Oneliner v1.1 (2000-07-19)
Copyright (c) Stefan Pettersson, stefpet@algonet.se
More information at https://www.stefan-pettersson.nu/scripts/
Disclaimer: No guarantees are made, use this script at your own risk Oneliner is a kind of tiny message/chatboard. People may leave small messages on your site which then can be seen by others. The 10 (your choice) last entries are always displayed.
This package should include the following files:
- readme.txt – Installation instructions, Copyright, and more (this file).
- oneliner.pl – Configure the top of this file.
- index.html – Example page for the oneliner.
- archive.html – Example page for the archive.
Oneliner is free to use as long as you provide a link back to the Oneliner page somewhere near the oneliner on your site. See the index.html file in this package for an example. Thanks! This is all I ask in return for you to use this script for free…
Features
- Multiple content files
- Archiving
- Censoring
- Spam protection
- Very customizable look
Requirements
To be able to use Oneliner you must be able to install and run CGI-scripts made with Perl on your webserver. You must also be able to use SSI (Server Side Includes) in your html (or shtml) pages.
If you are unsure of any of this, ask your ISP/webhost or system administrator.
Setting up Oneliner
The first thing you must make sure, is that the first line in oneliner.pl is pointing to Perl on your webserver. By default it is:
#!/usr/bin/perl
This is usually correct, but if you get a strange error you know that this might be the problem. Another common path is #!/usr/local/bin/perl, or, just #!/bin/perl, however, your system administrator know about this.
Place the oneliner.pl file in the cgi-bin directory on your server (or where CGI-scripts may be executed). If you’re transfering the files via FTP, be sure to use ASCII because otherwise the linefeeds will be wrong. Set the file permissions of oneliner.pl:
chmod 755 oneliner.pl
You may do this from the system prompt if you’ve got telnet access to the server, otherwise you usually can do this thru your FTP-client.
In some cases it’s also required that you use chmod 777 on the directory where you choose to put the oneliner_incl.html file (which is written to by Oneliner).
Now to the important part, how to get the oneliners on your webpage. The scripts generates a file which consist of rows in a table (ie
..
).
This table part should then be included in a complete table head and foot on a HTML page together with a form.
Because it’s only the rows that is written to the file, it’s very easy to completely change to look of the output. You just change the HTML as usual.
Here is an example of how a oneliner may look like:
HTML START
<table border=”0″ cellspacing=”0″ cellpadding=”1″ bgcolor=”#303030″>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><!–#include virtual=”oneliners_incl.html”–>
<table border=”0″ cellspacing=”0″ cellpadding=”2″ bgcolor=”#000000″>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td colspan=”3″ align=”center”><span style=”font-family: tahoma, verdana, arial, geneva; font-size: xx-small;”>
<b>Oneliners</b>
</span></td>
<td colspan=”3″ valign=”middle”><span style=”font-family: tahoma, verdana, arial, geneva; font-size: xx-small;”>
msg: <input style=”font-family: tahoma,verdana; font-size: 10px;” maxlength=”70″ name=”msg” size=”24″ type=”text” />
who: <input style=”font-family: tahoma,verdana; font-size: 10px;” maxlength=”10″ name=”who” size=”7″ type=”text” />
<input style=”font-family: tahoma,verdana; font-size: 10px;” type=”submit” value=”leave msg” />
</span></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
HTML END
|
||||||
The important part is the SSI statement:
This line include the file with the messages. If you’ve specified any path or changed filename (see below) you must make sure that this SSI includes the correct file. If you’ve specified different files to save the messages in, this line should be modified to include the file of your choice.
Note that some servers may be configured to only allow SSI in files ending with the extension .shtml (instead of .html). In that case, simply rename the .html file.
This example is the one in the index.html file which included in this distribution. My suggestion is that you start making it work with that file, and then begin to customize.
The HTML file for the archive is similar, except that the form itself where a message is entered is removed.
Configuring Oneliner
You must configure Oneliner before you can use it. All changes are made at the top of the oneliner.pl file. Note that lines starting with a #-character in the Perl file is comments which are there to help you. Here are the following variables that you should change if they doesn’t already fit your system. A tip is to start out small with them minimum of changes and get that to work first, and then do all the major tweaking you want.
%files = (
’another’, ’../htdocs/scripts/oneliners_another_incl.html’,
’default’, ’../htdocs/scripts/oneliners_incl.html’
);
This is the file(s) where the messages will be written to, these files are the ones that should be included into a table on the HTML page. It’s important that you specify a valid path, the path is specific to your server and must be changed.
The first string is the identifier, in this example ”another” and ”default”, the second is the path. The reason you may specify more than one is because you may use the same script but have different content on different pages. Which content file that should be used is specified on the HTML page where the form is. Change the value of the following line to choose file:
In this case you may change value to value=”another” to use the other specified file. There is no limit how many files you may specify.
If no file is specified in the form, or a path for it in the script. The default file will automatically be used.
For those who wonders, it’s for security reasons you may not directly specify the actual filename within the HTML form.
Archiving
Archiving saves all entries in a file of it’s own, this nice if you want to keep track of everything that have ever been said in the oneliner. Archiving works the same way as the normal content in the oneliner, except that nothing gets deleted. The archive may then be included on a separate page that may be linked from the main oneliner for reference, or simply be kept on a secret place if you don’t want to make the archive public.
$enable_archiving = 1;
This is the line where you enable or disable the archiving feature.
1 (one) enables it, and 0 (zero) disables.
%archives = (
’another’, ’../htdocs/scripts/oneliners_another_archive_incl.html’,
’default’, ’../htdocs/scripts/oneliners_archive_incl.html’
);
This is exactly like the %files part you specified (mentioned above) before. However, this is the location of the archive files. For each file in the %files section, a archive must also be specified.
Censoring
With censoring enabled, a submitted entry will be checked to not contain any bad words (of your choice). If a bad word is found, it may either be scrambled and then accepted, or the user will be redirected to a new page, or simply nothing will happen (the entry is ignored).
$enable_censor = 1;
This is the line where you enable or disable the censoring feature.
1 (one) enables it, and 0 (zero) disables.
@badwords = (
’shit’,
’piss off’,
’fuck’
);
This is where you specify the list of words considered ”bad”. I leave it to you to go crazy coming up with bad words to put in the list. 🙂
$enable_scrambling = 1;
Enable (1) or disable (0) scrambling of bad words. Scrambling means that a bad word is replaced by a string of your choice, and then submitted to the oneliner. This way entries with bad words isn’t rejected, instead just the bad word is replaced.
$scramble_string = ’<censored>’;
The string that will replace and detected bad words. This may simply be a star ’*’ or something more extensive like the HTML in the example. The example replaces all bad words with the string ” in red.
$enable_censor_redirection = 0;
Enable (1) or disable (0) redirection to another page when a bad word is detected. When censor redirection is enabled, scrambling is ignored (because the entry is never saved).
$censor_url = ’http://www.yourserver.com/bad_language.html’;
Here you specify which page the user should be redirected to when a bad word is found. This may preferable be a page telling the user about the use of bad language and that it’s not accepted on your site.
Note that if not scrambling or redirection is enabled (both are disabled) but censoring is enabled, then an entry with a bad word will simply return the user to the page with the oneliner and the entry will not be saved.
Spam protection
Spam protection is a feature to prevent the same user to post multiple entries in a row (i.e. spamming the oneliner). This is usually done by someone who want’s to abuse the oneliner. Spam protection saves the user’s IP-adress and the time the entry was made. If the user tries to submit another entry within a certain amount of time, without another user making an entry in between, it’s considered spam.
$enable_spamprotection = 1;
Enable spam protection (1 = enabled, 0 = disabled).
$spamcheck_filename = ’oneliner_spamcheck.txt’;
This is the filename where the IP-adress and time is saved. This filename usually doesn’t need to be changed. By default it’s saved in the same directory as the Perl script.
$spam_timelimit = 3600;
Timelimit for what is considered spamming. That means the time that must have passwed between two entries from the same IP-adress. The value is in seconds (example is 1 hour = 3600 seconds).
$enable_spam_redirection = 1;
Enable redirection to another URL if spam is detected. 1 = enabled, 0 = disabled. If spam is detected, the user will be redirected to another page instead of going directly back to the oneliner.
$spam_url = ’http://www.yourserver.com/you_spam_shame_on_you.html’;
Here you specify which page the user should be redirected to when spam is detected. This may preferable be a page telling the user about the policy of your site and explaining what spamming is and why the users entry is considered spamming.
Note that a user is detected by it’s IP-adress. That means that users behind a firewall will be considered as a single user because they all just have one public IP-adress visible from the Internet. If you will have users behind a firewall (for example if you’re using the Oneliner on an Intranet) you probably want to disable spam protection.
Customize look
This is the part where you may change how an entry in the oneliner will look like.
$number_of_rows = 20;
Number of messages that should be displayed at the same time. When the message count exceeds this value, the last one will be dropped when new messages are entered.
$dateformat = ’[monthname] [day] 2024, [hour0]:[min0] [ampm]’;
You may change the look of the date and time when it’s displayed in a news posting. You do this by using some special tags that will be replaced with a value. The following tags are available:
[sec] = seconds
[sec0] = seconds padded with a 0
[min] = minutes
[min0] = minutes padded with a 0
[hour] = hours (12h)
[hour0] = hours (22h) padded with a 0
[hour24] = hours (24h)
[hour240] = hours (24h) padded with a 0
[ampm] = display am or pm
[day] = day in month
[day0] = day in month padded with a 0
[dayname] = name of weekday
[daynameshort] = name of weekday short
april = month
[month0] = month padded with a 0
[monthname] = name of month
[monthnameshort] = name of month short
2024 = year (4 digits)
[shortyear] = year (2 digits)
Examples:
Format: ’[monthnameshort] [day], [hour0]:[min0] [ampm]’
Result: Jan 26, 10:32 pm
Format: ’Posted [hour240]:[min0]:[sec0] 2024-[month0]-[day0]’
Result: Posted 22:32:28 2000-01-26
@daynames = qw(Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday);
The names that will be used for each weekday is specified here with a space between each name. You might want to exchange these with the names in your language for example.
@monthnames = qw(January February March April May June July August September October November December);
The names that will be used for each month is specified here with a space between each name.
$bgcolor = ’#000000’;
Background color of the entered messages, specified in hex as in HTML.
Example: #FF0000 is red, #707070 is grey, #0000FF is blue.
$font_date = ’’;
Font tag that will be used for the date. This is a regular HTML
tag.
$font_msg = ’’;
Same as above but for the actual message.
$font_who = ’’;
Same as above but for the nickname.
Customization
The look of the oneliner may be customized by you. The HTML page where the oneliner_incl.html file is included may look anyway you want, as far as it’s a correct table that the file is included into.
It’s recommended that you first use the default exampe, get it to work, and then modify it as you please.
What To Do If You Can’t Get It To Work
Unfortunately I’m not able to support you in any way. Simply read these instructions again and check the Oneliner webpage for Frequently Asked Questions which might help you, there is also a general tutorial for installing CGI-script that might be of use if you have no or little experience in installing CGI-scripts. You may also check out the forum to see if your question is answered there. If not, you may post a message and hopefully someone helpful will respond. Another option is to ask your ISP or webhost and to check their support pages.
The reason why I can’t help you is that I would probably get swamped by mails and unfortunately I haven’t got the time to answer them all. So please DON’T mail me asking for help, instead enter your question in the forum and either I or someone else will answer. Thanks for understanding.
Oneliner homepage:
Version History
v1.1 – 2000-07-19
- Added archiving, censoring and spam protection.
v1.0 – 2000-07-06
- Added support for multiple files.
v0.9 – 2000-01-26
- Initial public beta version.