ZCNet - News Flash!

News Flash Version 1.0

News Flash by ZCNet
Developed by Thomas Bowler
Version 1.0 - March 28, 2002
Copyright (c) 2002 ZCNet All rights reserved.

****************************************************************************
This file is part of News Flash.

News Flash is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

News Flash is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with News Flash; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
****************************************************************************

This document is both an Installation Manual and discussion about CGI
script configuration on your website.

Table of Contents
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1) Package
2) System Requirements
3) Operation - Screen Shots
4) Customization
5) Technical Support
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1) Package
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If you are reading this document you probably have unzipped your copy of
newsflash.ZIP. Please check to make sure your have the following files.
If any are missing please contact our support department.

***IMPORTANT NOTICE***
The directory structure is infinitely configuration. The directory names
where the scripts are held may be whatever you wish. You need not use our
structure, but you must be sure to edit the scripts to reflect these
modifications. Information on which scripts to edit is shown later
in this document.

These files may reside directly in your document root directory.)

CGI-BIN
     /newsflash
          /comments
                    comments.pl

          /subs
                    html_input.pl
                    sub_add_news.pl
                    sub_error_check.pl
                    sub_admin_del_agent.pl
                    sub_login.pl
                    sub_settings.pl
       gnu_gpl.txt
       news.cgi
       news.pl
       news_show.cgi
       readme.txt
       vars_main.pl

htdocs(or your document root)
/news
news.html

__The following files go in your CGI directory__
Copy all of these files into your CGI-BIN directory, or whatever directory
your cgi scripts are executed from.

UNIX
"Example: /usr/local/httpd/cgi-bin/" (unix chmod 755)

WINDOWS
"Example: C:\apache\cgi-bin"

news.cgi = Main script controls. Define function of all scripts. This file should not be edited.
The first line of control.cgi script reads

          #!/usr/bin/perl (UNIX)
          #C:\perl\perl.exe (WINDOWS)

          /usr/bin/perl is the default location of perl on UNIX.
          If perl is installed at a different location, modify this to match it.
          For instance, some ISPs install perl at /usr/local/bin/perl, then this
          line should be changed to:

          #!/usr/local/bin/perl

news.pl = Holds the text of the News Flash messages.

news_show.cgi = Displays message on webpage.

***Be sure to edit the following line.***
open(FILE, "/path_to_your_cgi-bin/newsflash/news.pl") or ($nonews = "true");

Make sure you change the path to point to your /news.pl file which by default
is located at /cgi-bin/newsflash/news.pl

vars_main.pl = Defines paths and location of program sub-directories, html files, both URL and directory, sendmail program admin username and password. This file must be edited to include the relative path to the sub-directories listed.

Example:

cgi_url => "http://your.domain.name/cgi-bin/newsflash",
html_dir => "/usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/news",
html_url => "http://your.domain.name/news",
font => "Verdana, Arial, Helvetica",
comments_dir => "comments",
sub_dir => "subs",
allow_html => "true",
allow_comments => "true",
news_file => "news.html",
save_to_html => "true",
no_news_on_page => "1",
font => "arial",
user => "admin",
pass => "admin",

__These files go in your CGI directory in the subdirectory /subs__
be sure to copy all of these files into your CGI-BIN/subs directory (unix chmod 755)

/subs

html_input.pl = Script that handles adding referrals. Also contains confirmation/thank you page which can be configured to the clients wish.

sub_add_news.pl = Displays table with referrals (sort area)

sub_error_check.pl = Displays agent details

sub_comments.pl = Script for displaying comments

sub_login.pl = Agent and admin log in handling

sub_settings.pl = Agent tracking script

**HTML FILES**

_This file go in your document root directory (i.e., /htdocs/news)_
(You may also place them in another directory, such as /htdocs/newsflash
or just /htdocs, but be sure to edit your "vars_main.pl" accordingly.)

news.html User defined page for displaying messages.

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2) System Requirements
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In order to run the script properly, your webserver should contain:
- Unix or Windows O/S
- Perl 5 or higher

If your server does not contain these programs, the script will not work properly.
Please contact your ISP or hosting service in order to get these programs installed.
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3) Operation
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To create your New Flash message you must login to the submission form. To do this,
run the news.cgi script from your browser as follows:

http://your.domain.name/cgi-bin/newsflash/news.cgi
(Be sure to substitute your real domain name for "your.domain.name".

Login using the username and password you choose when modifying the vars_main.pl file. The default username and password is "admin" (without the quotes).

Complete the "Add News" submission form and click "Submit". Your News Flash Message can be previewed by clicking on "Click here to view news".

To edit your variables without having to directly access your script, find the "Click here to edit settings" within the "Add News" page. You may change and save your variables from within.

4) Customization
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You can easily customize this script by doing the following:
1) Edit the html_inputs.pl file to create a template for all generated pages.
The html_inputs.pl file controls the look of all generated pages.

2) Edit the scripts in the /subs directory, but this should be kept to a minimum and
only if you know what you are doing.

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5) Technical Support
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If you are having any problems with your script, please contact our support staff at support@zcnet.com, or contact by visiting our website at http://www.zcnet.com/contact.html. We will attempt to assist you with your problem, but as this is a free script, support will be, by necessity, at a high level only.
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