The Unique Article Wizard

Plugin Help & FAQ

Each plugin is recorded in our database using the domain name as the unique identifier, so you can use the same email address, passwords, etc for all the other details. In fact, you can set up each control panel in exactly the same way, and it should all work fine. For blogspot/email delivery, however, you do have to use a different destination email address for each listing (for obvious reasons!).      Hide

The plugins build the category list from the categories that already exist in your directory/blog. If you have no categories set up (such as, for example, in a fresh installation of Wordpress), then no categories will appear in the plugin control panel.

First step, therefore, is to set up the categories for your site. Then they will appear in the plugin.       Hide

This means one of two things:
a) the request for the test article timed out. Please try it again in a few minutes and see if it goes through. Or,
b) the script (on your site) that receives the articles is producing a blank response. You can check it by visiting that script in your browser. You should see some words coming up about not having permission to use the script. If you get just a blank page, try re-installing the script. The script varies depending on your type of blog, but it is usually called add_article.php or something similar. Check the readme.txt that came with the plugin to verify the actual name.        Hide

This means that, for some reason, our server is unable to reach your plugin. To test this for yourself, copy the URL from the error messsage into your browser, go to that page, and see what you get. You should see a message telling you that your plugin is working fine. If you get a 404 Page Not Found error, this means one of the following:

1. You didn't upload all the files correctly - if you are not sure on how to do this and you are using a Wordpress installation, why not use our one-click Wordpress plugin installer?
2. Your hosting server (eg Hostgator) is using a security system that is preventing access to the plugin files. In such cases you will need to set your permissions as follows:
   • For the plugin directory: 0755
   • For the plugin files: 0644
3. You have some other server configuration that is preventing access to the plugin files. This may be some settings in your .htaccess file. If you are not sure on why you cannot reach the files, please ask your hosting company for help. Give them the URL shown in the error message, and tell them that you are trying to do a POST to this file, but are getting an error message and could they please fix it?

       Hide

Those long messages are provided for debugging purposes. If, after looking through it, none of it makes any sense, just copy and paste the message and send it to us at the helpdesk and we will help get you going. See also the next question.       Hide

Articles are normally distributed in the middle of the night (Pacific Time) so as to minimize server load. So, most likely, you will start to receive articles within the next day or so. HOWEVER, if you have a tightly niched site, and have selected very specific categories such as "Jack Russell Terriers" you may not see any articles for quite a while! It all depends on how many articles are going out that match your categories.

Go to your control panel, or login to your blogspot/email account and make sure that you have confirmed your email address. Then follow through on the following checklist:

• Switch on the receiving of articles
• Select or enter at least one category - try to make this as broad as you can - and put in variations of your keywords, eg include plurals/singular, synonyms, etc. If you start to receive too many articles you can limit the maximum number per day, if you receive off-topic articles, just go back in and adjust your category selections.
• Click the Update button and make sure it says your preferences have been saved. If not, send us any error message.
• Click the Test Article button and make sure it says that a test article has been sent. If there are any errors, please look through them to see if you can see what the problem is. Check that the test article has, indeed, been received. Note that if the test article already exists, a new one may not be sent. Please delete old versions of the test article and then try again.
• Using your browser, enter the address for your add_article.php file. You should get a simple text message saying that permission is denied. This is as it should be - it is a security measure to permit only the Wizard to submit to your site. There should NOT be any of the following errors:
  
  404 - page missing. This means that either the script is missing, or you are being redirected to a different directory for some reason. Most often this has to do with an .htaccess file somewhere. Try uploading the .htaccess file included in the plugin download zip file.
  
  500 - internal server error. Something is not set up correctly to allow access to that page. Please contact your hosting company for help on this.
  
  You get redirected to your home page - again, probably either the script is missing, or there is an .htaccess redirect happening somewhere.
  
  Any other numbered error, including 403 - access denied.

If any of the above occur you will need to correct the error at your end. If the above does not fix the problem, please contact us giving us your directory URL.
       Hide

Matching the article's keywords and categories to yours is not perfect. We are constantly working on this to make it more accurate. For example, our computer doesn't know that you only want articles about "dogs" if one of your categories is, say, "tips". In such a case you may well end up getting articles with tips about computers, health, sailing, or whatever.

Try adjusting your categories to make them more specific and descriptive.

You can help us to improve on this by sending us the following information when you see a mis-categorization:

1. The category into which it was misplaced & which plugin you are using:

2. The article's title:

Note: you will not receive a reply, but rest assured that we will take note of what you sent us. Thank You.

With this feedback we can, hopefully, get it ever better. But, since it is a mechanical process, it will never be perfect, so don't be afraid to play with your settings to find what works best for your site.
       Hide

In order for the special affiliate link to appear at the bottom of the articles, this option needs to be switched on by BOTH the author and the plugin owner. So, even if you switch this on in your plugin, only some of the articles will have this link.
       Hide

In Article Dashboard, go to your admin panel, select 'List Authors', do the search for the author you don't like and un-check the checkbox for 'Activate'. Remember you are searching for the user's name, not the pen name used for the article.

Doing this will prevent any further articles from that user.

Don't delete the author, otherwise on the next article, the plugin will just create a new account, and you will be back where you started.

Now, this is not perfect, since the author could go and reactivate himself, but there is no 'ban' function available in AD.       Hide

In Article Friendly go to your admin panel, click on the link on the left for for 'Authors -> Search Authors' and then hit the button to 'Get Author Record'. Then, under the 'banned?' column simply click on the 'No' to change it to 'Yes'. This will prevent further articles for that pen name - the real author may still submit other articles under other pen names which you may choose to accept, decline, or ban.

Don't delete the author, otherwise on the next article, the plugin will just create a new account, and you will be back where you started.Hide

In ArticleMS go to your admin panel, click on the tab for 'members' and then 'Edit a member's permissions'. Now search for the offending author, remember that you are looking for the pen name used for that article. When you update his permissions you must first un-check the box that says 'Use group permissions for this user', and then go to the option

for 'Can Submit Articles' and change that to 'No'.

This will prevent further articles for that pen name - the real author may still submit other articles under other pen names which you may choose to accept, decline, or ban.

Don't delete the author, otherwise on the next article, the plugin will just create a new account, and you will be back where you started.Hide

When you request a new test article, if there is already one in your database, that original one will be updated, rather than having a duplicate article with thesame title submitted. The same applies to regular articles that come through (although since they have different titles this probably won't happen).

When the article is updated, the "date submitted" is also updated to today's date.

HOWEVER, although ArticleMS says that it shows the "latest articles" it actually sorts them not by "date submitted" but by their ID number in the database. Normally that works fine. However, the old articles that have been updated still retain their old ID number. So, if you look farther down the list of articles in your Manage Articles section, you will eventually find the test article. When you do so, you will see that the "Date Submitted" is up to date, but it is being displayed in order of its ID.

Unfortunately, ArticleMS doesn't have a feature for changin the way they are sorted, so the best way to find the article is to do a search for the title. Better still: remember to delete the test article as soon as you have checked everthing is correct. Hide

There are two versions of Joomla that are not really compatible with each other - version 1.13 and older, and version 1.5 and newer (there was nothing in between). Because of this, we have created two versions of the plugin. Please make sure that you download the correct one!Hide

This error is caused by CHMOD permissions not set properly. (if you dont know which files need to be CHMOD just head to your admin area on joomla select from the menu Help > System Info. and browse the Directory Permissions Tab. Then use your favorite FTP app to CHMOD the folders that appear in red with "Unwriteable" to 777.

Once you have done that, you may still get:

# JFolder::create: Could not create directory
# Unable to create destination

Make sure you turn ON the FTP on the Goblal Configuration.

If that still fails, it is possible that your PHP is running in Safe Mode. Ask your hosting company to switch that off.

See also the next question:

Hide

Joomla can be a pain with this sometimes.

The first thing to try is to go into your FTP program and see if you can set the permissions for that file to 777.

If that fails, then you will need to do the following:

Go to http://extensions.joomla.org and search for eXTplorer

Download this and install it on your site. Then, within this, go find the offending file and change its permissions to 777.

Why do you need to do this?

In PHP each file has an "owner". When you upload files by FTP, then the owner of that file is you - by which I mean your FTP login username.

However, when the file is created by a script within your server, such as Joomla, then the file is owned by a user called "nobody".

Unfortunately, if a file is owned by "nobody", and the permissions are set to not allow people to write to that file, then you (ie your FTP username) do not have permission to change or delete that file, even by logging in through FTP or cPanel. That's right, you don't have permission to change your own files!

Which is why Joomla built the eXTplorer so that you can have access to nobody's files. It is a pain in the neck, but you need only do it once.

For more information on this, see this excellent article: http://support.inmotionhosting.com/cgi-bin/kb.cgi?do=read&id=45&lang=en

Hide

You will need to go to Global Configuration settings in your Joomla administrator panel. There will be a setting that allows new users to register. This needs to be switched on.Hide

The plugin has been tested in 2.2, 2.3 and 2.5

I can't guarantee it will work on older versions than those, though I would be surprised if it didn't work in 2.1. Prior to that there were some significant difference, so it might not work. But why not try it out? Or, better still, why not upgrade your Wordpress to the latest version, which, among other things, now supports tags.Hide

Go to your Wordpress admin panel, click on the tab for 'users'. Find the user you want to ban, and then edit his status to "Subscriber" instead of "Author".

This will prevent further articles for that user and any of his pen names.

Don't delete the author, otherwise on the next article, the plugin will just create a new account, and you will be back where you started.Hide

The confirmation email and test article will have been sent out as soon as you hit the Update button. However, it travels by email, and sometimes there are hold-ups in the internet that can delay delivery of emails

In addition, with Blogspot.com, there is sometimes a delay of several hours before the articles are displayed on your blog. DON'T keep hitting the Update & Test Button - all that will do is result in a whole pile of test articles that you will then have to delete! Instead, if you want to confirm to yourself that the system is working, you can put your own email address into the system, do a Test, and checkc that you received the emails at your home inbox. Once you are happy with that, then change the destination address back to your blog's email address.Hide