Guestbook by Kathi O'Shea http://www.attitude.com/users/kathi/asp (ASP Tutorial Site) http://www.web-savant.com (business site) kathi@attitude.com (support & comments) info@web-savant.com (design and customization) Guestbook Instructions IMPORTANT!! This guestbook will only work on an ASP-enabled site, and you must have script permissions on the directory where the ASP scripts are located. This script will not work on GeoCities, AOL, or most (if not all) of the free homepage sites. If you're not sure if your site is ASP-enabled, contact your system administrator. Contents: 1. Files contained in this distribution 2. Copyright information and Disclaimer 3. Modifying scripts 4. How to set up a system DSN 5. The CDO (Email) Module - Comments & Config 6. Revision History ---------------------------------------- 1. Files contained in this distribution README.TXT (this file) Guestbook.mdb sign.asp administration.asp default.asp ----------------------------------------- 2. Copyright information & Disclaimer Scripts, html and sample database template copyright 1998, Kathi O'Shea. All files can be freely modified as long as the copyright information on each script and html file remains intact. You may also redistribute the zip file, as long as all of the original distribution files are left intact and unmodified. I also ask that if you implement the guestbook on your site that you email me the URL, so I can see it in action. Also, please let me know if its ok to include a link to your site in future versions of my page. DISCLAIMER: This program is freeware, and as such, carries no guarantees or warranties. While great care has been taken to test it to ensure that it works properly, there may be unforeseen problems under unusual circumstances. I do also not guarantee that I'll be able to offer technical support. I will, however, try to give free limited support, and to address any unforeseen problems as they arise. I will also be happy to customize the guestbook to your needs (add fields, images, custom colors and/or layout, etc) needs on a fee basis. ----------------------------------------- 3. Modifying scripts There are certain modifications to the scripts that you may want to make. I have provided comments in the script pointing out areas where customization might be desirable. For example, the ASP scripts now all use dsn-less connections to the database. If you do not locate your database at the server root, you will need to change the path to the database. For example, if I have my database file located in the /guestbook/ directory under our webserver root, I would need to change it to server.mappath("/guestbook/guestbook.mdb") in my working script. If you prefer to use a system DSN, uncomment the appropriate line for the DSN and take out the dsn-less code (comments are provided in the scripts to show you what to do). The DSN line would look like conn.open "guestbook". Of course, the html code can be customized with your choice of colors and fonts, font size, images, etc. Just be careful when changing code in response.write strings - remember that you have to use single quotes within the response.write string (starting and ending the string with double-quotes, of course) or the script will bomb. This set of scripts was created in a single directory, so if you plan to put the ASP scripts in a separate directory, please be sure to change all the pointers to the ASP scripts to the appropriate directory. ----------------------------------------- 4. How to set up a system DSN If you plan to use ASP to access a database, you will want to set up a DSN (Data Source Name) for each database you'll use. If you plan to try out some of the sample database scripts from this site, you will need to set this up before trying any of the scripts. Setting up the DSN is a simple process. Simply double-click the ODBC applet in the Control Panel, choose the System DSN tab, and click Add. Choose the type of database driver you'll be working with - the sample database from this site is MS Access - then click finish. You'll then need to type in the database name in the Data Source Name box, and click Select. Next you'll navigate to the drive and directory where the database is located, click on the file name and click OK on that window and the one behind it. Now you can refer to the database by name in your scripts and the system will know which ODBC driver to use and where the database is located. ----------------------------------------- 5. The CDO (Email) Module If your server CDONTS installed (the built-in SMTP for NT that's installed by default with Option Pack 4), the script now has the capability to email new guestbook entries to you as they're entered. IMPORTANT: You will get an error when you try to sign the guestbook if the server doesn't have CDONTS available. If this happens, either remove the email block of code or modify it to use a server component, if available. Sample code for ASP QMail is available on my site at http://www.attitude.com/users/kathi/asp/samples/tut/ASP_QMail.asp if your web host happens to use that particular component. CONFIGURING the CDO PORTION OF SCRIPT (IMPORTANT!) If you find that you do have CDONTS available to you, great! You will need to make a couple of minor changes to the script. All this entails is putting your OWN email address in where I've supplied a default email - in other words, replace info@web-savant.com with YOUR email address, and replace you@yourdomain.com with YOUR email address. That's all that needs to be changed - it should work just fine if the server has CDONTS going. ----------------------------------------- 6. Revision History 09/22/99 - Renamed Date field in guestbook table to PostDate 09/22/99 - Finally! The admin script displays the newest entries first! 05/22/99 - Added CDO email notification to script 04/12/99 - Finally added multiple deletes to the administration script! :) 01/09/99 - Finally got around to adding paged records and navigation between pages! 01/09/99 - Updated the readme.txt file to reflect changes in DSN and DSN-less info. 12/94/98 - Added bug fix caused by previous bug fix that broke Comments field validation. 12/02/98 - Added bug fix caused by double-quotes in form fields 12/02/98 - Added DSN-less connection capabilities to scripts 11/01/98 - Combined individual administration scripts into single script 10/28/98 - First version of the scripts and database created.