CosmicSimpleBBS & RSS User Guide

© Copyright CosmicScripts.com (Lyle Hopkins) 2004. All rights reserved. No part of this or any of the attached documents shall be reproduced/stored in any way whatsoever without written permission from the Copyright holder. The Copyright holder holds no responsibility for errors or omissions. No liability is assumed in any way for damages resulting from the use of this document/program.


Sections in this file

1. Installation instructions
2. Trouble shooting
3. BUG report
4. Getting rid of 'CosmicScripts.com' link
5. Using the script

1. Installation Instructions

If you are installing as an RSS feed then your firstly need to remove the files board.html, mainboard.html, message.html and oldboard.html. Then rename the files rss_board.html, rss_index.html, rss_message.html and rss_oldarticles.html to board.html, index.html, message.html and oldarticles.html respectively.

All files from the zip file should be uploaded into a sub-folder of your cgi-bin (we recommend a folder named 'bbs' or 'rss').
ALL FILES, BAR ANY PICTURE FILES, SHOULD BE UPLOADED IN ASCII.

You also need to create a new data folder within the public viewable area of your site (usually in "public_html" or "www"). Do not create this folder within your cgi-bin. We suggest you call this folder "messages" in bbs mode or "articles" in rss mode. The files mainboard.html and oldboard.html OR index.html and oldarticles.html should be placed in this folder, or somewhere publicly viewable, such as "public_html/rss". For RSS the files rss1.xml and rss2.xml should also be put in this folder.

The table below shows what chmod (Unix) each file should be given File Chmod

The table below shows what file permissions (Win32) each file should be given.

The following files should be opened and modified. To start with, make sure the first line of the file (if it's a script) points to the location of perl on your server. This is usually:

#!usr/bin/perl or #!usr/local/bin/perl. (Make sure you point to perl ver5+)

Files to Adjust
bbs.cgi Adjust user defined variables at top of file
board.html Adjust the HTML to suit your site. Make sure any <!-- COMMENT --> tags stay in place as they are used by the script.
message.html Adjust the HTML to suit your site. Make sure any <!-- COMMENT --> tags stay in place as they are used by the script.

2. Trouble shooting

If the board messages are not being displayed check the file permissions of messages.txt and the messages folder. Also check that the relative path to the messages folder is correct.

If you have any other problems running this script then please check that you have followed the installation to the word. If problems persist then check the FAQ at:

http://www.cosmicscripts.com/faq.shtml

If that's no help then post a message on the help board at the same address and you should get a reply.

3. BUG report

If you find any bugs, glitches or problems then please contact me at:

bugs@cosmicscripts.com

with the subject "CosmicBBS bug report".

4. Getting rid of 'CosmicScripts.com' link

On some of the scripts you may find a small link back to CosmicScripts.com generated at the bottom of the page. Removing this will infringe the copyright and cause you to be sued. So don't try it! If you do want to loose the link then it costs $10 per script. You will then receive an amended script without the link back. Go to:

http://www.cosmicscripts.com/amended

5. Using this script

Link to mainboard.html or index.html to display the Bulletin Board or RSS feed. Once you have added the first message or article the HTML will update to that set in board.html and message.html. If you are selecting to keep old board messages then link to oldboard.html or oldarticles.html to display them.

This script has several useful features. It blocks HTML and JavaScript so people cannot corrupt you page, but allows you to use certain effects, such as Bold, Colored text and URL's. To have bold text use [b], such as [b]Bold[/b], to have colored text use [c color] such as [c red]red[/c] or even [c #00FF00]green[/c]. URL's will be read and changed to HTML links.

The RSS feeds are output to rss1.xml and rss2.xml. For a guide on what to do once you have your feeds visit our starting an rss feed guide.

To use the scripts admin capabilities run bbs.cgi?want=admin from your browser. From there you will be able to regenerate the board, edit, remove or approve messages and add new articles. For this you will first need to run admingen.cgi to generate the login password.

BBS and RSS powered by CosmicScripts.com
free cgi scripts from CosmicScripts.com
cgi scripts from CosmicPerl.com