If you are upgrading from version 1.0, you will need to erase any current book.cfg you have.
Proceed to Installation.
/cgi-bin (or /cgi-shl) <--server's CGI directory | |--book.exe <--the CGI script |--book.html <--Guest Book |--bookform.html <--The form people fill in |--book.cfg <--configuration file |--book_instructions.html <--this document |--book.readme <--Read thisThe guest book program creates files called book.dat where it keeps track of how many people have signed in. It also uses the file lock.boo as a semaphore. Windows NT users note: the guest book must have read/write permissions in the /cgi-bin directory, as well as any directory where you want guest books kept.
You should not attempt to edit the bookform.html file too much. Everything before the <FORM ACTION=...> and after the </FORM> is OK to edit, but in between, there really are only two things you should change:
Note the different wording, however, in the value="..." section and after the final >. That's because the stuff in the value="..." part is preceded by "Found us by: " in the actual guest book, calling for gerunds where appropriate, whereas in the fill-out form it is preceded by "How did you get here?", which calls for a past particple. Example:
Copy bookform.html, book.html and book.cfg from the .ZIP file to C:\WWW\HTDOCS\ and to C:\WWW\HTDOCS\SOMEDIR\. Perform any of the changes described above that you want. Now, for bookform.html that is in C:\WWW\HTDOCS\, change the ACTION part to read:
You were the 1st person to sign in.
Click here to read the guest book.
Return to homepage
Click where it says "click here". You should see something like:
S: Double check all the book.cfg files you have and make sure that they correctly identify the URL and filename of the guest book you are trying to keep. P: Something else went wrong.
S: E-mail me. Please include as much information as you can about your problem.
A: No. This is to prevent the guest book from getting screwed up by people sticking in poorly written HTML or worse, poorly written JavaScript. Some people also sign guest books and for the comment they put in <img src="..."> where ... is the URL of a XXX JPG. I'm sure you don't want that.
Q: How can I tell how many people have signed my book?
A: Look at the book.dat file.
Q: I want to remove someone from the guest book
A: Simply edit the file book.html. If you remove someone, you should also edit book.dat by decreasing the number there by one.
Q: How can I get the book to put newest signatures first?
A: You can download the source code and make that change yourself. Doing so myself would have caused me more grief than it's worth to me (it wouldn't be a very simple guest book then). Back to TOC