How to Create a Web Guestbook
A guestbook is a great way to give the visitors to your website a way to interact by posting messages to one another. To create a guestbook, you would need to learn a programming language, such as PHP, and have an understanding of how to create a database in SQL. Since this can take quite a bit of time, you can opt to download a premade guestbook script for your website. The readymade script used here will allow you to modify the file so you will get some exposure to how the programming language works while getting a guestbook up and running.
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Instructions
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Download the guestbook script (Resource 1). Using a text editor like Notepad, open the file named index.php included in the download. Change the variables to make the guestbook more your own. The instructions included in the download will help you make changes to the color scheme, the title and other aspects that help coordinate the guestbook with the look of your website. Make sure to save your changes.
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Using your FTP program, create a directory on your web server named guestbook and upload the index.php file and the gbook.dat file, which is the data file that powers the script.
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Using the FTP program, change the permissions on the data file so that they are writable. If users cannot write to this file, you will get a permission error when someone tries to sign the guestbook. If you are using a UNIX or GNU/Linux web server, the permissions should be set to 666 (Reference 2).
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Upload all the images from the download, the .gif files, to the same guestbook directory. Once you are done, disconnect your FTP program from your web server and test your guestbook. If you have any problems, make sure the path is set correctly in your website and the permissions are set correctly.
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Tips & Warnings
Use ASCII mode to upload the index.php and gbook.dat files to your web server.
Use Binary mode to upload the .gif images to your web server.
