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The installation instructions that follow are for the BV
News Standard edition. The installation steps for
BV News Pro are pretty
much identical and are included in the readme.doc file that comes
in the zip download.
INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
We have tried to make the following installation guide
as clear, thorough and unambiguous as possible. For this reason
the instructions may appear rather lengthy and daunting if you are
not familiar with perl script installation. However it is straightforward.
For those familiar with script installation many of the following
instructions will be unnecessary.
INSTALLATION ON WEB SERVER
Any
Unix based web server with cgi access supporting Perl 5 or higher
will do. You don’t have to worry about what perl modules have been
installed or anything like that. All functionality is built into
the single script.
Using WS_FTP or any other ftp software, simply upload the bvnews.pl
file to the cgi-bin directory and change the file permission to
755.
Make sure you upload the file in ASCII format.Some
web servers require you to name your files with a *.cgi extension
rather than *.pl. If this is the case then simply change the file
extension from bvnews.pl to bvnews.cgi.
Easy. Oh,
one more thing … you may have to change the very first line
of the script [#!/bin/perl5 in our script] to match the set up on
your server. If you’re not sure, check through the support
section on your ISP/web hoster’s site, or email them.
SET UP VARIABLES
You
will need to configure the set up variables section of the script
to match your web space.
Most web hosting companies / ISP’s normally have a good help
section that will assist you in setting up these variables.
It is very easy; what you need is basically three bits of information;
the ‘server path’ to your home directory, the web url
of your home directory and the web url of your cgi-bin directory.
The first batch of setup variables below need the ‘server
path’.
The example ‘server path’ we have used below is:
"/docs/www.mysite.com/
You will need to find the actual server path to your webspace. It
might look nothing like the example we have given. It really depends
on how your hoster’s server is set up, for example your server
path could look something more like /root/home/fredbloggs/ …
it really depends and you’ll have to check.
Assuming that you’ve now sussed what your own ‘server
path’ is, we can get on configuring the variables [these are
close to the top of the perl script and are identified as such].
$storyfiledir =
"/docs/www.mysite.com/bvnews/";
This is the server path to the sub-directory that contains all the
text and javascript files created for your news database. So, for
example if your server path happened to be /docs/www.mysite.com/
then you would just add /bvnews/ [note the trailing slash]. We have
referred to this directory in the text that follows as the /bvnews
documents directory.
You also have to physically create this sub-directory using WS_FTP
or other ftp program. Also make sure the permissions are changed
to 777.
$catfile="/docs/www.mysite.com/bvnews/categories.txt";
Just add /bvnews/categories.txt to the server path.
$database="/docs/www.mysite.com/bvnews/database.txt";
Just add /bvnews/database.txt to the server path.
$storycountfile="/docs/www.mysite.com/bvnews/storycount.txt";
Just add /bvnews/storycount.txt to the server path.
$image_files_path="/docs/www.blueview.co.uk/bvnews/images/";
This is the path to the directory where your uploaded images (if
any) will be stored. Just add /bvnews/images/ to the server path
(and don’t forget the trailing / at the end!).
$imgdbase=
"/docs/www.blueview.co.uk/bvnews/imagedb.txt";
Just add /bvnews/imagedb.txt to the server path.
$homepagefile="/docs/www.mysite.com/bvnews/bvnewshomepage.js";
Just add /bvnews/bvnewshomepage.js to the server path.
$maincatindx =
/docs/www.mysite.com/bvnews/maincatindex.js";
Just add /bvnews/maincatindex.js to the server path.
$catcountfile =
"/docs/www.mysite.com/bvnews/catcount.txt";
Just add /bvnews/catcount.txt to the server path.
The second part of the variables setup section relates to variables
identified by means of your site’s web url. If you have your own
domain name then the url will obviously be http://www.yourdomain.com
;
however if you have a sub-domain, for example which is just web
space allocated by your isp, the form of the url might be something
like http://www.yourisp.com/homepages/fredbloggs . Either way, it
should be pretty easy to suss out.
$newsurl
= "http://www.mysite.com/bvnews/news.html?nid=";
Just add
/bvnews/news.html?nid= to your url. Be sure not to
forget the ?nid=
bit at the end.
$caturl = "http://www.mysite.com/bvnews/categories.html?cid=
"
Just add /bvnews/categories.html?cid= to the end of your url. Don’t
forget the ?cid= bit at the end.
$mainindexurl="http://www.mysite.com/bvnews/maincatindex.html"
Just add /bvnews/maincatindex.html to the end of your web url.
$main_cgi_url="http://www.mysite.com/cgi-bin/bvnews/bvnews.pl";
With this one you need to find out the url of your cgi-bin directory,
then add /bvnews/bvnews.pl to it [or /bvnews/bvnews.cgi if you had
to change the extension of the script].
You will also have to physically create this directory using WS_FTP
or similar. Make sure the permissions of the file are changed to
755.
$image_files_url
="http://www.mysite.com/bvnews/images/";
This is the web path to the directory where any uploaded images
will be stored. Just add /bvnews/images/ to your url and don’t
forget the slash on the end!Again, you will need to create this
url on your system using WS_FTP or any other ftp program. Chmod
the directory to 777.
PAGE LOOK VARIABLES
That’s
the ‘hard’ bit done. All we need to do now is configure
a few simple variables that affect how the news looks on your site.
It’s best to experiment a little with these values until you
get the best match with the overall look and feel of your particular
site.
The ‘Page Look Variables’ are towards the top of the
script and are identified as such.
$firstparalen = 150;
This is the length in characters of the first paragraph of a news
story as it appears on your news front page and in individual story
pages. We reckon 150 is about right, however a value anywhere between
75 and 300 would probably be OK. Whatever you do, don’t make
it zero.
$fface
= "Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif";
Set this variable to the font typeface you would like to use. Marry
it in with your own site design.
$linkcolour
= "gray";
This is the colour of text hyperlinks throughout the site. Set to
match your own site.
$hlcolour
= "#3333cc";
This sets the colour of the headline on individual story pages.
Note that rather than using ‘hex’ values like this,
you can use values like “blue” or “gray”.
$datecolour = "#666666";
This sets the colour of the date stamp for the story. The default
is a nice grey.
$bgcolour = "#cceeff";
This sets the background colour to the main story text on each story
page.
$linecolour
= "#3333cc";
This is the colour of the border on the table border on individual
story pages and the line that separates news headlines on the front
page. If you don’t want these lines to appear, just set the
colour to the background colour of the particular page.
$newstwidth
= "400";
This is the width of the table that contains the news story on each
individual story page. Change this value to fit in with your own
site design. We would recommend a value of between 350 and 800.
Not zero though!
$maxperpage
= 10;
This sets the maximum number of links on each news category index
page. We would recommend a value between 10 and 25. Again, make
sure it’s not zero.
$twidth
= "400";
This the width of the table that contains the headlines on your
news front page. Similar to $newstwidth above and value probably
should be the same.
$fpstories = 6;
This is the number of stories that appear on your news front page.
We’d recommend a value between 5 and 8. Please note the minimum
is 2.
$pagelen=25;
This is the number of story links that will appear, per page, in
the ‘Delete Stories’ section of the Admin system. Set
this to pretty much what you want, but we would recommend a value
between 25 and 100.
$houradjust=0;
Every story is date stamped and you can use this variable to adjust
the time that appears on stories to your own local time zone. This
can be useful if your server is located in a different time zone
to you, or for seasonal time adjustments, eg GMT to BST. As an example,
say the time that is appearing on posted news stories is two hours
ahead of what you want it to be then if you set $dateadjust to –2
it would make the time appear as you want it.
$mouse_over_colour="#C0C0C0";
This is the colour that appear when the mouse is hovered over headlines
on your news front page. Set the colour to blend in with your own
site design.
HTML FILES AND TXT FILES
Before
you start using BV News you need to create and upload a few simple
text and html files:
Text files:
First create three empty txt files called categories.txt,
database.txt
and imagedb.txt
respectively and upload them in ASCII format to the /bvnews documents
directory.
Alternatively you can just upload the three ready-made empty files
included in the zip package.
HTML files:
There are four html files that need to be considered here.
a. The news front page html file:
This file could either be the ‘home’ page of your website
or the front page of your news section. Either way all you have
to do is include the following code in the relevant position within
that page:
<script
language=javascript src=
"http://www.mysite.com/bvnews/bvnewshomepage.js">
</script> |
Don’t forget this is only an example. You’ll need to change the
‘www.mysite.com’ bit to refer to your own url.
What do we mean by ‘relevant position’? Well the position
where you want the news headlines to appear. The code above ‘sucks
in’ the headlines from a separate file and displays them in
the page.
For the technically minded, this javascript code works much like
ssi does, except of course that many isp’s and hosting companies
don’t allow ssi, but javascript is standard to all browsers.
b. Individual news story page:
Create an html file called news.html
and upload it to the /bvnews document directory (change permissions
to 777). Create the file to the same design as the rest of your
site and include the following code in chosen position:
<script
language="javascript"><!--
xa=location.href;
xx=xa.indexOf("nid") + 4;
xy=xa.length;
pagenum = xa.substring(xx,xy);
srce = "http://www.mysite.com/bvnews/"+pagenum+".js";
document.write('<script language=\"javascript\"
src=\"'+srce+'\"></script>');
// --></script>
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Again, you’ll need to change the ‘www.mysite.com’ bit to refer to
your own url. Be sure not to change anything else though.
What happens is that the code above sucks in the relevant news story
from a separate file.
c. The individual category html file:
Create an html file called categories.html. Create the file to the
same design as the rest of your site and include the following code
in chosen position:
<script
language="javascript"><!--
xa=location.href;
xx=xa.indexOf("cid") + 4;
xy=xa.length;
pagenum = xa.substring(xx,xy);
srce = "http://www.mysite.com/bvnews/"+pagenum+".js";
document.write('<script language=\"javascript\" src=\"'+srce+'\"></script>');
// --></script> |
Again, you’ll need to change the ‘www.mysite.com’ bit to refer to
your own url.
Be sure not to change anything else though.This page is used to
suck in the individual stories related to a particular category.
d. The News Main Index html file:
Create an html file call maincatindex.html and upload it to the
/bvnews document directory (change permissions to 777). Create the
file to the same design as the rest of your site and include the
following code in chosen position:
<script
language=javascript src="http://www.mysite.com/bvnews/maincatindex.js">
</script>
Again, you’ll need to change the ‘www.mysite.com’ bit to refer to
your own url.This html page is used to create and keep current the
main index file for the various categories of news.
Simple example html files of 1 – 4 above are included in the program
zip package. Either modify the examples or create your own including
the javascript code specified above.
SECURITY
The
script is not in itself password protected in any way. The best
method of security is to protect the cgi-bin directory in which
bvnews.pl is located [referred to in this example as http://www.mysite.com/cgi-bin/bvnews/]
using ‘htaccess’ protection.
There are many good tutorials on how to do this on the web, including
this one at Demon
Internet.
Again, this is easy to do and will only take five minutes but if
you don’t want to create the htaccess manually there is a free perl
utility script called Deadbolt
that will do the job for you.
Alternatively, you may choose not to password protect the script,
though this is not recommended.
The url to the news main admin page will, depending of course on
your site specific url, be:
http://www.mysite.com/cgi-bin/bvnews/bvnews.pl?task=mainmenu
It is unlikely that the casual intruder will stumble across your
news admin section by accident, but it’s possible that a malicious
individual with a modicum of knowledge could hack into your news
system and change or delete all your work.
Accordingly we would strongly recommend you implement htaccess security
just in case.
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