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Your guestbook control panel possesses extremely powerful features enabling you to completely and absolutely customize your guestbook. You can even have your guestbook display different output depending on what users post. This document should help you to get the most out of it. You might want to print it out since it is quite comprehensive and some sections are based on each other.

UPDATE: Getting Spammed?
Using a random code generator script, in order to post to your guestbook, the user must retype the randomly generated code which appears in your guestbook above the submit button. Example our demo: http://www.kbnet.com/book/html/x.html

The full version uses ARIAL font and contains the following fields: Your Name, Your Email Address, Your Homepage Address, Your Comments (Sorry no HTML tags). These are the standard fields provided with new guestbooks. Copy this code in your Control Panel's Input Form HTML Window. ** NOTE: this will remove all other fields you may have. See below to modify only the submit button. Download code here: http://www.kbnet.com/book/1spamFullVersion.txt

The short version should replace your SUBMIT button code only in your Control Panel's Input Form HTML Window. Reminder: Make sure your closing font tags are still available. Download code here: http://www.kbnet.com/book/1spamCodeGeneratorOnly.txt

Please note that these scripts do not work on Mozilla web browsers and are built for use on guestbooks using 'name', 'email', 'url', 'comments' fields. If you use additional fields, you must modify the code appropriately. Otherwise, the code will not work. Sorry, we cannot customize this code for free.

In either case, you may add or delete appropriate words to the filter in order to fully customize it for your needs. Just follow the syntax in the code with quotes and commas.

Overview of the Control Panel and Guestbook Server
All Options Described
Customizing Input Form and Output Templates
Experts: Global Variables and conditional "IF" Syntax
Examples of Input Forms and Output Templates
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Overview of the Control Panel

You can change your guestbook to anything you would like it to be, but before you start editing your templates you should understand the basics of HTML and the idea of creating a document on the fly.

Your guestbook html is created new each time somebody posts a message in your guestbook or you change the templates or options in your guestbook control panel. Your database together with your setup file provide the information to this process. So if either one is updated, your HTML File must change, too.
The advantage of this setup is that you have the input form section ("Sign my Guestbook") and your guestbook entries listing ("View my Guestbook") in one document and your actual guestbook consists of one or more HTML files versus a database program, boosting speed and reliability.

Since your setup file is separate from your database file, you can change your template as you wish without affecting the data of entries posted. You have full flexibility with this method. You can, for example, have a field "Where are from" in your input form, and not display it in the listing of posted messages. The data that is provided for this field will be saved in your database and forwarded to you by e-mail (if you selected the option), but it would only be displayed if you include it in the Output Template. You can switch between displaying it and not displaying it without affecting the data that is there.

Besides the four general fields (Name, E-Mail, URL, Comments) you have the option to define 10 fields for yourself. Now it gets tricky: Once you define a certain field (Let's say field #1 is "Where are you from"), the data people post will be saved as field #1 in your database. If you ever decide that you don't want "Where are you from" anymore, the data people posted will still remain in your database as field #1. You don't need to display it but it is there, so you can't just switch and make field#1 "How Did You Find Us?". Editing your templates is not as hard as you may think, just look at the samples. Your templates are already created in the registration process (dependent on the layout you chose), so you just need to edit them. You can also easily copy and paste the samples into the fields in your control panel.

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All Options described

The Color Control Panel:
Customize Guestbook Layout and Info: Entries Modify/Delete and Reply

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Customizing Input Form and Output Templates



Input Form -- ** Beginners & Intermediate ** --



Input Form -- ** Experts ** --


Option boxes
Sample Output:

HTML for Input Form:




Text-Areas
Sample Output:

HTML for Input Form:




Option Toggles
Sample Output:

HTML for Input Form:




Check Boxes
Sample Output:

HTML for Input Form:

In all the examples I used the fields "xfield5" or "xfield6" to store the data. You can choose any of the ten "xfield" fields but for future versions of the control panel, we plan on implementing statistical analysis for your guestbook database. That is a listing of how often a certain option was chosen. This obviously doesn't work with text or textarea fields, so this analysis will be based on the fields "xfield4" through "xfield10". Therefore, choose a lower "xfield" than 4 for text boxes and textareas, and 4 through 10 for option boxes, toggles, and check boxes

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Entries Output Template -- Beginner and Intermediate --




Entries Output Template -- ** Expert ** --

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Experts: Global Variables and Conditional "IF" Syntax

Global Variables



Cut & Paste Examples of Input Form/Output Template

KB Guestbook Standard Layout (See Demo)

Input Form HTML:

    <font face="ARIAL">
    Your Name:
    <br>
    <input type=text name=name size=30 value=""><Br>
    Your E-mail Address:<Br>
    <input type=text name=email size=40 value=""><Br>
    Your Homepage Address:<Br>
    <input type=text name=url size=40 max=50 value="http://"><Br>
    Your Comments (Sorry, no HTML Tags):
    <Br>
    <textarea name=comments COLS=60 ROWS=4></textarea><p>
    <input type=submit name= "submit" value="Submit Entry">
    </font>
    
Entries Output Template:
    
    <font face="ARIAL">
      <_DATE> <BR>
      <strong> <_NAME> </strong> <_HYPER_EMAIL> <Br>
      <<_HYPER_URL>>
      <<_COMMENTS>>
    </font>
    



KB Guestbook Enhanced Layout #1 (See Demo)

Input Form HTML:

    <center>
    <table border width=600>
      <tr>
        <th>Grade</th><th>Content</th><th>Speed</th>
        <th>Graphics</th><th>Visit</th><th>Return</th>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td align=center>
          <SELECT NAME="xfield5" SIZE=1>
          <OPTION SELECTED>A<OPTION>B<OPTION>C<OPTION>D<OPTION>F</SELECT>
        </td>
        <td align=center>
          <SELECT NAME="xfield6" SIZE=1>
          <OPTION SELECTED>+++<OPTION>++ -<OPTION>+ - -<OPTION>- - -</SELECT>
        </td>
        <td align=center>
          <SELECT NAME="xfield7" SIZE=1>
          <OPTION SELECTED>Fast<OPTION>O.K.<OPTION>Sluggish</SELECT>
        </td>
        <td align=center>
          <SELECT NAME="xfield8" SIZE=1>
          <OPTION SELECTED>Perfect!<OPTION>Needs More<OPTION>Too much</SELECT>
        </td>
        <td align=center>
          <SELECT NAME="xfield9" SIZE=1><OPTION>1 min<OPTION>5 min
            <OPTION SELECTED>10 min<OPTION>20+ min</SELECT>
        </td>
        <td align=center>
          <SELECT NAME="xfield10" SIZE=1>
            <OPTION SELECTED>Yes!<OPTION>Maybe<OPTION>No</SELECT>
        </td>
      </tr>
    </table><Br>
    </center>
    <font face="ARIAL">
      Your Name: <BR>
      <input type=text name=name size=30 value=""><Br>
      Your E-mail Address: <BR>
      <input type=text name=email size=40 value=""><Br>
      Your Homepage Address: <BR>
      <input type=text name=url size=40 max=50 value="http://"><Br>
      How did you find us: 
      <select name=xfield4 size ="1">
        <OPTION>Just Surfed Around
        <OPTION>Yahoo Search
        <OPTION>Friend
        <OPTION>Other...
      </SELECT><BR>
      Where are you from: 
        <input type=text name=xfield1 size=30 max=50 value=""><Br>
      Your Comments (Sorry, no HTML Tags):<Br>
      <textarea name=comments COLS=60 ROWS=4></textarea><p>
      </font>
    <input type=submit name= "submit" value="Submit Entry">
    
Entries Output Template:
    <center>
    <table border=1 width=600>
      <TR>
        <th>Grade</th> <th>Content</th><th>Speed</th>
        <th>Graphics</th><th>Visited</th><th>Return</th><th>Referred by</th>
      </TR>
      <TR>
        <TD><_XFIELD5></td><td><_XFIELD6></td><td><_XFIELD7></td>
        <td><_XFIELD8></td><td><_XFIELD9></td><td><_XFIELD10></td>
        <td><_XFIELD4></td>
      </tr>
    </table>
    </center><BR>
    <font face="ARIAL">
      <_DATE> <BR>
      <strong> <_NAME> </strong> <_HYPER_EMAIL> from <_XFIELD1><BR>
      <<_HYPER_URL>>
      <<_COMMENTS>>
    </font>
    

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