3.1.5. Guestbook

Guestbook allows you to set up your own comments page. From there, visitors can add entries to your guestbook and they will be displayed with the most recent at the top and scrolling down, or vice versa. Other options include the ability to limit HTML in the entry, link to e-mail address with mailto tag, use a log to log entries, redirect to a different page after signing, emailing whenever a new entry is added, and much more.

Guestbook is already set up for use on your server. You can simply use the following URL to access it:

http://[yourdomain].com/guest/guestbook.html

If you want to change any of the configuration options, locate the guestbook.cgi file in your Guestbook directory (inside your www directory). Download it to your hard drive in ASCII mode, and save it somewhere safe. Create a copy of the file and give it the same name, then edit the options as specified below. Keep your backup of the original guestbook.cgi in case you run into problems.

Option 1: $mail

This option will allow you to be notified via an E-mail address when a new entry arrives in your guestbook. The entry will be mailed to you as a notification. If you should choose to turn this variable on you will need to fill in the 2 variables that go along with it:

$recipient - Your email address, so that the mailing program will know who to mail the entry to.

$mailprog - The location of your sendmail program on your host machine.

Option 2: $uselog

This will allow you the ability to use the short log feature. It is already turned on so you will have to change it to 0 if you do not wish to use it. It has been implemented since there are probably many people who feel no need to have a log when people are making entries to a file anyway. Keep in mind that it will show errors which is one nice aspect about it.

Option 3: $linkmail

Turning this option on will make the address links in your guestbook become hyperlinked. So instead of simply having (name@some.host) it will put (<a href="mailto:name@some.host">name@somehost</a> so that anyone can simply click on the address to email them.

Option 4: $separator

This allows you to choose whether you want guestbook entries to be separated by a Paragraph Separator <p>, or a Horizontal Rule <hr>. By changing the 0 in the script to a 1, you will turn on the <hr> separator and turn off the <p> separator. The 0 option will do the reverse of that; turn on the <p> and turn off the <hr>.

Option 5: $redirection

By choosing 1 you will enable auto redirection and 0 will return a page to the user telling them their entry has been received and click here to get back to the guestbook.

Option 6: $entry_order

Set this option to 0 and the newest entries will be added below the rest of the entries. Keep this option at 1 and the guestbook will add the newest entries at the top.

Option 7: $remote_mail

Many users of the guestbook have requested that a form letter be automatically sent to the remote user when they fill in the guestbook. Turning this option on will tell the script to automatically mail any user who leaves an email address. You can specify the contents of the mail message by editing the section of the script that sends mail to the remote user. By default it sends a message that says, "Thank you for adding to my guestbook." and then shows them their entry. If you should choose to turn this variable on, you will need to fill in the 2 variables that go along with it:

$recipient - Your email address so that the mailing program will know who to mail the entry to.

$mailprog - The location of your sendmail program on your host machine.

Option 8: $allow_html

This option allows you to turn on or off the use of HTML tags by users of your guestbook. Setting this variable to 1 allows users to embed html tags such as <b> or <H1> or <a href=" "></a> into your html document. Setting this variable to 0 will not allow them to use any html syntax in their comments or any other field. You can still link to their comments or any other field. You can still link to their email address by turning $link_mail to 1.

There is also the ability for users to add their own URL and then their name is referenced to their URL in the guestbook.html file. This helps to eliminate the need for allow_html to be turned on, and lets users point you to a spot that will tell you more about them. Several users of the guestbook script have asked for this option. If you wish to disable the option, simply delete the following line from your addguest.html file:

URL: <input type=text name=url size=50><br>

These are the rest of the important guestbook files found in your Guestbook directory:

guestbook.html

This is the file that you will link to that will contain the Guestbook Entries. You may want to edit the title and heading spaces and customize the look any way you desire. Do not delete the line <!--begin--> from this guestbook, or else the script will have no way of knowing where to begin the editing. The <!--begin--> line is the only necessary line in your guestbook.html file, but the link to the addguest.html file is also a good idea. :-)