1. Unzip the file and transfer to your server with the following

2. Chmod csNews.cgi to executable (chmod 755). Ask your server administrator for assistance if required.

4. Run csNews from your webrowser.

Example: http://www.mycompany.com/cgi-script/csNews/csNews.cgi

When the script is run for the first time, it goes into setup mode. The setup screen will appear where you can verify and modify the setup variables. Most of the time, there will be no need to modify any of these variables except the username and password variables. Those control access to the control panel and you can change then to anything you desire.

When you click the save button on the installation screen, it should automatically create a file called setup.cgi which will look something like:

$cgiurl = 'http://www.cgiscript.net/cgi-script/csNews';
$cgipath = '/www/vhosts/cgiscript.net/cgi-script/csNews';
$username='demo';
$password='demo';
1;

If you are installing csNews on a Windows based server, you will most likely have to manually enter the $cgipath variable. Also, when using a windows path you need to convert the backslashes to forward slashes. For example, if the path to the csNews directory is d:\inetpub\wwwroot\cgi-script\csNews the you would enter d:/inetpub/wwwroot/cgi-script/csNews as the $cgipath variable.

Note: If you keep returning to the setup screen then your webserver doesn't have the ability to write to your directories. If that is the case, a work-around is to chmod the csNews, newsdir, image_upload, and news_upload direcotries to 777.

Hint: Deleting the setup.cgi file that is automatically created when the script is first run will trigger the script to go back into setup mode.

Installing the script in your cgi-bin directory

Due to the limitations of cgi-bin directories, you'll need to create 2 directories when installing the script in the cgi-bin directory. One directory inside cgi-bin that will contain the script and a directory outside the cgi-bin directory where all the other files will reside. For example, in your cgi-bin directory upload the csNews.cgi and libs.cgi file in a csNews subdirectory.. i.e. cgi-bin/csNews

Create a directory outside your cgi-bin directory like cgi-script/csNews and upload the remaining files there. Take the default setup.cgi file that was created in the initial setup and add the following 2 variables:

$htmlpath = '/path/to/csNews/directory';
$htmlurl = 'http://www.yoursite.com/path/to/csNews/directory';

So, for example, your final setup.cgi file ( that should reside in your cgi-bin/csNews directory ) should look something like:

$htmlurl = 'http://www.cgiscript.net/cgi-script/CSNews';
$htmlpath = '/www/vhosts/cgiscript.net/cgi-script/csNews';
$cgiurl = 'http://www.cgiscript.net/cgi-bin/csNews';
$cgipath = '/www/vhosts/cgiscript.net/cgi-bin/csNews/';
$username='demo';
$password='demo';
1;

If you have any problems or questions with the installation, don't hesitate to email support@cgiscript.net. We also offer installation services.

1. Go to [root url]/csNews.cgi where [root url] is the location of the script.

Example: http://www.cgiscript.net/cgi-script/csNews/csNews.cgi

2. Click the 'login' button.

Template Editing

Every HTML page that is shipped with this script can be edited using your favorite HTML editor ( FrontPage, Dreamweaver, etc. ). The only thing you need to watch out for are the program calls that make the script work. All of these calls look similar to this: in(variable). You can manipulate the HTML files however you want, just maintain the integrity of the script. There are 4 templates that control the appearance of how the news items are displayed. They are:

t_news_line_even.htm : even rows in the news index category
t_news_line_odd.htm : odd rows in the news index category
t_news_body.htm : html that surrounds the odd rows and even rows
t_view.htm : full body template

Within these templates you can use the following fields:

Date of the News Item: in(date)
Location of News Item: in(Location)
Title of News Item: in(title)
Short Description of News Item: in(description)
Full Body of News Item: in(body)

Look at the default templates in the advanced settings for examples of how to insert these fields in your templates.

Adding News Items

To add a new news item item in the current selected database, simply click the 'Add News' button. Enter all the appropriate information in the fields. If you have Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 and up, the program has a built in html editor. To start up the editor, simply click the HTML Editor button next to any of the text area fields. To save the changes in the HTML Editor, click the icon in the toolbar that looks like a floppy disk. A help screen is also available for the html editor and is accessible via the help icon in the toolbar.

Once you have created a news item. You can edit, delete, or copy the item by clicking the appropriate button. You can also move selected files to different categories. By default, archive categories are automatically created for each category. To archive news items, select the appropriate files, select the appropriate archive in the dropdown box and click the 'Move' button.

To re-arrange the list of news items, simply select the new number in the dropdown box.

Advanced Settings

Email Options: By clicking the Display Send Email Link check box. A form will appear below each news item full view that gives users the ability to email the article. By checking the 'Save Email Addresses' checkbox, email address of both the send and recipient of the email will be save to a file when can then be viewed by clicking the 'View Saved Email Addresses' checkbox. The appearance of the email form can be modified by editing the t_email.htm file.

NOTE: This option is only available on UNIX based servers.

Popup Window Configuration: If you selected 'Popup Window' as the display option on the news item, these settings control the appearance of that popup. Select the desired options.

Security: There are 3 options for security. The first one is 'No Public Management'. With this option selected, only the username and password that is used to access the management area will be allow to administer this category. The second option is 'Anonymous Public Management'. With this option selected, anyone can add/delete/or modify items in this news category. The third option is 'Password Protected Public Manage'. This option allows you to specify users that have the ability to manage this particular category. To add users, enter a username and a password in the provided text area. Each username is on a single line and the usernames and passwords are separated by a colon. For example, to add the user bob with password secret, enter bob:secret on a single line.

Displaying News Databases

If you have any suggestions or ideas for a new innovative script please direct them to suggest@cgiscript.net. Thank you!