Those pages will describe the guestbook in detail, how the different parts belong to each other and how they work together.
If you fail with your own design you can always go back to a template, but remember that all your work will be lost during that action.
This helpsection is divided in three parts, first an overview over the parts, then a little "form"-course and at last a few hints.
The Parts of the Guestbook
the guestbook is made out of several parts which together will form one unit. When you are logged in you got a menu at your left where you can choose which part to design or change. Under every section there is a help link where you see which "special-tags" (more about those later) you can use and sometimes a small example.
MAIN
This is your main document. Build your document exactly as you want it and add our special tags later for full functionality.
POSTS
This is the template for your posts. You design ONE post, this code will be repeated for every message. The messages will later be placed somewhere in the middle of your maindocument.
PRIVATE POSTS
This is the template for private posts. It works just the same as for the posts. You might alter the code a bit otherwise there is not much privacy...
FORM
The form - or the inputfields used to enter new messages - is placed under its own header - "Form". All fields are collected here and can later be included in your guestbook in the beginning or in the end of the guestbook. It is also possible to place your form on a seperate page!
When you make your own forms it starts with a form-tag containing "method" and "action",
in the guestbook this tag is replaced with <%form%> only. The form is closed as normal with </form>.
THANKPAGE
This page is built as a normal HTML-document.
The thankpage is page that will be shown to the user (if you say so) when he or she posts a message. You have to activate this function under preferences.
We have tried to split the guestbook in logical parts. After a short period of testing we hope you'll understand how to navigate between the parts.
How to do it?
There are different ways to be succesful with your guestbook. Some prefer to build the complete design in an editor (without function) for later cut and paste. The problem with this approach is to identify which code to place where.
Others build directly in the administration. Keep consentrated if you are working with several nested tables...
If you only want to do minor changes it is definitely recommended to start with one of our templates and modify it.
How to make a guestbook of all this?
The only way for your guests to leave a message in your book is to use forms. In the next section of this help we will describe how to use forms, but we start with an example here to illustrate what we mean with a "special tag". The special tags are used to store and show the information you have choosed. Which tags to use and where to use them will be found when you have logged in.
The field where your guest will enter their namn may look like this: form>
The code behind this field look like this:
<input type="text" name="name" length="5">
The variable "name" will store the name of your visitor. To show the name later in the post-layout you must include the special
tag ayouten <%name%>. A good approach to see how things works is to study our templates. All special tags returns text, this means that you can use any formatting you like, from styles to old-fashined <b>-tags. Try it out for yourself.
