Smart Guest Book 2.0 Installation

Installing Smart Guest Book for Access Database

A. Contents of the zip file

SmartGuestBook.mdb (Access Database) - found inside the database folder
5 Flash Interfaces : SmartGuestBook.swf, guestbookmulti1.swf, guestbookmulti2.swf, gliters.swf and booklike.swf
Flash files used in the Admin Panel : admin.swf
conn.asp - contains the connection string to your MS Access Database
guestbook.asp (ASP file used to show the Guest-Book in a pop-up window)
SmartGuestBookCode.asp (ASP file accessed by the .swf file)
scripts.js (Javascript code)
badwordfilter.txt (comma delimited bad words list)
CloseWindow.htm (to automatically close the window)
Admin Panel Functionality Files : 8 ASP files, 6 GIF images and a CSS styles file
Single Website EULA (End User License Agreement) - License.html
This Installation Guide - ReadMe.html

B. Quick Installation Steps

Important : Unzip (Extract) all the files to a folder called SmartGuestBook under your site root.
Very Important : Check if the MS Access Database SmartGuestBook.mdb is in the folder database under the SmartGuestBook folder. Now give this folder (database) write permission (If you don't know how to do this, please contact your site administrator).
Accessing the Administration Panel : To access your Smart Guest Book Administration Panel, Please go to http://your_website_url/SmartGuestBook/default.asp and login with the default UserName: administrator and Password : smartguestbook. Please make sure that you change the user name & password immediately (using the change login data facility) to prevent unauthorized entry. If you forget your user name & password, you will need to get into your database and view the table tblGuestBookAdmin to view it.
To place your Smart Guest Book inside one of your site pages or to place a link to it, log into the administration panel using the username and password, now click on the Interface Options link in the left menu, choose an appropriate interface and select the corresponding code displayed in the text box(es). Copy and paste it into your page code view.
Important Directions:
1. Change the path to the SWF file in the param tag named 'MOVIE' and embed tag 'src' value for a free/sub site.
2. CAUTION: Do not change any other part of the code in any other place as the guest-book will not function properly.
3. DO NOT place the code inside a form i.e., in between a pair of <form> </form> tags (since the guestbook add new entry page will not work).
The CloseWindow.htm page can be used to close any web page in your site. Use it if required by using a simple link as below.
<a href="/SmartGuestBook/CloseWindow.htm">Close</a>

C. Special Instructions for Free Sites, Sub Sites or Change in Database Location

If you don't have your own site (e.g. you have a free site under brinkster.com) or have a sub site (a site not directly under the site root folder) but one that allows you to upload an Access database, then to make your Smart Guest Book work you need to do the following steps.

Free Sites: Place the SmartGuestBook.mdb database file in the db folder under you root directory (there is no write permission for other directories on brinkster.com). If you are using some other free service place the database in the instructed database folder.
Sub Folder Site: If you were successful in giving write permission to the database folder you needn't do anything. If not please make sure you place the SmartGuestBook.mdb database file in a folder with write permission.
Change the path to your Database in the conn.asp page. Open the Code View of this page and you will immediately find the following lines clearly marked out for your convenience.

'----------- Start of Database connection string ----------

strDB="DRIVER={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};DBQ=" & Server.MapPath("/SmartGuestBook/database/SmartGuestBook.mdb") & ";DefaultDir=" & Server.MapPath(".") & ";DriverId=25;FIL=MS Access;MaxBufferSize=512;PageTimeout=5"

'----------- End of Database connection string ----------

Now replace /SmartGuestBook/database/SmartGuestBook.mdb with the new path to the database. For example: If we had a site called smartwebby with www.brinkster.com and the URL to this free site was http://www.brinkster.com/smartwebby/ plus the database file was under the db folder, then our new path would be : /smartwebby/db/SmartGuestBook.mdb

ll ASP files connecting to the MS Access database (4 files) use the above mentioned conn.asp file as an include file. Since the SmartGuestBook folder is no longer under the site root you need to change the path to the include file, else your Smart Guest Book will not work. To do this easily, just find and replace the code :  with . For example: For the above mentioned free site (smartwebby) under brinkster.com we will need to replace the include file code with : 
You can change the size of the batch being loaded into the guest-book each time by giving the value in the conn.asp file. You will find the default value of intSize=50. Please make sure that you give a multiple of 10.

Troubleshooting Smart Guest Book 2.0

If your Smart Guest Book is stuck i.e., just displaying the "loading guestbook entries" frame, then please check if the URL : http://Your_site_path/SmartGuestBook/SmartGuestBookCode.asp?size=50 is giving an error. If yes please recheck if you database folder is given write permission.
If you are upgrading from the free version of the SmartGuestBook and want to display existing guest-book entries, then please do the following. Open both the new and old database in MS Access 2000. Delete the new 'tblGuestBook' table (it will be empty). Now copy the old 'tblGuestBook' table and paste it in new database with the same name.
If your guestbook is still not working please check if your site supports ASP (Active Server Pages) and MS Access databases. If yes check if your installation steps were correct.
If you have any other problems please visit our FAQs page or email us (admin@smartwebby.com). Your suggestions and comments are always welcome :-)