tReadingList Version 0.03 Beta README
Copyright 2001 Stephen G. Walizer aka Technomancer all rights reserved.
License |
This software is licensed under the GNU GPL. See the included file GPL for license details. |
Bug Reports |
Send bug reports or questions to sgw@node777.net |
About |
tReadingList is a set of PHP4 scripts designed to provide a list of books read, with commentary, for websites. The system uses HTML based templates to specify formatting of the reading list pages, providing complete control of page appearance to the webmaster. The system's backend is provided by a MySQL database, and support is included for generation of both a list of recent books read and a list of older books. Reading list HTML pages are only regenerated when changes are made to books, so end users suffer no delays caused by database access or parsing of scripting code. The most current version of tReadingList is available at http://node777.net/treadinglist.php. |
Requirements |
tReadingList requires a PHP version >= 4.03 and MySQL. |
Installation |
Installation of tReadingList consists of the following steps:
|
Configuration |
tReadingList is configured through an html-based configuration tool accessed from the Edit Configuration link in the tReadingList menu. The editor supports the following configuration options: MySql Settings
Template/Output Files
Subjects Configuration
Reading List Configuration
|
Data Import/Export |
tReadingList allows you to export your data for import into another tReadingList installation. To export your data make sure PHP has write permissions for the directory tReadingList is installed in. Once this is done simply click the Export DB Table Data link in the tReadingList menu. This will generate a script called trl_import.php which contains your database data and code to insert it into an existing tReadingList installation. To import your data into a new or existing tReadingList installation simply copy the trl_import.php file into the tReadingList install directory and click the Import DB Table Data link in the tReadingList menu. (If you are importing data into a new installation, be sure you have built your database tables using the Build DB Tables link in the tReadingList menu before trying to import.) |
Usage |
tReadingList is very easy to use. Simply load index.html in the treadinglist directory in a web browser and select the desired function. The main web page contains options to add books, edit existing books, mark books deleted, undelete deleted books, and purge deleted books. The only option that is not really self explanatory is purging deleted books. Deleted books are simply marked as deleted and left in the database, allowing them to be undeleted later. Selecting purge permanently removes all deleted books from the database. Generation of reading list and old reading list HTML files are performed automatically, as are moving books from new to old reading lists once the reading list page contains more than max_list_items set in trl_config.inc. For more information on trl_config.inc and on configuring tReadingList, see the Installation section of this document. A shortcut function for creating urls in reading list items is included. The function to do this has two formats, one with a target and one without: url(url,name,target); url(url,name); When using these functions they must be entered exactly as above. Do not place spaces between the arguments. To give a concrete example: This is a link to url(http://slashdot.org,Slashdot,_blank);, a linux news site. would be converted to This is a link to Slashdot, a linux news site. when the reading list page is created. In addition quotes can be used to include commas in url(); parameters. This is particularly useful when linking to sites like Wired, whose article urls include commas. For example: This is a link to a story on Wired: url("http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,45879,00.html",Story,_blank); would be converted to This is a link to a story on Wired: Story when the reading list page is created. |
Template Files |
Template files provide complete control of reading list generation. A tReadingList template is simply an HTML file which includes some custom tags. These custom tags are as follows:
The tReadingList package includes an example template file as readinglist.tmpl. |