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README for the Magic Notebook 1.2.1

LEGAL

For the duration of this copyright statement, 'this software' and 'Catch the Furball' are taken to mean all original files distributed with this product, and the arrangement and other original work related to this product.

License

        This software is copyright 2003 by Jonathan Hayward, and licensed
                and licensed to you under the your choice of the original Artistic
        License, which should be present in the file artistic.txt, and the
        General Public License version 2.0, which should be present in the
        file gpl.txt.

Warrantee

        Jonathan Hayward makes no warranties, express or implied,
        regarding this software.  In no event shall Jonathan Hayward be
        liable for any consequential, special, incidental, or indirect
        damages of any kind arising out of the license of, use of,
        or inability to use any software or product covered under
        this license, even if Jonathan Hayward has been advised of the
        possibility of such damages.  This limitation of liability and
        risks is reflected in the price of this software.

PURPOSE

Catch the Furball is published for two reasons:

1. To provide an icebreaker board game something like Generica ( http://JonathansCorner.com/etc/generica ) in which it is not necessary to create a board and cut up boards, but rather can be played immediately through an attractive web interface.
2. To make the engine for the above mentioned game available so that people can create their own analogous games.

INSTALLATION AND SETUP

Basics

• To install, run "./install" and answer the questions provided. This will run a Unix-flavor install-style script and should create a working, out-of-the-box installation when supplied appropriate values.
• To upgrade, run "./upgrade" and answer the questions provided. This will run a Unix-flavor install-style script and should upgrade your installation when provided appropriate values.
• If you have not done so, edit the privacy policy, stored in <the public Catch the Furball HTML directory>/privacy.html, so that its contents are appropriate to your site.
• See USAGE below if are curions about how to use Catch the Furball.
• The install script is not meant to fully customize Catch the Furball, only to get it running. See Customization below for further information on how to adjust Snippets to meet your needs.

Customization

            To customize the content of pages, edit the configuration file at
            <the private Catch the Furball data directory>/config and set
            "edit_is_enabled" to "yes" (no quotation marks) and "edit_password"
            to a value other than its default of "xyzzy". Then visit the
            script's usual URL with "?edit=yes" added to the end, and log in.
            You will be at a web interface that will allow you to edit the
            script's content with the same power as was used to create it.

            If you wish to create a game with completely new cards, pictures,
            etc., you can clean the slate by deleting
            <the private Catch the Furball data directory/pickled/data.immutable
            and going to edit as described in the paragraph above.

            For other configuration, The configuration file at
            <the private Catch the Furball data directory>/config is
            commented and can be adjusted to control how the script works.

            The beginning and ending of a page are read from
            <the private Catch the Furball data directory>/page_header and
            <the private Catch the Furball data directory>/page_footer
            respectively.  Editing those files provides an effective way to
            customize page appearance: colors, for instance, may be changed by
            editing the CSS in the page header.

            The images used for various purposes are found in
            <the public Catch the Furball HTML directory> and may be replaced
            with images tailored to your site's needs.

        Security

            The present release of Catch the Furball has not been closely
            scrutinized for security, and should be treated as such by
            security-conscious administrators.  If you discover a
            vulnerability, please contact the author at
            jonathan.hayward@pobox.com with details.

            The default installation sets
            <the private Catch the Furball data directory> and contents
            to a relatively permissive mode.  Administrators are encouraged to
            set directory and contents to mode 700, owned by the
            effective user ID that CGI scripts will be running under. This
            is usually apache or nobody.

USAGE

Catch the Furball is designed to be run as a straightforward web application, with much administrative activity performed on-web. Rather than trying to explain how to use it, I simply encourage you to explore. To play Catch the Furball, go to:

http://[your hostname]/cgi-bin/furball

To edit it, go to:

http://[your hostname]/cgi-bin/furball?edit=yes

(That is the location provided by RPM installation and the default for the provided installer. The provided installer allows you to specify another location; if you specified another location, substitute that for "/cgi-bin/furball".)

NOTES

Payment

        Catch the Furball is linkware. It is available to you free of charge.
        If you like it, I would be very happy if you would visit
        http://JonathansCorner.com and consider linking to it.

Bugs

For security-related concerns, see Security above.

Contact

        The author can be contacted at jonathan.hayward@pobox.com, and
        maintains a website at http://JonathansCorner.com. The current version
        of Catch the Furball may be obtained from
        http://JonathansCorner.com/etc/furball/ .