Download site in a box

[Veign]

Just curious if anyone has access to or knows where I can get a PAD enabled shareware type site script (in PHP or ASP).  I recently purchased two domains: Share64.com and DownloadDB.com with the intent to put up some specialized shareware type sites.  Share64 was going to be geared towards 64bit aware shareware and DownloadDB I had some ideas but unsure of the direction.

I am finding out I just don't have the time to create the site.  I thought I could find a pre-made site template that is PAD enabled and then just customize the look and feel. 

I looked around but can't locate anything and thought I would check if anyone knows of a source.

Basically I am looking to create sites like http://www.softpedia.com in functionality..

Thanx in advance...

[zridling]

I don't know of any Chris. So you will be including full PAD descriptions over something like FileUpdates?

[Veign]

I would pull and build descriptions from the PAD files.  I wanted to have descriptions very similiar to the descriptions at FileUpdates (simplicity) but drawn from PAD files (or database entries built from PAD files).

I figured PAD files is gaining support and since Tucows and Download.com now support PAD files it shows this is the way to distribute application information.  It will also cut down on the work for me - don't have alot of free time these days.

I had contacted Share32.com to see if they wanted to partner up and launch Share64 as an extension of their website but they didn't really have much interest.

[mouser]

i'd be very interested in hearing about your progress and discoveries veign.
whatever you do, don't give up the parsing of pad files - making users type in descriptions instead of providing a pad file is evil.

a nice bonus would be periodic checking of pad file urls for updates, rather than requiring user to manually update.

[Veign]

I would provide a shareware site built from the best of all shareware sites I have come across.

The problem is I just don't have the time to do this from scratch - I have been trying to get in touch with the owners / developers for some of the smaller shareware sites to see if they want to share the code of the site (some kind of partnership) but no luck.  I wasn't asking the larger site, just the smaller sites that appear to be using common systems to run their sites...

[zridling]

I'm wondering if the guy from Xtort.net would be interested. He seems to spend a lot of effort updating software on his site, but he does freeware exclusively on his own site.

[Veign]

I still would think with all of the shareware sites around that alot are sharing a common code base to run the sites.

I just need to get in contact with the right person that wants to work together or donate the code base of a PAD enabled website that I could design around...

....still hunting around

[Renegade]

There's the PAD Kit from the ASP that you can get for free.

But, there are no free ones out there. There's an austrialian download site (http://www.downloadpipe.com/) that sells it's script and DB, but it's around $4,000 or so. http://www.FileCart.com also sells it's script for abot $2,500 or so. I've seen 1 or 2 others, but can't remember much about them... maybe I'm confusing them with the two I just mentioned.

The PAD stuff is a bit of a mess. If you check out any of the numerous PAD Kit sites, you'll see how amateur they are. The PAD Kit isn't a professional solution - it's a starter kit to kick-start your development.

I've been wanting to start a site for a while, but haven't gotten around to it as I'm working on other things at the moment. When I do get it done, I'm going to proabably offer it for around $2,500 or so or a co-branded version for much less. I haven't even started, so I have no idea what I'll do yet. I won't go the LAMP route as I personally have very little respect for a lot of the kinds of sites that use it (Linux Apache MySQL PHP). I'll go the ASP.NET route - more power, easier management, better technology. (Yes - I can be a bit of a techno bigot at times - though I do use MySQL and am not totally averse to LAMP.) I've already finished most of the data model, but it's a LOT more complex and robust than the PAD Kit model - good and bad things there of course in both cases. If you want I can send you the SQL to have a peek at. You'll need MS SQL Server or the MSDE and Enterprise manager to use it. It's about 70% complete - all the PAD stuff is there, but not the other site stuff, and it's missing stored procedures at the moment.

If you want a fast start, you can do the PAD Kit thing, but you'll need to create your own application to fill the database. This is proabably the most important thing. Also, you'll need to decide if you want to manually verify things. There are a few slimeballs out there that submit fake PADs and it's getting worse. There have been a few discussions in the ASP newsgroups about this.

I'd be interested in further discussion on this topic - I love datamodelling and building web sites when I have time.

Cheers,

Ryan

[Veign]

2,500 is way more than I can spend on this project - I would sell the domain first.  Good information though, thanx for the links to DownloadPipe.  I actually have software listed with them and have stumbled across there page that offered the PAD stuff but had totally forgot about it....

I run MS SQL Server on a test Win2K3 machines and MSDE locally on my dev machine (laptop).  My main issues is that I just don't have the resources (time and money) to put into this.  This is why I am looking for an out-of-box solution - where I can alter site design.  Also want to make sure I don't spread myself too thin and every other project takes a hit on this one....

I am like you and am not into LAMP development although I do like MySQL but that is gaining popularity on Windows Server....

When you have your site going let me know as I would like to see what you come up with.