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.

    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.

    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.

    `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

