Skip to main content | Skip to menu | Shortcut keys

Site Navigation

PHP/MySQL Guestbook

Download the package here -

Demo of the guestbook

Contents of the README file -

INTRODUCTION - What? Another Guestbook program??
---------------------------------------------------
Yes, this is yet another PHP/MySQL based guestbook. There is nothing special about this application. I just wrote it to practice my PHP. The only thing that may differentiate this guestbook is that I have tried to keep the pages XHTML compliant and also accessible. No tables we used for layout purposes. Most of the look and feel can be controlled by simply changing the styles.


FEATURES
---------
1) XHTML compliant
2) Accessible (Section 508 compliance).
3) Basic Captcha type spam prevention.
4) Basic administration which allows you to view email and IP addresses and delete any unwanted message.
5) Easy to integrate into existing PHP/MySQL websites.
6) Simple and clean layout.
7) Automatically links to posters website when URL provided.
8) Strips HTML from posts to prevent malicious code insertion.


LIST OF FILES
--------------
       settings.inc
       styles.inc
       index.php
       post.php
       login.php
       external.png
       README
       TODO


SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
--------------------
       Working web server such as Apache and IIS.
       PHP 5.1 (may work with other versions)
       MySQL 5.0 (may work with other version)
       Access to a database in MySQL with create table permission.


INSTALLATION
-------------
Let's assume your website is http://example.com which serves files from /home/mimi/public_html/.

       1. Create a directory called 'guestbook' under /home/mimi/public_html/.
       2. Put all the files in the list above in this directory.
       3. Open settings.inc in a text editor and change the following values -
              a) $hostname - the server on which the MySQL server is running
              b) $username - your login for this database
              c) $password - your password
              d) $dbname - the name of the database to which you have write permissions
              e) $table - the name of the table in which you would like to store data
              f) $header - the template header for your guestbook
              g) $footer - the template footer for your guestbook
              h) $security_code - captcha security, type any random set of characters here
       4. Open http://example.com/guestbook/login.php in your browser.
       5. Use your database username and password to login. The guestbook table will be
        created on successful login if it does not already exist.

The header and footer can be static HTML or PHP includes. The header template is inserted on top of all guestbook pages and the footer at the bottom. Styles can be modified in the file styles.inc. external.png is a tiny icon displayed next to external links. You can replace this with anything you like.


LICENSE
--------
License agreements give me a headache. So this one is short.

DO WHATEVER YOU PLEASE WITH THIS SOFTWARE. USE, MODIFY, TAKE CREDIT, DEFAME -
WHATEVER ROCKS YOUR HYPOTHETICAL BOAT!


AUTHORS
--------
Sumit Birla (http://sumitbirla.com)