Guestbook CGI Application

Here's a neat Guestbook CGI script that's easy to set up and install.

Are you running a web server? If so, by following these instructions, and with absolutely no scripting, you can add a Guestbook page to your website. The instructions are for WebStar, but the script should work with any Macintosh-based web server software.

First, download the Guestbook CGI package. Open the folder and move the guestbook sub-folder into the same folder as the WebStar application.

The guestbook folder contains four text files.

1. default.html is just a sample, it will be re-generated by the scripts, so there's no need to edit it.

2. add.html is the form that users will enter their info into. You must edit this form, changing the IP address of our server to the domain name of your server, something like www.yourserver.com.

3. template.txt is the template for the guestbook page. You must change the fixed IP address in this file, as with add.html, and you may also want to change the look of the page.

   The page builder script will do automatic substitutions for special tags in this file. <username>, <userorg>, <date>, <list>, and <time> are the special tags.

4. thankyou.txt is the text that the server sends back to the user after they register. Again, you must change the IP address in this file, and of course you may change the look of the page.

Set up WebStar so it knows how to route URLs that end with ".fcgi" to Frontier. See WebSTAR Setup for Frontier CGI Scripting for instructions.

Open the Guestbook CGI folder and double-click on webServerScripts.guestbook. Frontier will launch if it's not running. Click on OK to the confirmation dialog. A window opens in Frontier. It's OK to close it.

Bring the Finder to the front and double-click on the Reset Guestbook script. It creates a new table in Frontier called user.guestbook and creates an empty guestbook outline.

That's it!

Your guestbook is now on the air. To test it out, open the add.html file in a web browser and add the first comment. Its URL will be:

http://www.yourserver.com/guestbook/add.html

Go ahead and click on it, you'll get an error. Then, in the Address part of the browser window, change www.yourserver.com to the domain name of your server. Add a comment.

When you're satisfied that it's working, link the URL into your website.

Pointers

For an introduction to CGI scripting with Frontier see CGI Scripting in Frontier.

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