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| Select from the following table of contents to jump to a specific area within this README file. This is a HTML version of the README file distributed with WWWBoard.
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| WWWBoard | Version 2.0 ALPHA 2 |
| Copyright 1996-2002 Matt Wright | mattw@scriptarchive.com |
| Created 10/21/95 | Last Modified 11/25/95 |
| Matt's Script Archive, Inc.: | http://www.scriptarchive.com/ |
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If you run into any problems while trying to configure this scripts, help is available. The steps you should take to get the fastest results, are:
1) Read this file thoroughly.
2) Consult the Matt's Script Archive Frequently Asked Questions:
http://www.scriptarchive.com/faq/
3) If you are still having difficulty installing this script,
you may wish to look at the resources listed here:
http://www.scriptarchive.com/help/
Hopefully that will be able to help you solve your problems. Due to time
constraints I can no longer offer technical support for this code. |
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE:
Copyright 1995 - 2002 Matthew M. Wright All Rights Reserved.
WWWBoard may be used and modified free of charge by anyone so long as this
copyright notice and the comments above remain intact. By using this
code you agree to indemnify Matthew M. Wright from any liability that
might arise from its use.
Selling the code for this program without prior written consent is
expressly forbidden. In other words, please ask first before you try and
make money off of my program.
Obtain permission before redistributing this software over the Internet or
in any other medium. In all cases copyright and header must remain intact. |
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WWWBoard is the Version 2.0 of my Bulletin Board Message System. I think that the name is much better, and a lot fewer characters. Version 2.0 has many enhancements, which were never put into version 1.0. MANY of the bugs in version 1.0 were fixed, although I am sure you will probably find more.
This version of the message system is a complete re-write over the last one, and is not at all backwards compatible. To use this new version, you will just need to remove all past messages and start again. I think it is definitely worth it.
WWWBoard Version 2.0 has managed to reduce the number of scripts required to run the bulletin board from three down t one. This makes it much more efficient.
The following files should have come with WWWBoard Version 2.0 ALPHA 2:
1. ALPHA-2 - READ THIS.
2. README - The necessary Install Instructions. This file.
3. wwwboard.pl - The Perl CGI script that runs everything.
4. wwwboard.html - The HTML WWWBoard file that users will see.
5. faq.html - An FAQ file displayed for users of wwwboard.
6. data.txt - Where the file number is stored.
7. messages/ - Where the messages will be created and stored.
8. wwwadmin.pl - An Admin tool to delete messages.
9. passwd.txt - The encoded password and username for WWWAdmin
10. ADMIN_README - WWWAdmin README file.
You will need to edit by hand several of the files that come with WWWBoard Version 2.0. Below is a description of how to modify all of the necessary files:
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This file must be placed in your server's cgi-bin, or if your server has .cgi extensions allowed, you can simply rename this file to wwwboard.cgi, changing the $cgi_url variable below to reflect this. The file must also be chmoded 755. Ask your system administrator for more information on either the cgi-bin or chmod command.
This is the most complicated file you will need to modify. It comes with a lot of variables and many options. Below is a summary of how to configure all of the variables and what the options do:
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| | Variables
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$basedir = "/path/to/wwwboard";
This variable should contain the absolute system path to your wwwboard directory. So if you keep all of your files in /home/yourname/public_html and you make a directory under there called 'wwwboard', then $basedir would be set to: /home/yourname/public_html/wwwboard.
$baseurl = "http://your.host.xxx/wwwboard";
This is the base URL to the directory where wwwboard is kept. So staying with the example above, if your main directory is called by: http://your.host.xxx/~yourname/, the $baseurl would be set to: http://your.host.xxx/~yourname/wwwboard/.
$cgi_url = "http://your.host.xxx/cgi-bin/wwwboard.pl";
This is the URL that points to wwwboard.pl. This will be used in followup form responses, so this must be correct.
$datafile = "data.txt";
This is the name of the data file which will also be appended to $basedir. It will hold the current filename count, and the script will read this in and determine the message filename from this file.
$mesgfile = "wwwboard.html";
This is the name of the wwwboard.html file, which you might want to rename to index.html for the sake of a shorter URL. It will be appended to both $basedir and $baseurl to determine the URL and the absolute path to this file, both for URL references by the script and for editing of this file by the script.
$faqfile = "faq.html";
This is the path to the faq.html file which will be appended to $baseurl so users can find their way to the Frequently Asked Questions file about WWWBoard.
$ext = "html";
This is the ext with which all individual files will be created with. Most of the time it should be left as html, but on the occasion when you may be suing this on a dos based platform you can switch it to 'htm'.
$date_command = "/bin/date";
This needs to be the path to your 'date' command. This script uses the date command to time stamp the messages individually with along date and to place a short 'added' date on the wwwboard.html page.
$title = "WWWBoard Version 2.0 Test";
This is the title of your WWWBoard, which will be used on the individual message pages. Call your message board whatever you like, but I do recommend changing the above to something a little more catchy. :-)
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| | Options
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$show_faq = 1;
This option allows you to choose whether or not you want to display a link to the FAQ on every individual message page or not. It defaults to 1 and the link will be put in at the top of the message along with links to Followups, Post Followup and Back to $title. Setting this to 0 will turn it off, and keeping it at 1 will keep the link.
$allow_html = 1;
This option lets you choose whether or not you want to allow HTML mark-up in your posts. If you do not want to allow it, then everything that a user submits that has <>'s around it will be cut out of the message. Setting this option to '1' will allow HTML in the posts and you can turn this option off by setting it to '0'.
$quote_text = 1;
By keeping this option set to 1, the previous message will be quoted in the followup text input box. The quoted text will have a ':' placed in front of it so you can distinguish what had been said in the previous posts from what the current poster is trying to get across. Setting this option to '0' will leave the followup text box empty for the new poster.
$subject_line = 0;
There are three options for the way that you can display the subject line for the user posting a followup. Leaving this option at '0' which is the default value, will put the previous subject line into the followup form and allow users to edit the subject however they like. Setting this option to '1', however, will quote the subject, but simply display it to the user, not allowing him or her to edit the subject line. The third and final option can be achieved by setting the $subject_line variable to '2'. If it is set to '2' the subject will not be quoted and instead the user will be prompted with an empty subject block in their followup subject line.
$use_time = 1;
This option allows you to choose whether or not you want to use the hour:minute:second time with the day/month/year time on the main page. Day/Month/Year will automatically be placed on the main wwwboard.html page when a new entry is added, but if you leave this variable at '1' the hour:minute:second time will also be put there. This is very useful for message boards that get a lot of posts, but if you would like to save space on your main page, you can set this to '0' causing the hour:minute:second display not to be added.
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| | WOW! You made it through all that. That was the hardest file to edit. |
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wwwboard.html must be placed in the directory that you defined in
$basedir of your wwwboard.pl file. It must be chmoded 777 so that your
web server's uid (User ID) has permission to write to this file.
This file needs much less editing than the wwwboard.pl script. There are
three things that you will want to edit in this file. The first two are
simply the title of your WWWBoard. Currently the two lines look like:
<title>WWWBoard Version 2.0!</title>
<h1>WWWBoard Version 2.0!</h1>
You will want to change the title and header "WWWBoard Version 2.0!" to
whatever you want to call your WWWBoard. This should probably be the
same as the variable $title that you defined in wwwboard.pl.
The third line in this file that you will need to edit is the one that
looks like:
<form method=POST action="http://your.host.xxx/cgi-bin/wwwboard.pl">
You need to change the URL that is in action="" to the same URL that you
defined in wwwboard.pl as $cgi_url.
Once you have made these changes you can exit this file and save it.
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This file does not need to be edited, unless you want to change the heading or title or add a link back to your wwwboard page.
It should be placed in the $basedir directory and its name should reflect that of the $faq_file variable defined in wwwboard.pl
It should be chmoded 744, so that it is readable by all.
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This is a directory that should also be placed in $basedir as defined in wwwboard.pl. This directory must be chmoded 777 so that messages can be written into it by the server's UID.
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Simply place this file into $basedir as defined in wwwboard.pl and chmod it 777 so that the web server can write an incremented number to it. This is where the file name number will be kept.
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- HTML does not mess up postings like the last version did.
- There are many more options to allow flexibility in design.
- One CGI program instead of three. Makes everything smoother and
more efficient.
- File names are derived from an incremented number up to 99999 so that
messages won't overlap, like they could have with the old pid numbers that
were used.
- Many more things I can't even begin to list.
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| Version 2.0 11/04/95 | - Complete Re-Write of Version 1.0
- ALPHA 1 Version Released because many people were writing asking if they could get a copy of it.
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