Extension:Guestbook

Overview
This MediaWiki extension adds a guestbook to your wiki installation.

It uses the following user preferences:
 * language of currently logged in user
 * the guestbook entry count per page is defined with the setting of:
 * preferences -> search -> Hits per page

Installation
The installation requires following steps:
 * 1) extracting gbook.tar.gz to "$wiki/extensions/"
 * 2) enabling the extension in LocalSettings.php
 * 3) integrate Special:Guestbook into the MediaWiki:Sidebar or create some link

Installing the files
change to the /extensions/ directory cd /home/www/example.org/Wiki/extensions/

download the tarball: wget http://www.mcmilk.de/projects/wiki-gbook/dl/gbook.tar.bz2

extract the archiv and delete it: tar xjvf gbook.tar.bz2 rm -f gbook.tar.bz2

Adjust LocalSettings.php
Add this line at the end of LocalSettings.php:

You can also adjust the moderating rights for the guestbook to some user groups. The default defines, that the user of the group sysop have the ability to moderate/delete guestbook entries. As default exist this setting in.

Adjust variables in gbook.php
You can adjust several variables in the beginning of the file gbook.php. Each one is elucidated with a comment:

Linking the Special:Guestbook
The guestbook is a specialpage, which is not shown is the Special:Specialpages overview. You can create a link to the guestbook with Special:Guestbook ... thats it ;)

Styling
The guestbook uses the following css styles:
 * class successbox (creating a new entry was successful)
 * class errorbox (for all error messages)
 * class visualClear (directly after some error/success box)
 * class gbook
 * DIV Layer, which will be used around each entry
 * the class gbook is is defined in "$wiki/extensions/gbook.css" and should be adjusted
 * $wiki/extensions/gbook1.css will override the default style for the first guestbook, you can use this feature, if you have more then one guestbook

The Captcha isn't shown or some error message is there.

 * this problem was reported by a lot of users
 * it isn't the guestbook, its a missing funtion within PHP
 * solution: build PHP yourself or install the appropriate GD package of your distribution

Links

 * Homepage / Download
 * Extensions on MediaWiki.org
 * Extensions on Meta-Wiki
 * Example