        ** card.cgi Virtual Greeting Card Generator **
                 ** Installion Instructions **
             Another Free Script by BigNoseBird.Com
##################################################################
  Consider this program in the Public Domain!                     
  It is distributed strictly as a learning aid and bignosebird.com
  disclaims all warranties- including but not limited to:         
  fitness for a particular purpose, merchantability, loss of      
  business, harm to your system, etc... ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR
  SYSTEM BEFORE INSTALLING ANY SCRIPT OR PROGRAM FROM ANY
  SOURCE!                          
##################################################################

WHAT THIS PROGRAM DOES.
This script allows you to provide a Virtual Greeting Card 
service to your site's visitors. It is a rather simple concept.
The goal is to allow a user to create a small HTML file and
e-mail a recipient the URL with as little input as possible.
The created files are named along the lines of:
Nov11-123 where Nov11 is November 11th, and 123 is the current
value in the ccounter file. This makes for easy purging.
ie,# rm Nov11*.html

HOW IT WORKS.
Once on the HTML page that contains the FORM that calls card.cgi
the user supplies:
   A Picture selection
   The Sender's name and e-mail address
   The Recipient's name and e-mail address
   Select the TEXT color
   Select the BACKGROUND color
   Provide a Title
   Provide a Message (body)
   Provide a Signature Line
These steps completed, the user may either preview or clear
the form. Assuming they preview, the script does the following.
   Reads the input from the submitted form
   Outputs back to the browser, HTML on the fly showing a 
     preview of the card. The user can then either SEND or
     edit the card.
When SEND is clicked, the script then
   Creates a new HTML file with a unique name
   Sends e-mail to the recipient explaining how to pick up the card
   Displays a confirmation screen to the user

WHAT IS CONTAINED IN THIS DISTRIBUTION?
This file, either in unix tar format or as a zip archive should
contain the following files:

README.TXT    Instructions
card.cgi      The Script
card.html     An example page with the FORM
babybird.jpg  example 175W X 250H Graphic
birthday.jpg  ""
getwell.jpg   ""
longbird.jpg  ""
turkey.jpg    ""
tnailbb.jpg   example 75W X 107H Thumbnail Graphic
tnailbt.jpg   ""
tnailgw.jpg   ""
tnaillb.jpg   ""
tnailtk.jpg   ""

HOW DO I INSTALL THIS PROGRAM?
Assuming you have some type of UNIX server and CGI permission,
just do the following.

1.) Create a subdirectory in your main HTML documents directory
    called "cards". use whatever means necessary to set the 
    permissions to 775. This means that using telnet you would give
    the command: chmod 775 card.cgi
       With FTP, use the command tool to set the unix permissions
       so that owner can read-write-execute, 
       group can read-write-execute,
       others can read-execute. 
2.) Upload all of the graphic files to the cards directory.
3.) Upload the card.html file to your main HTML directory.
4.) Upload the card.cgi program to your cgi-bin directory-
    making absolute certain that you:
    a) upload the file from your PC to the server as ASCII-
       NOT binary.
    b) use whatever means necessary to set the permissions
       to 755. This means that using telnet you would give
       the command: chmod 755 card.cgi
       With FTP, use the command tool to set the unix permissions
       so that owner can read-write-execute, group can read-execute,
       others can read-execute.
5.) Edit the card.cgi file so that the proper path and file names
    are at the top. Additionally, search for the string 
         BNB SAYS! for tips on customization of messages and
    such. Keep in mind that there are two fairly identical
    HTML sections of the card.cgi program regarding the preview.
    The reason they are duplicated for the most part is that you
    might want messages on the preview and the real card to differ.
6.) Edit the card.html file to meet your needs. Note: Until you 
    really have the hang of things, please do not change any
    variable or field names in the program or form.
7.) Create graphics to suite your needs. Okay, mine are corny,
    but they are cute in their own way. The sizes I used were
    250H X 175W for the actual size, and 107H X 75W for the
    thumbnails.

User instructions are of course written into the form itself!

Have fun and enjoy card.cgi. If you have any problems, please
first check that you uploaded the file as ASCII and that you
set the permissions properly.

Please let me know when you have it up and running so I can
see what you are doing with the script. I will of course add
a link from my site to yours.

Good luck!
Bruce

webmaster@bignosebird.com
http://bignosebird.com/





