A simple way of interacting with clients that visit a web site is to allow them to sign a guestlist and leave some comments. We have designed a simple form and script that you can use to do this.
To install the comments form and CGI on your Virtual Private Server you will need to do the following.
You will need to download the Guestlist HTML source and Guestlist Entry Form HTML source (you can save the source by right-clicking on the links above and selecting Save Target As...) and store it somewhere in your ~/www/htdocs directory structure. The Guestlist Entry Form can be customized by simply changing the values assigned to these variables:
MAXENTRIES - the number of entries that will be displayed in the guestbook. For example, if MAXENTRIES is set to 100, only the latest 100 entries in the guestbook will be displayed. If MAXENTRIES is set to negative or zero (or not included in the form at all), no entry restriction will be applied.
PATHNAME - the pathname of the guestlist file relative to the ~/www/htdocs directory of your server. For example, if your guestlist file was named guestlist.html and was located in a subdirectory guest of your ~/www/htdocs directory, you would set PATHNAME to be /guest/guestlist.html.
ADDRESS - the E-Mail address where a copy of guestlist entries which include a return E-Mail address are sent.
Be sure that the variable name (MAXENTRIES, PATHNAME, PATHNAME, etc.) for each input field in the Guestlist Entry Form is not altered.
Connect to your Virtual Private Server via Telnet or SSH and issue the following command.
% vinstall guestlist
This will install the guestlist.pl and util.pl files into your ~/www/cgi-bin/library/guestlist directory.
Two subroutines in the util.pl file are used to print out header and footer information. These functions are print_header_info and print_footer_info. Feel free to modify these functions such that the CGI outputs pages that are in synch with the motifs of the rest of your site.