BitOwl News Manual

Table Of Contents 1. Changes From 1.0.0.0
2. Install
   1. Including
   2. Displaying Pages
   3. Displaying a Category
   4. Displaying News on Non-Root Pages
   5. Reading the Archives
3. Selecting a Database
   1. Flatfile
   2. MySQL
4. Updating
5. Deleting News and Comments
6. Archives
7. Template Editing
   1. Creating a New Template
   2. Template Editor Commands
8. Features
9. Additional Notes
10. Bug Reports and Feature Request
11. Final Notes

(1) Changes From 1.0.0.0

Renamed users.txt to users.php to allow backwards compatibility with version 2.X.Y.Z of the CP script.
Added auto updates.

(2) Install Before doing anything else you must upload BitOwl news to a server which has PHP (and MySQL if you choose) installed. In all of these examples, "pathtoscript" means the path to the BitOwl news directory from the PHP file you are placing the news in.

(2.1) Including The most simplest installation will require you to add (up to) 3 lines of code to your PHP file.

<?php
include "pathtoscript/show.php";
?>

(2.2) Displaying Pages If you wish to only display a certain about of news posts per page, you can use the $ppp variable. Doing so will add "Previous || Next" to the the bottom of the page for users to search though pages, however it doesn't list all of the pages in the "||". Below is a example for if you want 5 posts per page.

<?php
$ppp = 5;
include "pathtoscript/show.php";
?>

(2.3) Displaying a Category If you want to only display one category use the $_GET["cate"] variable. Below is a modified example from 2.2 for if you want the category to be "general". In this case it will display up to 5 post per page from the category "general". If this is left out it will show all categories.

<?php
$ppp = 5;
$_GET["cate"] = "general";
include "pathtoscript/show.php";
?>

(2.4) Displaying News on Non-Root Pages If the page you want to place your news on isn't a root page (ex. http://www.mydomain.extension/, or http://www.mydomain.extension/news.php), then you need to add the $_bonews["vars"] variable to your script. Do not place ? or a & afterwards. Below are two modified examples from 2.3. The first one is with one extra variable.

<?php
$ppp = 5;
$_GET["cate"] = "general";
$_bonews["vars"] = "page=news";
include "pathtoscript/show.php";
?>

If you have two variables it would look like this.

<?php
$ppp = 5;
$_GET["cate"] = "general";
$_bonews["vars"] = "page=news&passcode=password";
include "pathtoscript/show.php";
?>

(2.5) Reading The Archives If you want to select news from an archive you should use the $_GET["archive"] variable. This should be the 4 digit year and the 2 digit month (with no space). Here is the modified example from the 1st example in 2.4.

<?php
$ppp = 5;
$_GET["cate"] = "general";
$_bonews["vars"] = "page=news";
$_GET["archive"] = "200604";
include "pathtoscript/show.php";
?>

(3) Selecting a Database BitOwl news gives you the option to use either flatfile (a .txt file) or MySQL as the database to hold news and comments. Both types have advantages and disadvantages that you should consider before selecting.

(3.1) Flatfile

You may not use the "|" character (shift+\) anywhere as the database stucture depends on it to separate "columns"
Archives are harder to restore. When something is archived it is assigned a new ID based on the file it is in.

Fields have no size restrictions.

(3.2) MySQL

Most fields are restricted on length.

You may use the "|" character (shift+\)

Some host will separate MySQL databases from the webspace. This can be good for when your low on space, however if you run out of MySQL space and still have lots of file space you will not be able to add more news. Archiving news can be a way around this as archives are stored in flatfile.

(4) Updating From 0.8 to 1.0.1:
Before reinstalling, run "update.php" to covert your old template to the multi template compatible form. It will be named "converted". Once thats done it will automatically pull up install.php.
From 0.9, 0.10. or 1.0 to 1.0.1:
Replace files with the new ones. If you have multiuser support on rename users.txt to users.php.

(5) Deleting News and Comments To delete a news post or comment, go to the "news" tab and select "Edit/Delete" from the menu (you must pull it down). The rest should be fairly straight forward.

(6) Archives The archives are always stored in a flatfile with the year and the month in the file name (archive200604 for example). Archives can be restored easier in MySQL than in flatfile due to the way they are stored.

(7) Template Editing To edit or create a template go to the "Template" tab.

(7.1) Creating a New Template To create a new template, make sure you're on the "Template" tab. At the bottom of the tab there will be a box for you to supply a template name. This will create a template based on the default template.

Note
Template names are case sensitive and you will 
need to use the right case when using it with 
show.php.

(7.2) Template Editor Commands After opening the template and template file you desire you can use the following commands to use certain variables:
News Item

{id} = ID number of post
{title} = The title of the post
{author} = the author of the post
{content} = the content of the post
{comment-number} = Amount of comments
{view-comments} = Link to comments
{/view-comments} = end of link to comments

Comment Item

{cauthor} = Author of the comment
{cemail} = If supplied the email of the
           autor of the comment
{comment} = the content of the comment

Write a Comment Form

{form} = defines the form (MUST BE FIRST THING)
{/form} = end the form (MUST BE LAST THING)
{submit} = Submit button
{name} = Name form
{email} = email form
{textarea} = comment textarea 
             (where you type your comment)

(8) Features Current Features:

Archives
Multitemplate support
Category Support
Pages (How meny post per pages (post shown))
Commenting
Ability to delete news post and comments (however delete the comments before the post)
Multi or single user password protection.
Password is stored for a while. Can't remember how long I think its 1 day.
TXT Files can be used as a database. (no need for MySQL)
MySQL Database support
Easy to use tabbed GUI (what else should I call it?)
Add News
Edit News
Small user administration panel.
Internal Template editor
Simple Template editor, use {content}, {title}, etc. No need to understand PHP!
Log out function

(9) Additional Notes I never plan to make this go commercial; if it does I shall leave a free version no ads available for download.

(10) Bug Reports and Feature Request If you find any bugs please report them with a subject along the lines of bug report to Blzut3@zoominternet.net. On the other hand, if you want a feature added, but don't see it on the list then email them to me at above stated email address with the subject along the lines of Feature Request.

(11) Final Notes Thank you for reading this file and I hope you enjoy using BitOwl news and plan on supporting it to become better and more powerful.

Thanks,
- Blzut3 (BitOwl Webmaster)