Postcards From The Net

Send simple picture postcards from your web site.


Description

There are a number of more sophisticated postcard programs out there. This does not try to be fancier than those, but is just a simple package that anyone can set up quickly and easily on their web site to send picture postcards to other people.

You'll need some pictures, and some basic HTML editing skills, to get this going. You'll also need to be able to install some Perl modules, or follow basic instructions.


Installation

Because this is not intended to be a slick shrink-wrap software package, installation will take several steps. Pay close attention, and don't skip any steps.


Install necessary Perl modules

There are several Perl modules that are needed to run this software Those modules are:

        CGI_Lite
        Text::Template
        IniConf
        Mail::Sendmail

These modules are available on Windows, as well as on Unix. If you don't know how to install Perl modules, or do not have the necessary priveledges to install Perl modules, please see the supplemental documentation on my web site at http://www.rcbowen.com/products/postcards/


Edit configuration

All configuration is in one ini-style configuration file. You will need to make the following edits in order to get this going

  1. Set location of ini file in postcard.pl Edit the second line of postcard.pl to make it point to the correct location for the postcard.ini file. On most Unix systems, it will not be necessary to change the value that is already there. On NT, if you are running Apache, you should not need to change the value that is there. If you are running IIS, you will probably need to make this a full path to the location of the ini file. This will look something like:

            my $inifile = "c:/inetpub/scripts/postcards/postcards.ini";
    

    Yes, those are forward slashes, not backslashes.

  2. Set location if ini file in expire.pl Since expire.pl is usually run by a cron process, you should put the full path to the location of the ini file, no matter what platform you are running on.

  3. Set configuration options in the ini file postcard.ini is an ordinary configuration file. Set each item to the correct value for your system


Get some images

You can download some sample images from my web site (address above), or you can use your own images. Just get a bunch of them, and put them somewhere on your web site, all in the same directory.


Edit the HTML pages

This is where your creativity comes into play. The HTML pages that I have supplied are just bare-bones templates for you to work with. They contain variables, which will be filled in when someone accesses the site. Make sure you make a backup copy of the files before you start changing them, in case you break it, and want to go back to something that works.


File you must edit

You have to edit postcard.html. This is the main front end to the postcard software, and you will need to edit it to point at your images, and at the correct location for the CGI programs. The main feature of this page is a form allowing users to select images to appear on their postcards.


Files you don't have to edit, but you can if you want to

All of the other HTML files can be edited to reflect the personality of your site. They should work as is, but there are some links in them that might not point to the correct locations on your site.


Add additional image lists

postcard.html is an example of what a postcard creation form looks like. In addition to that one, you can have as many other creation forms as you like. This will allow you to have multiple lists of images for users to choose from. postcard.html needs to stay in the CGI directory, with the other files from this distribution, but you can put other postcard creation forms anywhere on your site, as long as the form action points at the correct location for the CGI programs.


File permissions

Cards will be written to the file cardfile. Make sure that file is world-writeable, so that the web server process can write new cards to that file. You should consider moving that cardfile somewhere outside the web directory. If you have it in the web directory, there is a chance that someone could download the file and read other people's postcards.


Give it a shot

Point a browser at http://your.server/cgi-bin/postcards/postcard.pl - or wherever you have put this on your server - and see what it does.

I expect I've left out some details in this brief documentation. If you have any questions, let me know - <rbowen@rcbowen.com>


Author

This was written by Rich Bowen. It is based on an idea I saw on the Budweiser web site back in 1993.

If you like this software, please send me a postcard - a real one! You can send it to:

        Postcards From The Net
        RCBowen.com
        3864 Grassy Creek Drive
        Lexington, KY, 40514, USA

Please include a email address, and a URL where I can see your postcards.

Thanks