GuitarAngel.net

Ready to jump in head first into the craze that is Guestblock? It was a little bit troublesome to install, just because of the open source packages (PEAR and Smarty) that you need to get it up and running. Luckily, I finally figured it out and am here to help anyone who needs it. Let’s broaden our GB community! :D

Requirements

Make sure you have the following available to you on your server:

• PHP 4.0.6 or later
• MySQL
• SMARTY template engine
• PEAR DB Package
• Support for PHP sessions
• Cookies should be enabled

Installing

Follow these steps to install the script:

1. Download all three zip files from http://www.guestblock.com

2. Unzip the guestblock.zip file to a folder on your computer.

3. Upload all the files you get into a directory on your site, like yoursite.com/guestblock/ or something.

4. Navigate to the install file, which should be yoursite.com/guestblock/install/index.php.

5. This starts you on the walkthrough to installing GB.

Other Notes

Unless PEAR and Smarty came with your hosting package, you may need to install them. Luckily they are available on the web for public download: PEAR and Smarty.

Smarty is easy, however you must upload it outside of your public_html folder, or whatever folder houses your public web files. That is very important. And during installation it will ask you for the path to this directory…so it would be like /home/username/smarty/.

PEAR is a little bit more troublesome. I actually got my host to install it for me because it wasn’t working for me with installing it myself. So unless you really feel comfortable messing with it (or you already have it installed) get your host to do it for you.

However, make sure that the installation has the DB package included with it, otherwise it won’t work. Just tell your host to include the DB package. You will also need to give the installation path as well. If your host installs PEAR for you, they should give you the path.

Those two package installs are all that really make it hard. After that its cake! The last zip file contains ALL the official blocks that exist, hehe. Once you get GB installed, upload everything inside the zip into the /guestblock/blocks/ directory and you should be good to go. You must use the import feature to include the blocks on your GB, you will see what I mean when you get it installed.

Lastly, to configure the look and feel of your Guestblock, just edit the index.php file in the main folder, as well as default.css and guestblock.css in the /css/ folder! The CSS is a little jumbled but not too mind boggling to configure. :) Good luck!

I'm trying to locate the files for Guestblock so I can offer them for download here, as the original site to download them no longer exists. I've edited the heck out of mine so they may not be good to upload. If anyone has copies of the clean files let me know! :)

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