/[suikacvs]/messaging/newsportal/doc/readme-english.html
Suika

Contents of /messaging/newsportal/doc/readme-english.html

Parent Directory Parent Directory | Revision Log Revision Log


Revision 1.1.1.1 - (hide annotations) (download) (as text) (vendor branch)
Sat Dec 1 11:17:31 2001 UTC (23 years, 4 months ago) by wakaba
Branch: suika, MAIN
CVS Tags: initial, HEAD
Changes since 1.1: +0 -0 lines
File MIME type: text/html

1 wakaba 1.1 <html>
2     <head>
3     <title>Newsportal readme</title>
4     </head>
5     <body textcolor=black bgcolor=white>
6     <h1 align=center>News portal</h1>
7    
8     <p>Version 0.24pre1</p>
9    
10     <h2>Introduction</h2>
11    
12     <p>News portal is a PHP based newsreader. It is licensed under the GNU
13     Public License (see enclosed LICENSE).
14     </p>
15    
16    
17     <h2>Overview</h2>
18    
19     <p>This script collection enables the access to a newsserver (by NNTP) from
20     a webpage. It allows you to combine web-forums and newsgroups.
21     The script is also suitable for presentation of announce newsgroups
22     on web pages, without having the user notice that he is in fact accessing a newsserver.
23     </p>
24    
25     <p>The main functionality of the script is located in the file
26     <tt>newsportal.php3</tt>, which contains the major part of the implemented php3-functions.
27     In addition to that there are four more php3-files, which are directly accessed
28     by the browser.
29     <UL>
30     <li><i>index.php3</i> shows the available newsgroups of the newsserver (if
31     you have added the names to groups.txt)
32     <li><i>thread.php3 </i>displays the article-overview of a newsgroup. The
33     articles are displayed in a thread.
34    
35     <li><i>article.php3</i> displays an individual article.
36     <li><i>post.php3</i> posts a message into a newsgroup. WARNING: This script
37     produces absolutely not RFC conformal messages. Thus 'umlauts' in the Subject
38     are not mime encoded ! It still works fine though.
39     <li><i>config.inc </i> contains the configuration.
40     <li><i>body.inc</i> contains the header and the body-tag of the pages. This way
41     the layout of the pages (i.e. the background) can easily be adjusted.
42     <li><i>german.lang </i>: The German language definitions
43     <li><i>english.lang </i>: The English language definitions
44     </ul></p>
45    
46     <p>Since fetching the article overview of the newsserver takes quite some time,
47     newsportal caches this data in the directory
48     <tt>spool/</tt>. Any file can be put in this directory, they will
49     automatically be regenerated.
50     </p>
51    
52     <h2>Installation:</h2>
53    
54     <p><ol>
55     <li>download the zip or tar.gz archive
56     <li>unzip it to a directory
57    
58     <li>The file<tt>config.inc</tt>
59     must be edited with your settings (the most important variables are:
60     <i>$server, $port, $title and $readonly</i>).
61    
62     <li>Write the names of all groups newsportal should show into the file <tt>groups.txt</tt>.
63     Behind the groupname, seperated by a blank, a description of the group can be added. If the description is missing,
64     newsportal will try to request the description from the newsserver.
65    
66     <li>The spool directory has to be created and configured to grant read an write access to the newsserver
67     ("chmod 777 spool" ).
68     </ol></p>
69    
70     <h2>Configuration</h2>
71     <p>The following adjustments can be made in <tt>config.inc</tt>
72     </p>
73    
74     <p><b>Directories and files:</b>
75     <UL>
76     <li><i>$file_newsportal="newsportal.php3":</i>Name of the file containing
77     the newsportal-functions.
78     <li><i>$file_groups="index.php3"</i>: The file which shows the list of
79     available newsgroups.
80     <li><i>$file_thread="thread.php3"</i>: The file which shows the
81     article-thread of a selected newsgroup
82     <li><i>$file_article="article.php3"</i>: Displays an article
83     <li><i>$file_post="post.php3"</i>: The file which allows you to post an
84     article to a newsgroup. This file can be removed, if the system is set on
85     readonly (see below).
86     <li><i>$file_language="english.lang"</i>: Reference to the language
87     definition file.
88     <li><i>$file_footer</i>: Optionally, the name of a file can
89     be indicated, which will be attached to every article posted to a newsgroup.
90     </ul></p>
91    
92     <p><b>Newsserver setip</b>
93     <UL>
94     <li><i>$server </i>: Hostname or IP of the newsserver
95     <li><i>$port </i>: Port of the newsserver, normally 119
96     <li><i>$post_server</i>: Optionally an extra newsserver can be indicated here
97     which is used by post.php3 for writing articles.
98     This is useful if two newsservers need to be accessed, a fast read-only server and a slow server
99     to post articles. Be aware that it might take some time until the posted article will show up on your
100     main newsserver ($server), which you use to read articles.
101     <li><i>$post_port </i>: Port of your post-newsserver
102     <li><i>$server_auth_user</i>: If the newsserver requires authentication by name and password put your username
103     here. Otherwise just set the variable to "".
104     <li><i>$server_auth_pass</i>: Put your password here.
105     </ul></p>
106    
107     <p><b>Thread Layout</b>
108     <ul>
109     <li><i>$treestyle </i>:The appearance of the message tree:
110     <ul>
111     <li>0: Simple listing of the articles</li>
112     <li>1: Easy listing of the articles, with some more HTML tags</li>
113     <li>2: Simple listing in a table</li>
114     <li>3: Threaded with HTML-tags (UL, li)</li>
115     <li>4: Threaded with text characters</li>
116     <li>5: Threaded with graphical images</li>
117     <li>6: Threaded with text characters and table</li>
118     <li>7: Threaded with graphical images table</li>
119     </ul></li>
120    
121     <li><i>$thread_fontPre</i>: The code given here is put in front of every text fragment in thread.php3, i.e.
122     font face or size can be set.</li>
123     <li><i>$thread_fontPost</i>: The same as $thread_fontPre,
124     only code is appended at the end of the text.</li>
125    
126     <li><i>$thread_showDate,<br>
127     $thread_showSubject,<br>
128     $thread_showAuthor</i>:
129     <ul>
130     <li>true: the date / the subject / the author are displayed in
131     the thread</li>
132     <li>false: output is suppressed.</li>
133     </ul>
134    
135     <li><i>$thread_maxSubject </i>: Maximum number of characters of the subject displayed</li>
136     <li><i>$maxarticles</i>: This number indicates the maximum amount of
137     overview data of a newsgroup newsportal tries to get from the newsserver.
138     "0" means no limitation. $maxarticles also indicates the amount of articles
139     to be stored in the spoolfiles. A lower value means less work for newsportal</li>
140     <li><i>$maxarticles_extra</i>: The problem with $maxarticles is that all
141     article data must be completely requested again by the new server, if the
142     indicated value is exceeded.
143     $maxarticles_extra can be set to prevent this.
144     The article-spool will only be restructured if
145     $maxarticles + $maxarticles_extra articles are present, whereby
146     $maxarticles many article data are requested.
147     Only if an exact given number of articles should be displayed on the web page, the value of
148     this variable schould be set "0".</li>
149     <li><i>$age_count </i>: Number of different age levels for the
150     coloured marking of articles</li>
151     <li><i>$$age_time[n] </i>: maximal age of an article in seconds,
152     so that the article gets marked with the colour $age_color[n].
153     n is a natural number &gt; = 1 and all numbers from 1 to n must be
154     assigned, gaps are not permitted.</li>
155     <li><i>$age_color[n]</i>: The colour in which the article is marked</li>
156     <li><i>$thread_sorting </i>: The sort sequence for the articles:
157     <ul>
158     <li>0: No assortment, articles are displayed in the order in which they are polled from
159     the server. This is nearly like ascending
160     assortment.</li>
161     <li> 1: ascending assortment, the oldest articles to the top.</li>
162     <li> -1: descending assortment, the newest articles to the top.</li>
163     </ul></li>
164     <li><i>$articles_per_page</i>: If this value is not 0, the maximum amount of articles is given, which are to be
165     displayed on one page at the same time. The thread will be split into
166     individual pages.</li>
167     <li><i>$startpage</i>: In connection with $$articles_per_page
168     the variable indicates, which page is to be displayed first:
169     <ul>
170     <li>"first": The page with the newest articles</li>
171     <li>"last": the page with the oldest articles</li>
172     </ul>
173     The specification should be co-ordinated with <i>$thread_sorting</i>.
174     "first" for 0 and 1, and "last" for -1.</li>
175     </ul></p>
176    
177     <p><b>Article layout</b>
178     <ul>
179     <li><i>$article_show["Subject"],<br>
180     $article_show["From"],<br>
181     $article_show["Newsgroups"],<br>
182     $article_show["Organization"],<br>
183     $article_show["Date"],<br>
184     $article_show["Message-ID"],<br>
185     $article_show["User-Agent"],<br>
186     $article_show["References"]</i>:
187     "true" displays the
188     respective header line in article.php3, by "false" it
189     is suppressed.</ul></p>
190    
191     <p><b>Frame support</b><br>
192     Example files for the frame support are located in
193     <tt>extras/frames/</tt>. In this section the names of the frames can be
194     defined. If you want to use frames you have to set the variable
195     $frame_thread to "thread_frameset.php3".
196     <ul>
197     <li><i>$frame_articles</i>: Name of the article frame. Must be the same as
198     defined in <tt> thread_frameset.php3</tt>.</li>
199     <li>$frame_thread</i>: Name of the thread frame.
200     <li><i>$frame_groups</i>: Name of the frame for the grouplist, normally set
201     to "_top" to open a new frameset.</li>
202     <li><i>$frame_post </i>: Name of the frame for post.php3</li>
203     <li><i>$frame_threadframeset </i>: Name of the frame, in which the
204     frameset is to appear, which takes up the article and thread Frames.
205     Normally set to "_top".</li>
206     <li><i>$frame_externallink</i>: Target frame for external links within
207     articles.</li>
208     </ul>
209    
210     <p><b>Safety settings</b>
211     <ul>
212     <li><i>$send_poster_host</i>: "true" means that a header-line named "X-HTTP-Posting-Host:"
213     will be attached to every posted article, set to the hostname of the user who wrote the article.</li>
214     <li><i>$readonly </i>: if set to "true", the newsportal is read-only. The file post.php3 can be safely removed.</li>
215     <li><i>$testgroup </i>: if set to "true" newsportal checks if a group is
216     listed in <tt>groups.txt</tt> when accessed through thread.php3.
217     Otherwise a group could be seen simply entering the right URL, although
218     the group is not displayed in the group list.</li>
219     <li><i>$validate_email </i>: Sets how newsportal checks an
220     email address in post.php3 for syntax:
221     <ul>
222     <li>0: no examination. Not recommended, since the
223     newsserver will give an error message, if the address is not syntactically
224     correct.</li>
225     <li>1: Checks the address on syntactic correctness.</li>
226     <li>2: Additionally a MX or A record is checked for the domain-name of the e-mail address.
227     Newsportal performs a hostname lookup.</li>
228     </ul>
229     </UL></p>
230    
231     <p><b>General setting</b>
232     <UL>
233     <li><i>$title</i>: The value of this variable is put in the title-header of
234     the generated webpages.</li>
235     <li><i>$organization </i>: Name of your organization. Put after the
236     "Organization:"-header when posting articles.</li>
237     <li><i>$setcookies </i>: Permits the user to save his name and his
238     email-address as cookies in his browser.</li>
239     <li><i>$compress_spoolfiles</i>: Sets whether the spool files should be compressed or not.
240     This is recommended under normal conditions, since the size of the spoolfiles shrinks
241     approximately to about 15% of the original size. Be aware that some PHP-Versions
242     do not support compressing
243     </UL></p>
244    
245     <h2>Safety notes</h2>
246    
247     <p>A few things must be kept in mind to not allow newsportal to open
248     safety-holes:
249     <ul>
250     <li><tt>config.inc</tt> can be requested by every user that knows the filename,
251     if you do not move it to a protected area of your webserver.
252     </ul></p>
253    
254     <p>This script was originally (and actually still) only meant
255     for access to local newsgroups. If you use it with UseNet newsgroups,
256     following problems could show up:
257     <ul>
258     <li>Articles could be posted anonymously (i.e. spamming), see $send_poster_host</li>
259     <li>Newsportal produces 8-bit header lines (i.e. the Subject),
260     which is not permitted. However there do not seem to be any problems.</li>
261     <li>There are lists with so-called "open" newsservers in the
262     internet. Mostly "open" doesn't mean for this server that everyone is
263     allowed to use this server. Normally it means that the operator of the server
264     forgot to protect his server adequatly. So before using an "open" newsserver,
265     you should make sure that the operator permits the use of his
266     server for newsportal.</li>
267     <li>Posting articles anonymously is not accepted in most UseNet groups.
268     Before you give writing access to a newsgroup, you should ask the users in the newsgroup
269     if they have no objections. <b>Do not give public write access on UseNet newsgroups,
270     if you do not know exactly, what you are doing!</b></li>
271     </ul></p>
272    
273     <p>The author reserves the right not to be responsible for the topicality, correctness, completeness or quality of the program provided.
274     Liability claims regarding damage caused by the program provided, will therefore be rejected.<br>
275     In other words: Use this program at your own risk !</p>
276    
277     <h2>Compatibility</h2>
278    
279     <p>Newsportal should work with every phpserver with php3 support
280     and every newsserver. Webserver and newsserver do not need to run on the
281     same machine.</p>
282    
283     <h2>Contact</h2>
284    
285     <p>Florian Amrhein<br>
286     email: <a href="mailto:florian.amrhein@gmx.de">florian.amrhein@gmx.de</a><br>
287     WWW:
288     <a href=http://florian-amrhein.de">http://florian-amrhein.de</a>
289     </p>
290     </body></html>

admin@suikawiki.org
ViewVC Help
Powered by ViewVC 1.1.24