Guesto - The Free PHP Guestbook / Shoutbox For Any Web-Site
What's Guesto?
Guesto is a PHP powered guestbook / shoutbox that you can install on your site. The outlook is simple, but very efficient and Guesto offers manyl features for normal users and the admin. See the demo to get a glimpse of what Guesto can do.
Main features:
efficient spam arresting features (partly under development)
IP banning
word filter / replacer
automatic updates (you don't need to download and install anything manually)
your webhost has to have at least PHP5 installed on their server
for automatic updates to work, you need to have curl enabled (many free webhosts have this disabled)
any web browser, where cookies and javascript are enabled
Demo
Documentation
Installing Guesto
Installing Guesto is very simple.
First you need to download the zip package with all the code.
Then you need to unzip the "guesto" -folder and upload it to your webhost.
Next you need to insert this iframe- code into the place, where you want the Guesto to be:
If you want to change the size of Guesto, you can change the "width" and "height" parameters to any value you want.
And you're done! From now on Guesto will automatically update itself when you click on the Check for updates- link in the admin panel.
Configurating admin access There is a built-in admin login panel inside Guesto, which you can use if you don't want to intergrate Guesto with your site's login-system (if you even have one). To set your password for Guesto's own admin login system, visit password.php after you have uploaded it to your website, but before you have installed the iframe code. Password.php will allow you to set a password, and after it has been set password.php will delete itself.
To login scroll all the way down in Guesto untill you see this icon: . Click on it, enter the password and click on "Login".
When integrating, first open up the "admin.php" file. See row 3, you can change that if- clause to anything you want. For example if($_COOKIE['loginuser'] == "John" && $_COOKIE['loginpw'] == "aheurbai"). Only change this if you know some PHP.
Using Guesto
For the user, using Guesto will be no problem. If his IP is not banned from Guesto, he must only fill in his name, message and click on "Post".
For the admin, though, it can be bit more tricky but when reading this short tutorial everything will probably be clear.
When you have logged in as an admin, you will see that next to each message there is a red cross () and a gray trash bin ().
Clicking the red cross will result in the IP getting banned, and the trash bin will delete the message.
Editing Settings
When clicking on the Edit Settings- link, a pop-up will be opened where you can see a list of settings and their values. When editing any settings, only change the part between the first " and last ".
Here follows a list of all settings explained and their possible values. Remember! You don't have to change any of these settings, especially if you don't understand what they are for.
state - this value can either be "open" or "closed". It determines if it's possible for other users than the admin to post messages to Guesto.
title - this can have be any text value (i.e. "Roberts Guestbook" or "Sam's Shoutbox"). It's the title of the Guesto.
ip length - this number determines the part of the IP shown in Guesto.
post label - the label text of the Post -button.
name label - the label text of the top name- field.
message label - the label text of the bottom message- field.
word filter - this can be either "on" or "off". When it's on, Guesto will filter any curse words into stars or replacement words (for customization, see "Editing banned words").
word replacer - can be "on" or "off". When on, Guesto will replace curse words with milder words that have a similar meaning, if a milder replacement word is determined for the curse word.
closed message - the message that will be shown to non-admin users when Guesto's state is closed.
banned message - the message that will be shown to banned users who try to post messages.
time format - this format corresponds to the PHP date function. ( j = day, n = month, Y = year, H = hour, i = minute, s = second. cASe SeNSiTivE!)
Remember to press the Update -button after doing your changes ;-)
Editing Banned IP's
When clicking on the Edit Banned IP's link, a pop-up will open up where you can add, remove and edit the banned ip's.
Every IP should be on it's own row for the filter to work. You can also add text comments to this file one per own row (i.e. "Spam Bots:", "Banned for 30 days:" etc.).
Editing Banned Words
This feature allows the admin to edit a list of words that will be turned into stars or replaced with another word.
Each word should be on it's own row for this feature to work, and if you want to replace a word with another just add a ">" pointing to the new word like this:
shit>poo
ass>behind
...
This list corresponds to the word filter and word replacer settings. If word filter is "on" and word replacer is "off" all words in the list will be turned to stars, no matter if they have a replacement word determined.
When word replacer is on, all words that have an alternative word will be replaced with one, and others will be turned to stars. If you're not sure what this actually does, just do some experimenting.
Editing outlook
Here you can edit the CSS- outlook code of Guesto. If you don't know what CSS is, don't change these settings.
Checking for updates
This pop-up window will tell you what version you are using and what the newest version is. If there is an update available you can download and install it by clicking on the "Download and install" -button. After this wait patiently for Guesto to update itself. Do not close the pop-up browser until it says "You can now close this window."
That would be all, but remember since this is a free project, I will not take responsibility for any harm that Guesto will cause, which it hopefully (and probably) won't ;-)
. Click on it, enter the password and click on "Login".
When integrating, first open up the "admin.php" file. See row 3, you can change that if- clause to anything you want. For example if($_COOKIE['loginuser'] == "John" && $_COOKIE['loginpw'] == "aheurbai").
) and a gray trash bin (
).