Geez! I wanted to put a simple (I thought) epostcard page on my site. Nothing too fancy. Just pick one of maybe ten images, add a short message and send to the recipient. So, I went on a lazy kind of slow search to find something easy to use to make it. (I've been kind of halfway looking for a few days.) So, tonight I downloaded a couple of freeware scripts to try and just looking at the "how to" pages I suddenly see how little I know about what I'm doing! Ugh. Is there a place that explains this script stuff to simple Moms with hobby websites?

Thanks!
-Bonnie
bpgisme.com

Not really. Most every script is different so there is going to be steps that each one wants you to perform. Think of them as hoops, some of them are flaming, you have to jump through all of them to make things work. Actually, most are not that hard. If you have a favorite of the ones you found, I'd be happy to look at it, set it up see how it works then give you some easy to follow directions on how to set it up.

Jason

Thanks Jason. I think the creator tried to do just that, but he probably didn't expect someone as useless at this stuff as me to want to use it. Here's the page I got it from:
http://www.gregphoto.net/gcards/index.php
His sample was really just about what I was looking for:
http://www.gregphoto.net/ecards1/
I just wanted something simple that I could add my own art to so folks could send postcards. I downloaded it because he claimed it's easy to use and then, once I opened the zip file, the first thing I did was go to the help file to read what to do. This is what it said:

gCards Installation

1. Download the latest gCards version from the official site
2. Create a database to hold the gCards database tables (or use an existing database)
3. Open the config.php and change the values to reflect your database connection properties and your gCards options
4. If PHP's mail functions don't work on your server, change the mail settings for gCards in config_email.php
5. Upload the files to your web server
6. Browse to the setup.php file and choose to do a new install - this will create the database tables and create an admin user. If there are errors creating the tables then your database information is probably incorrect - fix it in the config.php and try again
7. CHMOD the 'images' and 'sound' directories to '777' to allow image/sound uploads and modification
8. Delete setup.php or CHMOD it to '000' so that it cannot be accessed
9. Login to the gCards Administration Console with the user: 'admin' password: 'admin'. You can access the login page at login.php
10. Click the 'Change Password' link in the upper right to change the admin password
11. Add a Category using the 'Category Maintenance' link in the gCards Administration Console
12. Add a new Card using the 'Card Maintenance' link in the gCards Administration Console
13. Click the link in the bottom right to go to the index page of gCards - you're new Card should show up here!
14. Done!!!


I know this is the sort of thing that Fantastico does automatically. And maybe it's not as hard as I think it is, but my son is driving me batty so it's making concentration impossible. (He's autistic and he keeps handing me objects while I'm sitting here.)

Anyway, I'll come back in a little bit after I get him to bed and then I'll have another go at it.

If you know of something better or easier to use please let me know. I just really wanted something very basic. This idea is kind of an experiment.

Thanks!
-Bonnie

Just so you know bonnie you are not alone in your php deficient boat. I am paddling right next to you.

And Jason that so much for all your help. I will be learning from this post as well. You are truely an asset to the web programming society.

Should all be pretty simple... lets see here...

1) Open Cpanel
2) Click MySql Databases
3) Scroll down to users, add a new username/password (gcards/somepass) Click "Add User"
4) above that type in a a new database name (gcards) Click "Add Db"
5) above the Db: box, you should see a bunch of check boxes etc, where it says "User:" select the username_gcards and on "Db:" select the username_gcards database, then Click "Add User to Db" below that.
6) That was the hardest part, relax
7) upload the files from the gcards archive to a folder in your webspace
8) edit the config.php file acording to his directions. It has comments inside it telling you which things mean what etc... Big things to get edited are the username/pass/database stuff so it can connect. For the database, don't forget that cpanel makes databases with your username_databasename ... so for the username it will be something like bpgisme_gcards and the database might be bpgisme_gcards ...

Ok, so you set the config options, upload the config.php that you edited... now...

9) In your browser goto yourwebsite.com/gcards/setup.php (wherever you uploaded the script)
10) choose new install
11) everything should be green, it should have directions at the bottom follow them...
CHMOD the 'images' and 'sound' folders to '777' if you have not already done so
Login to the administration console (what it doesnt tell you is the username/password to use... you need to use:
Username: admin
Password: admin

Remove the setup.php file from the server, and it should be installed... at that point you just need to make the categories, and set the other web based options...



Well... all is not good.. once its up and running, and you setup some samples etc, there will be an error.. there is a way to fix it, but its not fixed in the code you download from his site... So after doing all the above, edit the setup.php file you have on your pc... find the text:

and replace it with


Then re-run setup.php choose upgrade from 1.3, and all should be fine then... remove setup.php from the server again...
There is a bug in his coding and it didnt creat the table correctly. No biggie, just annoying.

Jason

BTW, you can see it in action @ pr0ntab.com/bonnie/gcards

And if all that seems too hard, you can always PM me your username/password to Cpanel and I'll do it for you... :wink wink:

Seriously, don't send me your user/pass, it was a joke. It should be pretty simple, if you are online and use AIM/ICQ/MSN I'd be happy to help you in realtime via IM... just pm me your contact.

Jason

WHEW! Thanks Jason! Okay... Well.... I'll give it a go on my own first and if I panic and can't handle it, I'll be back.

Thanks for the encouraging words MicahR79!
Hey, whatever we learn from trying makes us smarter, right?

Thanks again Jason! I'll try to mess with it a bit now, but it's getting closer to 3am all the time and I may have to work on it in full force tomorrow morning.

-Bonnie

Well, I'm 15 minutes late for bed, but I got it all set up. I'll add my art and music and stuff and put a link up here for you guys to see it tomorrow. Hey, thanks so much Jason. Those directions were perfect!

-Bonnie

Darn. I hate it when I can't figure something out. Okay. I got the site up and running (except I can't seem to get the new modified shadows to work yet) but the email isn't php apparently and I don't know how to change the config_email.php file.

Here's the site thus far: http://bpgisme.com/gcards/index.php

Any advice? Sorry to bug you again Jason.

I'm afraid of breaking something!

-Bonnie

Oh geez.... Duh. Dumb mistake. Fixed it. Sorry.

Good thing I'm not doing this for a living....

So everything is working OK now? Good...

Jason

Yep! Thanks again for your help! I got it all working and I fixed the shadow too.

Thanks so much!
-Bonnie

It looks and works great. Great sucess.

Thank you!