board.pl


This is an easy to install and use message board like wwwboard, except with all the messages in a topic listed on the same page. UBB or ikonboard it ain't.

Requirements

• CGI-BIN access to run perl scripts
• HTML knowledge to modify the template file

Download

• board.zip [5kb]

Install

• [Optional] Create a directory for messages. (Each topic will generate a new, numbered file.)
• Edit board.pl's configuration variables.
• Modify template.html to look like whatever you want it to.
• Copy board.pl, template.html, and style.css to your cgi-bin directory (or a sub-directory).
• Copy index.dat to your seperate message directory (or if you chose not to make one, to the same directory as the last files.)
• On a unix server, chmod the permissions to 755.

Admin

• To remove messages or entire topics, simply type:
  [your_board's_url]?admin=on
  e.g. http://www.mydomain.com/cgi-bin/messageboard/board.pl?admin=on
• The board will appear as it normally does with checkboxes next to topics and messages, and a field for the admin password.

Sample

• https://www.gla55pak.com/cgi-bin/lameduckie/boardsample/board.pl

Troubleshooting

• On this server (NT), I had to specify paths to the message directory and template file absolutely instead of relatively. Not only that, but I had to specify them absolutely not from the root directory, but from the 'webroot' intermediate directory.
  
  $message_directory is now 'cgi-bin/lameduckie/boardsample/', and $template_file is now 'cgi-bin/lameduckie/boardsample/template.html'. You should not have to do these kind of contortions but you may depending on your setup.
• board.pl does spit out error messages in most cases, as well as when a user doesn't fill in a field.