Mitch's Guest Book Installation Instructions

Step-by-step Installation Tutorial (Flash Player Required)

Installation Overview

Installation requires that you have authorization to update files and MySQL databases on your Web site. No MySQL education is needed but understanding how to transfer files to a Web server is required.

Installation involves:

1) Unpack the programs into a folder on your PC's hard drive.
2) Upload the programs into a directory on your Web server.
3) Install the databases and database controls.
4) Integrate Video Gallery Pro into your Web site.

Upload the Mitch's Guest Book programs to your Web site

These files can be uploaded to any directory on your Web site. You may want to create a separate directory/folder for Mitch's Guest Book but it is not required. The default folder for PCs is C:/Program Files/Mitch's Guest Book. After the files are installed you will need to set the following permissions:

1) Allow writes to the config.lib.php file in the config folder/directory, this will only be needed during installation.

Install the databases and database controls

1) Open your browser and enter: domain name/Mitch's Guest Book directory/install.php. Your domain name will be similar to www.sizzlingwebdesign.com. Substitute "Mitch's Guest Book directory" for the directory name where Mitch's Guest Book is installed or just use domain name/install.php if it is installed in the root directory.
2) The Mitch's Guest Book database installer will prompt you for a User Id and Password, this User must have administrative privileges on the Web site.

If you have full administrative authority, "root" authority, on the Web server, the install program will complete all steps needed for the database installation and database controls installation.

If the Web site is on a shared server or write permission was not valid on the config.lib.php file, then there maybe a few additional manual steps. These steps are detailed by the installation program but only involve manually copying a few lines into the config.lib.php files and/or updating a few database permissions.

If for some reason the database installation program does not run on your server or you choose not to use it, the following are the steps needed to complete a manual database installation:

Note: If you are only allowed one database and one database user, skip to step 6 and enter the appropriate values for your database, user and password.
1) Logon to the cPanel for your web site.
2) Locate 'MySQL', 'MySQL Account Maintenance', or 'Manage MySQL'. Click on that item. You should see a page with a heading of 'MySQL Account Maintenance'.
3) At the bottom of the Database section you will see "Db:" followed by an input area, followed by a button labelled "Add Db". Enter "mgbdb1" without the quotes in the input area, then press the "Add Db" button. A Database will likely be created with your User Id followed by "_mgbdb1". Press "Go Back" to return to the "MySQL Account Maintenance" page. 3) Locate the section of the page titled 'Users'.
4) Enter these exactly. For UserName enter "mgbdb1" without the quotes and for Password enter a password. Passwords of letters and numbers and at least 8 digits are recommended. Write down this password. Press 'Enter'. Then 'Go Back'
5) Just above the User area. Select in the dropdown box User, select the database and user you just created, ending in "mgbdb1" from the dropdown boxes. Press 'Add User to Db' and then "Go Back".
6) Locate the config.lib.php file in the config folder on your hard drive in the Mitch's Guest Book folder. Open the file with Notepad, usually this is the default editor for php files.
7) Update the following values:
Change "sizzlin" to the User Id that was used for the database installation for the values that follow C_DB_NAME and C_DB_USER.
Change "mypassword" to the password you entered in step #4 above.
8) On the File menu, choose Save.
9) FTP or otherwise transfer this file to your Web server replacing the existing file.
10) Point your browser to the installsql.php file in your Mitch's Guest Book directory. You should see a count of the SQL statements that were run.

Regardless of which implementation method is used. It is recommended that you change the config.lib.php file access permissions to read only access after the database installation is completed.

Integrate Mitch's Guest Book into your Web site

guestbookpage.php is a sample guestbook implementation. It is important that your page have an extension of .php, that you either use the stylesheet provided, guestbook.css, or include the definitions in your own stylesheet, and use the sample php statements in your web page where you want the guest page to appear. config.lib.php and guestbook.css contain comments about how to customize Mitch's Guest Book.