URL instead of dynamic URL.

To find out how to mod-rewrite CNcat go to:
http://www.greatnexus.com/forums/about1899.html