The Guestbook Script
The Guestbook CGI is very easy to implement in your pages - all you need to do is to include a form somewhere within your page structure. The format of the form should be as follows:
<FORM METHOD="GET" ACTION="/cgi-bin/guestbook.cgi">
<INPUT TYPE="TEXT" NAME="name" VALUE="name" MAXLENGTH=30>
<INPUT TYPE="TEXT" NAME="comment" VALUE="comment" MAXLENGTH=60>
<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="image" VALUE="top.gif">
<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="background" VALUE="bck1.jpg">
<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="colour" VALUE="#000000">
<INPUT TYPE="SUBMIT" NAME="submit" VALUE="submit">
</FORM>
An Explanation
The two 'TEXT' type input fields are the actual data that will be displayed within your guestbook page. The output is displayed as follows: 'Name' had this to say: "comment". Where "name" and "comment" are take from the form input.
HTML tags are not stripped from the input so people submitting entries to your guestbook can use them to 'enhance' their entry. The three 'HIDDEN' type fields are not required but can be used to enhance your guestbook page. The 'image' field allows you to put a picture at the very top of your page, this image will be centered within the display and will appear above the title 'My Guestbook' The 'background' field allows you to specify a background image for your page.
Both of the above images should be in the top level of your web space (i.e., the main directory). You also need to remember that the file names are case sensitive (as are the actual names of the form entries)
If you specify a background image you may also specify a foreground text colour - this takes the format of a normal HTML colour string ie. #RRGGBB where the letters R, G, B represent the Red, Green and Blue components of the colour respectively - don't forget the hash (#) before the colour numbers! This goes into the 'colour' entry in your form. By default the page will display with no images and in the default colours that the viewer has set in his/her browser.
Where Does It Put The Page?
When the first entry is submitted to the guestbook it will create a directory called 'Guestbook' within your web space - DO NOT create this directory yourself as it needs to be created with special settings so that the script can write to it.
Within that directory the script creates a file called 'guestbook.html' this file is the actual guestbook page. Therefore if your username is 'username' then the full URL of the guestbook is
http://home.clara.net/username/Guestbook/guestbook.html/ or
http://www.username.clara.net/Guestbook/guestbook.html
The capital G of the Guestbook directory is required. You can create
links to the guestbook from anywhere within your webpage structure.