Anti-Spam How To

How to create Guestbook Templates

Creating a template for the guestbook is not that difficult.
Log into the config script and select "Advanced HTML Editor".
Scroll down to the text editor and either modify what is there or Delete everything that is there and start fresh.

Once you are done fill in a name for the template in the textbox above the button marked "Save As Template". Keep the name simple with no spaces or underscores _. Template names are Case Sensitive, so if you call your template MyGuestbook and later modify it and re-save it with myguestbook there will then be 2 templates named MyGuestbook and myguestbook.

After you click the Save As Template button you should see the template name show up in the dropdown list. Select the template you created and click the SAVE button to use that template.
If you click SAVE instead of "Save As Template" then the Template will be used by the script but not saved in the Template file. If you were to switch templates later that template will be lost.

The one thing to keep in mind is where the entries will go when the script runs. So if you have a basic page like this:

<HTML>
  <HEAD>
	<TITLE>My Guestbook</TITLE>
	[CSS]
  </HEAD>
  <BODY>
	[PAGELINKS]
	<BR><HR><BR>
	<!--[SPLIT]-->  
  </BODY>
</HTML>

The script will put all of the entries in place of the  line. any HTML is ok, just keep in mind that any links or images must be a full URL like http://www.myweb.com/images/image.gif

Any "TAGS" surrounded by brackets [] are filled in by the script at runtime and can be used to customize the guestbook. Below is the list of tags that you can use that the script will fill in at runtime.

Tags for the Guestbook
TAG	Description
[CSS]	The style sheet containing the colors you set in the config script. Must go in the <HEAD> </HEAD> Section
[TITLE]	The Title you set in the config script
[TITLEIMAGE]	Title image set in the script
[ADDGUEST]	Link to the submission page
[DATE]	The Current date/time ie. Sunday, April 30 2006 01:26 PM EST
[SEARCHBAR]	Displays the search bar for searching the guestbook
[TOTALENTRIES]	The number of total guestbook entries. Only displays the number.
[PAGELINKS]	Links to the other guestbook pages ie.1 \| 2
[VERSION]	The version of the script ie version 3.40
[TIME]	The Current time in standard format ie 6:35 PM EST
[TIME24]	The Current time in 24 hour format ie 18:35
[STAT_VIEWS]	The number of times the guestbook has been viewed ie. 1,245
[STAT_SPAMMERS]	The number of spammers that have been caught by the script ie. 953
[STAT_BANS]	The Number of IP addresses that have been banned ie. 124

BACK

How to create templates for Guestbook entries.

Creating templates for the guestbook and entries is fairly easy if you are familiar with HTML.

Entries

Log into the config script and select "Setup Entries".
Scroll down to the text editor and either modify what is there or Delete everything that is there and start fresh.

Once you are done fill in a name for the template in the textbox above the button marked "Save As Template". Keep the name simple with no spaces or underscores _. Template names are Case Sensitive, so if you call your template MyTemplate and later modify it and re-save it with mytemplate there will then be 2 templates named MyTemplate and mytemplate.

After you click the Save As Template button you should see the template name show up in the dropdown list. Select the template you created and click the SAVE button to use that template.
If you click SAVE instead of "Save As Template" then the Template will be used by the script but not saved in the Template file. If you were to switch templates later that template will be lost.

To keep things looking neat it is a good idea to create a guestbook entry as a table. You don't have to it is just easier to get things lined up and looking good. Here is an example of a basic entry template:

<table cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" border="0" width="100%" class="GB">
  <tr><td width="250">
    <p class="smallbold">[DATE]</p>
    <p class="normal">[NAME]<br>
    <br></p>
    [URL]<br><p class="small">
    <i>Where are you from? </i><br>  [CITY]   [COUNTRY]<br><br>
    <i>How did you find us?</i><br>  [HOWFOUND]</p>
  </td>
  <td class="normal">
  	[MESSAGE]
  </td>
</tr></table>
<hr>

All of the tags surrounded by brackets like [DATE] are filled in by the script at runtime. Classes are from the style sheet and the colors etc are set in the config script.
Below is the list of tags that can be used in creating an entry template.

Tags for Guestbook entries
Tag	Description
[DATE]	Inserts the date. ie. Monday Oct 5 2005 16:43:50
[NAME]	The name the person used. Aubrey Millard
[EMAIL]	The email address nospam©combatarts·ca
[URL]	The URL as a link. Home Page
[CITY] / [COUNTRY]	What they left as a city and country Kitchener Canada
[HOWFOUND]	What they selected for "How did you find us?" Just Browsing
[MESSAGE]	The Message they left. Hi! Nice website.
[IP]	The users IP address ie.192.165.102.10
[FIELD1]	The text from a custom created field.
[FIELD2]	The text from a custom created field.

BACK

How to switch between templates.

Switching between templates is easy and is the same for Guestbook, Entry and Submission Templates.
Go to the appropriate page for the template you want to switch.
Select the template you want to use from the "Select Template" dropdown list. Then click the "SAVE" button.
That's it, the template will now be used by the script.

BACK

How To Add a new field like "Favorite Band"?

There are 2 steps you have to do to add an additional field for the guestbook.
One is easy and we will cover that first. In the template for the guestbook entry You will have to add the [FIELD1] or [FIELD2] tag(s) so the script will show the new field in the entries.
ie.

<table cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" border="0" width="100%" class="GB">
  <tr><td width="250">
    <p class="smallbold">[DATE]</p>
    <p class="normal">[NAME]<br>
    <br></p>
    [URL]<br><p class="small">
    <i>Where are you from? </i><br>  [CITY]   [COUNTRY]<br><br>
    <i>How did you find us?</i><br>  [HOWFOUND]<BR>
 <i>Your Favorite Band?<br>  [FIELD1]
	</p>
  </td>
  <td class="normal">
  	[MESSAGE]
  </td>
</tr></table>
<hr>

The next step is to add the new field to the submission page so the user can fill it in when they are submitting to the guestbook.

In the config script go to "Guestbook Submission Page" and scroll down and select "Edit HTML".
If you are using one of the standard Templates then you can find the last field before the message.

				<TD align="left" class="small">HomePage</TD>
				<TD align="left"><INPUT NAME="url" TYPE="TEXT" SIZE=25 MAXLENGTH=100 value="[url]"></TD>
				<TD align="left" class="small">How did you find us?</TD>
				<TD align="left"> <SELECT NAME="howfound">
	       				<OPTION VALUE="Pure Luck">
                   			        Pure Luck
      					<OPTION VALUE="Directory Listing">
			                           Directory Listing
   					<OPTION VALUE="Word Of Mouth">
			                           Word Of Mouth
       					<OPTION VALUE="I used a computer dummy">
			                           I used a computer dummy
       					<OPTION VALUE="A Link from another site">
			                           A Link from another site
       					<OPTION VALUE="Just Browsing">
			                           Just Browsing
       					<OPTION VALUE="Other">
			                           Other
	    			</SELECT>

				</TD>
			</tr>
			INSERT THE CODE BELOW HERE

And then add this. You will want to change the text "Favorite Band" to whatever you want.

	<TR>
		<TD align="left" class="small">Favorite Band?</TD>
		<TD align="left"><INPUT NAME="FIELD1" TYPE="TEXT" SIZE=20 MAXLENGTH=100 value="[FIELD1]"></TD>
	</TR>

You can now save this and save it as a template if you wish.
If you want to add another field then do the same steps as above but using FIELD2.
You are limited to 2 additional fields, if you need more than 2 you will have to modify one of the existing ones like "HOWFOUND".

BACK

How To Change the HomePage link for a users URL

As default a link that a user leaves in the URL field will show up as HomePage when the [URL] tag is used.

To change this to say something else or to use and image instead follow these steps.
Go to the "Setup Entries" page in the config script and in the Home Page Link textbox enter what you want to use.

For an image use a full URL like: <img src='http://www.somedomain.com/home.gif' border='0'> ie.

To display the raw url use: [LINK] ie. http://www.somedomain.com/

Or you can just use a word like Website, HomePage etc. Website

BACK