Hello, friends! Today we will talk about creating a guest book for Joomla, allowing users to leave entries with questions, opinions and feedback. For this good purpose, we need a free, simple, convenient and with a Russian interface component that supports all existing versions of Joomla. It fits all these definitions!
A guest book is another great way to connect with your site's users. Let me remind you that earlier we already considered creating a feedback form and adding it to the site.
In its structure, the guest page resembles a page without any content, but with comments. The only difference is in the order in which entries are added: new comments are added to the bottom of the list, while in the guest book the latest entries are located, on the contrary, at the top. In addition, a separate page is allocated for the guest book, while comments are located on different pages as an addition to their content.
Although, why am I talking about this! I think most of you have come across it many times on various sites, because this feature is very popular. Enough talking, let's get to practice.
Installation and Russification of Phoca GuestbookBefore you begin installing the Phoca Guestbook component, you must download it. We go to the official website of the developers, where we should download two things:
Install the component and its language pack one by one via . When installing Phoca Guestbook, the following window will appear:
Since we are installing the Phoca Guestbook component and not updating it, we click “Install”. The installation will take place automatically, and after it is completed, a new sub-item will appear in the “Components” section - “Phoca Guestbook”. That's where we go.
Creating a guest book in Joomla 2.5The interface should be in Russian, which will greatly simplify working with Phoca Guestbook and creating a Joomla guest book. Go to the “Guest Books” section and click on the create button in the toolbar.
All we need to do is enter the name of the guest in the title field and click “Save and Close” in the toolbar.
That's how quickly we created a guest book! Now you should display it on the site page.
Joomla menu items are responsible for creating pages, so we create a new menu item with the type “Phoca Guestbook - Guest Book”. In the required parameters, select the newly created guest room and click “Save and Close”.
Before the guest book accepts its first users, it still needs to be configured and protected from spam. In the control panel of the Phoca Guestbook component, use the “Settings” button.
All options are completely in Russian and are equipped with hints that appear when you hover the mouse cursor over them, so it will not be difficult to understand them.
The “Form” tab contains settings for the form for composing a message: which fields will be present in it, the position in relation to the records, the size of the editor window and some other options.
The “Basic” section provides the following options:
The third section “Messages” allows you to customize the appearance of Joomla guestbook entries.
In fact, I would advise you to completely disable the captcha from Phoca Guestbook and use the excellent plugin.
The last section is “Rights”. Sets access rights for user groups, although you can leave it alone.
So we figured out the Phoca Guestbook plugin. Thank you very much for your attention! Take care of yourself!
» » GBook
This PHP script will help you implement a guest book feature on your website. Without using any MySQL Database, it is not needed for the script to work. The Gbook script includes many powerful SPAM filters. As well as protecting mail from SPAMers.
The script has 2 txt files – header.txt and footer.txt. Using these files, you can add advertising blocks or counters to your guest book. Completely changing the template to suit the style of your site will also not be difficult. The Gbook program can be translated into any language in the world. Just change the words in one language.
Benefits of the script.- Emoticon support.
- Does not require a MySQL database. All messages are stored in a file.
- Notifying the admin by mail about a new message in the Guest Book.
- Contains 2 steps of anti-spam checking.
- You can ban an IP address so that they cannot leave messages.
- Receive an email notification every time someone signs your guestbook.
- Check message: list of “prohibited” (not censored) words for publication. Covers up ****
- Anti-flood function. To prevent users from posting messages so often.
- Private messages.
For HTML codes, guestbook programming might seem unchallenging at first, and rightly so. When you see a guestbook, basic information is requested and it appears that anyone with a fundamental knowledge of the HTML programming language can write guestbook HTML codes. However, guestbooks, from the best to the worst, require a bit more skill than you think.
What is a Guestbook?A guestbook is an online way to let visitors to your site comment or request information. Most guestbooks post what is written to the webpage so that everyone can read guest comments. The most common items you see on a guestbook are:
- Name or Username
- Where they reside (though you can set the HTML code to hide this fact)
- Email (again, you can hide this fact and have it sent only to your email for communication purposes
- Comments
- Some guestbooks forego a comments section for a quick survey. You can usually find questions like "What did you think of this site: good, decent, bad, awesome" or "Was the information provided: enough, not enough, just right"
- Options to request a reply or other information
Guestbooks can be programmed to send this information to an email address of your choice so that you don"t have to continually log into the site to view guestbook entries.
Where to Find HTML Codes, GuestbookWhether you know HTML programming, you are a beginning web designer or you simply want a guestbook on your site, using prewritten HTML codes can save you time. The codes you can find online are typically well-tested and provide the most basic programming needed for easy-to-use guestbooks.
- The code at HTML Comment Box provides the basic outline of an HTML code guestbook. All you need to do is customize the text to your needs and for your domain name. Instructions are provided at the beginning of the page. The code includes lines for name and address.
- For a large selection of HTML codes and scripts, visit . With such a varied and large selection, you should be able to find one that works into the website you are creating. You can choose from basic guestbooks to more advanced programming that includes drop down menus and code for Macs and Linux machines. The codes are only 30-day free trials, so if you find a set of codes you like you"ll have to pay for the full use.
- At Freebok you can input some basic information about what text you want on your guestbook and the website will generate the code for you. Afterwards, you can customize the guestbook even more by creating a template and editing the code in Freebok's template layout mode. Other instructions are available on the site to help you with certain links you may need. You do need to sign up for an account in order to use Freebok.
- To quickly add a guestbook with just a comment box, go to Guestbook Code. The initial code is already generated, but there are five options you can check and uncheck in order to alter the code slightly:
- Collapse Guest Book. This includes a link that can open and close the guestbook on the webpage you insert it on.
- Put Guest Book At Top. If this is unchecked, the guestbook and comment box will appear below any entries in the list.
- Show Submission Date of Entries. This will add a date and time. The time will be the user's local time zone, not yours.
- Profanity Filter. Deletes any profanities that people may write.
- You can also change the number of comments that are posted to the page for others to read. Minimum is one and maximum is one hundred. It"s recommended that you set it between five to twenty-five.
PHP 5.2 and higher;
- mod_rewrite;
- MySQL database 4.1 and higher.
Can be built into any website (to do this you just need to edit the top.php and bottom.php files);
- anti-flood;
- ban list;
- page navigation like >>;
- BBCode support;
- display of emoticons;
- notification of new added messages;
- the ability to add messages for moderation;
- admin panel;
- easy to install and configure.
Unpack the archive and copy the contents of the archive to any folder on your web server (for example, "guestbook"). Open the config/config_db.php file in a text editor and specify the connection settings (database host or IP, database name, login and password). Place the MySQL database tables SQL query from the guestbook.sql file. Usually on most hosting sites this is done via the web interface via phpMyAdmin. Go to the administration panel (http://your_site/folder_with_script/admin/) and enter the password 1111. Next, specify the necessary settings.
Commercial versionAt the request of the customer, I can adapt the script to specific conditions. Various additional features can be added.
Note SCRIPT "PHP Guestbook", FURTHER SIMPLY THE PROGRAM IS COMPLETELY FREE. YOU CAN FREELY DISTRIBUTE, COPY, MAKE YOUR CHANGES IN THE PROGRAM SOURCE CODE ONLY ON CONDITION OF RETAINING THE AUTHOR'S COPYRIGHT. USE OF THE "PHP Guestbook" PROGRAM FOR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES IS PROHIBITED. YOUR USE OF THIS PROGRAM IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. THE AUTHOR DOES NOT ACCEPT ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE OPERATION OF THE PROGRAM, OR FOR LOSSES, DAMAGE TO DATA OR ANYTHING ELSE ASSOCIATED WITH THE USE AND OPERATION OF THIS PROGRAM.If you liked my script and you want to thank me with a ruble, then here are my details:
WebMoney
U237811811298
R198597198920
Z917380288657
Yandex money
41001635943434
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If you have any questions or suggestions, please write to me at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You must have JavaScript enabled to view it.
We talked about creating a guest book on the site using a ready-made script. Meanwhile, on small sites the guest book usually consists of several messages (ten to fifteen) and is rarely updated with new ones. Basically, the book is clogged with spam, all kinds of advertising and links to websites. As a result, a lot of time is spent on cleaning it and checking (moderating) messages.
The main advantages of this approach are as follows:
- the inability of strangers to insert their wonderful ideas onto the guest book page, bypassing your strict barrier,
- no need to create a special design, since message lines are inserted directly onto the site page,
- you can easily optimize your guest book by filling it with keywords to promote your site.
First, let's create a form for messages in the guestbook using any HTML and CSS editor. For our example, we will not deviate from the design of the book discussed earlier. We will make the Add message button an image link to the feedback form (page forma_02.html), which opens in a small window (the example is working, you can check it!).
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The code for the "Add message" link is as follows:
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Here in JavaScript you specify the address of the page to open (forma_02.html), the width and height of the new window (500x600 pixels) and its position on the monitor screen (upper left corner). The content of the window does not have any special features and is determined by the information you need about the visitor: name, address, e-mail, ICQ, etc.
If the message was sent successfully, the following message is displayed:
"Thank you for sending your message.
After verification by the site administrator
it will be added to the guest book. "
The full text of the PHP page for the example considered is as follows:
Message