Comus Variables

This section provides an introduction to the building blocks of the script, it provides a primer for the more detailed information that follows.
Control Centers Throughout we will refer to 'Control Centers' these are referring to the corresponding modules found within your main administration web interface.
Macros: are the basic building blocks of the script they are identified by {{dual braces}}. You place these macros onto a template, which is fed to the script to parse. Where the script finds the macros it will replace them with thumbs and links.
Macros are made of serveral parts, the basic form of the macro is of {{Category-Type-Index}}
Advanced Macros The basic macro can be extended and modified to provide powerful sorting capabilties, and to provide enhanced trade script interfacing.
Category is the particular category that you want to pull thumbs from, it is case sensitive, and is the exact name of the particular category you have defined. You may also use a category type of 'all'. IE {{all-thumbs-5-5}} would seek 25 thumbs from all categories.
Hidden Categories can be created by placing the keyword (hidden) into the category name, this allows you to keep the galleries of the category out of standard listings created by listing 'all'  categories.
Type is the type of link you want to create, either a link which is short for Text Link or a thumb which means to show a thumb.
The full form of the macro is {{#Modifiers#Category-Type-Dimensions-Extensions}}.
Index selects which thumb of a set you want to display, and allows you to control how many thumbs you want to pull for a listing. You MUST start at 1 and your indexes MUST be in sequence, IE if you were listing 4 thumbs you must use something like {{all-thumb-1}}{{all-thumb-2}}{{all-thumb-3}}{{all-thumb-4}}.
Modifiers were added in Thumbs 2.3 and allow mainly for communication with trade scripts. They allow you to attach a skim ratio and grouping to all thumbs within a macro, which is passed on to your trade script. For example {{LATIN#60#Latin-thumb-5}} Allows you to send a skim ratio of 60% to the 5th thumb in a sequence, to your trade script, along with a group name of LATIN, the skim ratio is sent to the trade script within the %lshave% or %tshave%.variable, and the LATIN keyword is sent via the %group% variable.
Extensions Allow you to control your thumb layouts with precision and dynamic options. The most common use of extensions is to allow the listing of the most popular thumbs, but there are infinite options available from extensions. Basically extensions are tacked onto the end of a standard macro and 'extend' their options. For example the {{all-thumb-1-query-age1}} query extension will list the first available thumb starting from yesterday.
Note that when you extend a macro, that each query is treated as unique set of thumbs, and hence your indexes must start again at 1. In other words every extended set of macros MUST have their own index sequence. IE if youonly had 2 thumbs on page, then this would be valid, {{all-thumb-1-query-age0}} {{all-thumb-1-query-age1}} .. but this would not {{all-thumb-1-query-age0}} {{all-thumb-2-query-age1}} because the age1 extension is being told to start at thumb-2 .
Queries The basic extension is the 'query' type. Queries are a two part consctruct. The first part is their definition, and the second part is their actual usage as an extension of a basic macro.
Query definition and usage Queries are defined with the {{setquery}} macro. They take the form of the basic MySQL WHERE clause, and basically anything you can do with a mySQL clause you can also do with a query. For example the {{setquery-most_clicked-" periodsshown >0 order by clicks DESC "}} will create a 'query' rule set that looks for galleries that have previously been displayed and sort them from the most clicked to the least clicked. You can then use the query in a macro such as {{all-thumb-1-query-most_clicked}}.
Makefile is a special macro that tells the script to read a template, parse it and write it out to another file. The script uses a master 'makefile' which can be found within your Templates Control Center, as the very bottom section. They're explained in detail below.

NOTES:This uses a combination of features built into Comus, and works with the custom 'Query' capabilities of the script.

To invoke counting set 'click counting' to Yes in the config setup page, this will modify all outgoing links on the page to re-route via cc.php and then on to your trade script.

The script will keep a running count of clicks and impressions and time spent at every gallery, now you can start using it in custom queries to build lists.

EXAMPLE QUERIES
1 Most frequented galleries for the day
{{setquery-1-" periodsshown=1 order by clicks DESC"}} 

2 Most popular for the week
(Assumes your refresh period is daily, otherwise adjust accordingly)
{{setquery-2-" periodsshown < 8 AND periodsshown > 0 ORDER BY clicks DESC"}} 

3 Random but weighted by click
{{setquery-3-" periodsshown >0 ORDER BY (clicks*rand())+(clicks*rand())+(clicks*rand()) DESC"}} 

4 Above average galleries weighted by vote
{{setquery-4-" periodsshown >0 AND clicks > sum(clicks)/count(*) ORDER BY (vote*rand())+(vote*rand())+(vote*rand())"}} 

5 Multiple category selections
(make sure you use it as category type 'all' first) and then the script will filter for you.
{{setquery-multicat-"(category LIKE '%teen%' OR category LIKE '%amateur%')"}} 

6 Combined queries, top ranked with random picks from the month priority votes first, clicks second
{{setquery-7-"(vote=1 OR (periodsshown < 30) ORDER BY vote,clicks DESC"}} 

Note how you are not limited to using just numbers for the query identifier? as in [query-multicat] and also that you can use the %global_variables% defined above in the queries as well.

Now to actually implement one of these queries in your listing you would extend the macro by adding the -query-query_name}} to the end of your macro, IE:
{{category-type-rows-columns-query-3}}

There is a special debugging macro which will show you the available query list, this could be handy if you're thinking of building a custom query. We might have already defined one as a default system query, and you can just use that instead, or perhps use it to build a custom query. To show the list of all currently active queries you can use, {{showqueries}}. To use the queries simply use the [key] as your 'query_identifier'

NOTE: These are just some of the available queries, do a dump to see if I have added any or changed them.