Welcomet to Slash- the Slashdot Like Automated Storytelling Homepage Copyright 1999 Rob Malda and Block Stackers Inc. malda@slashdot.org LICENSE There isn't technically a license in this file, and we're still working out the details. Please don't screw us over on this folks, we're working real hard. The license is do-whatever-the-hell-you-want, but if you use our code, you must put our logo on the site and link it back to http://slashdot.org. If you /really/ don't want the logo, you can give me money. Also, you probably need to register mysql if you use it- it's cool, its fast, and they deserve some money. You can give me money too. I don't have any. SUPPORT There isn't any. This is use-at-your-own-risk trial by fire stuff. If you want help, I might be able to consult. Or maybe I can find someone who can. Contact for rates. REQUIREMENTS You need mod_perl installed and running, and set up to let the registry handle any .pl files. You need mysql installed and running properly, and DBI needs to be working. Some random fun stuff from my home directory might provide you with a clue with stuff you might want/need: ApacheDBI-0.81.tar.gz ApacheMysql-0.3.tar.gz DBI-1.06.tar.gz Data-Dumper-2.10.tar.gz Devel-Symdump-2.00.tar.gz HTML-Parser-2.21.tar.gz MIME-Base64-2.09.tar.gz Msql-Mysql-modules-1.2014.tar.gz Net-TFTP-0.10.tar.gz URI-1.00.tar.gz libnet-1.0605.tar.gz libwww-perl-5.41.tar.gz mod_perl-1.17.tar.gz mysql-3.22.14b-gamma.tar The perl modules came from CPAN. Mysql, Apache and mod_perl came from their respective homes. INSTALLATION Add a user to your unix box. We'll use 'slash' as our example. Add a database named 'slash'. You probably want a db user too. copy the files from the tarball to /home/slash make sure /home/slash/public_html is visible from outside, and mod_perl is executing .pl files from it properly as mod_perl scripts. import the tables from the 'tables' directory- probably cat'ing the tables files to mysql -u slash slash -B. Before you do this, make /sure/ you glance over them (especially the 'vars' table; there are several things that you /will/ need to change if you want things to work right. slashd The slash daemon runs in the background (as user 'slash') and updates articles. Make that happen however you please. The first time you run it, it will create headers and stuff. dailyStuff Surprise! dailyStuff runs at midnigt. slashd should handle that for you. Other Stuff: You'll probably want to look at admin.pl. Log in with 'God' and 'Townshend' and poke around. Tons of stuff to do in there. Add some real users. Del God's account probably. Create some real polls. Add some stories. Add whatever sections will make sense. Edit the Blocks associated with each section. Editing header, footer, titlebar and fancybox will help you create a site that doesn't look like a lame Slashdot knockoff. CONFIGURATION Ok Slash is pretty flexible. You could do a lot of crazy stuff with fairly little effort. Unfortunately I don't have time to explain it all right now so just start messing with it and maybe in a few months this space will eactually be useful. THINGS WORTH KNOWING: What are vars? Variables. Little textual bits of info. Data. Yum Yum. What are blocks? Big variables. These are used to control a variety of messages throughout a Slash site, as well as things like what appears in the little squares on the right hand side of the pages. Some contain code that gets evald. Some control look and feel. What are stories? stories are little bits of text people can read. What are sections? sections are big groups of stories related somehow. How do I administer stuff? http://yoursite/admin.pl, the default account is 'God' 'Townshend'. Login and play. Its fun. TODO: My god the list is so long I wouldn't know where to start. My TODO list contains the following: - Mode=isolate for comments - Stats per topic - rejection notice of submissions - Bulkier Submission Editor (multiple views?) - Preview on Submission - Better Customized Homepage stuff (my slashdot yada yada) - better formatting controls for authors (Plaintext/Html on preview?) - Author Bio/Info somehow (join through to user account?) - Topic Editor/Image Importer - Sectional topic Icons for isolated sections - Make things GMT or UTC - Story Chaining/Grouping/Issues/Editions/Whatever and there is much more. Although documenting what we've got might be a nice start. Like explaining what does or how to automatically attach an image or upload a file. Or how to ad users. Or what security is. Or how to give a user moderator access. This list goes on and on :)