This document is for ITS. It gives instructions for how to install and maintain the Gender Initiative application.
Contents
- Requirements
- Installation
- Configuration
- Overview of the Code
Requirements
The Gender Initiative application requires a Windows 2000 or Windows XP server running Internet Information Services. This server will need to be publicly accessable using a web browser and have a DNS name. Windows NT should also work, but the email notification feature will probably need to be rewritten or disabled.
Installation
Create a directory for the Gender files: C:\inetpub\wwwroot\gender.
Unzip the gender.zip archive to this newly created directory. Be sure to preserve the path information when you unzip the archive. You should see several directories underneath the gender directory:
- resources
- calendar
- db
- search
- contacts
- library
It is recommended, but not required, that access to the db and resources directory be restricted since the user will never access these files directly and these directories contain some confidential information that an outside user may be able to read otherwise. Access can be restricted by using the IIS management console, selecting each directory, clicking Properties, and unchecking the Read option.
Create a system data source using the ODBC control panel applet. In Windows XP, this can be found by opening the control panel, selecting Administrative Tools, then selecting Data Sources (ODBC).
Create the data source by selecting the System DSN tab, and clicking Add. For Driver, select Microsoft Access driver (*.mdb). For data source name, enter Gender. Click Select and choose the database C:\inetpub\wwwroot\gender\db\Genderinitiative.mdb.
At this point, you should be able to view the application by opening a web browser to
http://servername/gender/ (replace servername with the DNS name or IP address of the server).
Configuration
There are a number of site configuration options that can be set in resources\config.vbs. The file is in plain text format, so a any simple text editor can be used to edit it. The file consists of a series of VBScript Const definitions, which are explained in the following list.
- SITE_PASSWORD
- This is where you set the password required for authentication when an internal user logs into the system.
- NOTIFICATION_EMAILS
- This is the email address to which notification emails get sent. It should probably be set to the webmaster of the site.
- EMAIL_SMARTHOST
- This is the main mail server at Messiah. Consult with networking if you think it should be changed.
- SITE_URL
- Set this to the prefix of the location of the Gender application. This is used in the notification emails to provide a link to view an event request
- DSN_NAME
- This provides an opportunity to use a custom name for the data source. It should probably remain "Gender", since there may still be references to "Gender" in the code.
- WEBMASTER_NAME
- This is the name that appears on the bottom of the page. It should be set to the main contact person for questions/comments related to the website.
- WEBMASTER_EMAIL
- The webmaster's email address.
Overview of the Code
In this section you will find a description of each file that makes up the Gender Initiative application. This information is intended to help anyone who wants to modify the code or to add gender-specific content to some of the generated pages.
The application's database is in the db directory. If the database structure needs to be modified, or a user wants to perform queries more powerful than the application supports, the user can be given file-sharing access to this file directly. Simply open the database file in Microsoft Access and make any modifications you want.
The resources directory contains code shared by all pages, as well as the site's stylesheet.
- config.vbs: this file contains configuration options, as explained in the section above
- form_IO.vbs: this file contains code for outputting form elements, such as phone fields and date fields, and for getting the user's input from such elements
- page_template.vbs: this file contains code for displaying the top and bottom part of the page, conforming to the Messiah College style guide
- email.vbs: contains an email notification function
- MCStyle.css: the site stylesheet
The calendar directory contains code pertaining to viewing and modifying calendar events.
- calendar.asp: this page displays the current calendar, beginning with the 1st of the current month. This page also contains code for displaying any outstanding event requests (when a public user submits an event to be added to the calendar but has not yet been displayed on the calendar)
- event.asp: this page displays a single event. Specify which event to display by appending ?EventID=# to the end of the URL, where # is the event number.
- editEvent.asp: this page displays a form for adding or editing an event.
- updateEvent.asp: this page processes an add/edit and redirects back to the edit page when an error occurs or redirects to the event display page on success.
The contacts and library directories contain code for contacts and library resources in a similar manner to the calendar directory, except they do not support the request/approve mechanism.
The search directory contain two pages related to the search feature. Search.asp is a page to display a form for entering query information. Searchresults.asp displays the output of such a query.
Finally, login.asp provides both a page for entering the site password and for processing a login attempt. On success, the user will be redirected to the "review event requests" page, unless a specific destination was provided on the URL to the login page, in which case the user will be redirected to that page.
