Kahenbook
Kahenbook is a CGI/Perl guestbook I wrote for the homepage of my sister Sarah [1]. I needed a simple guestbook with only few features but with good customization (simple templates). Unfortunately I didn't find anything decent on SourceForge [2], FreshMeat [3] and Google [4]; Most of the scripts lacked the customizability of templates, others had drawbacks in administration (I can't expect a non-programmer to fill in posting IDs into a text field to delete something).
So I wrote my own guestbook. It can't do much, but it fits my needs.
The name "kahenbook" is made up of the Japanese "kahen" (can be translated as "customizable") and the English word "book" (from "guestbook").
Kahenbook is open source software and I would really appreciate any comments, patches, rewrites etc.
I haven't published my software very often on the Internet, so please be forgiving with the way I code or how You have to set up the system. And if You got criticism: Give it to me. ;)
The kahenbook homepage is
http://content.no-ip.org/KnightsWiki/wiki.pl?KahenBook
I would also appreciate to hear about working installations so I can link to them from the kahenbook page.
Features (or: What great things can I do with it?)
- Templates that are easy to create, almost fully customizable
- Entries have accurate time, name, E-Mail address and homepage URL
- Intelligent algorithm for linking to further guestbook pages (I'm really proud of this one, unfortunately You'll see this one first when You've got about 1.000 entries = 50 pages)
- Delete shows the posting to be deleted
Requirements
Kahenbook needs a webserver with CGI/Perl and a MySQL database. Additionally, for the installation You'll need some knowledge of Perl. But I can help You with installation problems if there are any.
Without problems it worked on:
- Linux: Apache 1 (I don't have any more data on this)
- Windows 2000: Apache 2.0.50 / ActivePerl 5.8.4 b810 / MySQL 4.0.15-nt
Installation
- Unpack
- Set guestbook.pl eXecutable (chmod +x guestbook.pl)
- Set up MySQL DB
- Create user for kahenbook
- Create database and grant access to user
- FLUSH PRIVILEGES (I always forget this one, that's why it's here)
- Customize
- Change shebang in guestbook.pl (Usually #!/usr/bin/perl)
- Customize variables in "START EDITING HERE" block in guestbook.pl, filesystem.pm, database.pm, admin.pm (Comments are right next to them)
- Customize templates (see file TEMPLATES)
- Set guestbook.pl:$setup to 1, then run guestbook.pl on the webserver. Database will be set up
- Set guestbook.pl:$setup to 0
- Now everything should work: Congratulations! :)
If You encounter problems with the installation I'm ready to help.
What can't it do?
- Limitation of 20 entries per guestbook page is hardcoded
- Administrator username and password are quite unflexible
- Limitation of 65.535 entries total (MySQL)
In the "What can't it do" area I go very much with the eXtreme Programming methodology [6], which means as long as I'm okay with a certain limitation, I won't change it... the main thing is that it has to work.
Development
Kahenbook is, as has been said, open source software. Whoever wants to help me improve something, or who wants to do that himself, or whoever has good ideas, tell me!
I think the code is rather well commented (English) and understandable. If You got questions, just contact me.
License
Kahenbook is published under the terms of the GNU General Public License [5]. A copy of this license is bundled with this software as gpl.txt.
Contact
Sebastian Breier, Seba_B_AT_gmx.net
http://blog.content.no-ip.org
http://content.no-ip.org/KnightsWiki/wiki.pl?KahenBook
--
[1] http://www.sarahundhelge.de/
[2] http://www.sourceforge.net/
[3] http://www.freshmeat.net/
[4] http://www.google.com/
[5] http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_programming