Customization

Customization

WebBoard Open scripting

WebBoard’s object model scripting feature—called Open Scripting—gives you access to WebBoard’s inner workings. By using WebBoard object methods and properties, you can write scripts that replace or alter built-in WebBoard operations. For example, you can supply scripts for your own user authentication or process form data before it gets to WebBoard. Scripts let you customize much more than WebBoard’s appearance, building a site that works for you—just the way you want.

You don’t have to learn a new language to use Open Scripting; simply use the scripting language you’re most comfortable with. WebBoard works with any scripting engine that is compatible with the Windows Scripting Host. Assuming you’ve got the scripting engine, WebBoard runs the script, identifying the engine to use by your script’s file extension. WebBoard is configured to recognize two common scripting languages, VBScript and JavaScript; you make a single Registry edit to add others.

WebBoard’s object-based Open Scripting exposes WebBoard’s internal information and some WebBoard features to scripts you write in your choice of scripting language. Scripts can perform a variety of tasks, such as overriding basic or cookie authentication with your own authentication routine or checking user profile information for accuracy (missing fields, state abbreviations, and so on) and correcting it where necessary. You can also use scripts to gain access to administrative features such as user paging and board and system-wide broadcasting. Another possible application is to use a script to display random or sequential advertisements.

The WebBoard object methods and properties available to scripts provide information about the board, the users, and the web server and allow you to manipulate many aspects of the board and user input, including:

The Authentication object lets you authenticate users and add users.
The Board object makes available properties of the current board, such as the board alias, colors, name, manager, and more.
The Filesystem object gives your script access to basic file manipulation routines.
The Form object lets your script read fields from a post, and under some conditions, set new values.
The Request object provides information such as basic authentication information, host name, user agent, IP address, cookies, referer, and other details about the HTTP request.
The Response objects allows the script to send back HTML to the browser.
The Server object provides information on server properties, for example, product name and version, the administrator’s email address, the HTTP port. It also lets you page boards, send email, and log messages to WEBBOARD.LOG.
The User object makes available user properties, such as the current user's name, email, location, and all other settings on the user profile. In addition, you can change certain properties, page the user, and more.

For additional information, and for a complete list of available WebBoard objects, methods and properties, please refer to chapter 10 of the manual, "Conferencing with WebBoard".

Customizing WebBoard Pages

Unlike most applications’ user interfaces, which are coded into the program’s executable, WebBoard’s user interface is almost completely composed of HTML files. With an HTML editor and a basic understanding of some special WebBoard HTML tags, you can easily make changes to WebBoard’s user interface. For example, you may want to personalize your board by adding a name or logo to the Welcome page. Or you may want to provide more feedback, such as what number visitor to your board a user is on a particular day. If your board serves foreign-language users, you can also translate the HTML files and, through the language.ini file, translate the system messages. All these changes and more are part of customizing your WebBoard.

In addition to editing the HTML to make changes to text and graphics, you can use WebBoard-specific tags for adding dynamic information to pages, such as the date or the visiting user’s name. The new WebBoard <WB-INCLUDE> tag lets you include text files. Special WebBoard URLs aid navigation by taking users to specific tasks or locations in WebBoard. Enabling optional fields on the user profile let you gather information specific to your board—and use it via WebBoard tags. You can change the text files WebBoard sends as email to new users, to notify users of new messages posted to a conference, and to mailing-list subscribers. WebBoard’s help files are also HTML files and can be changed as necessary to meet your users’ needs.

Where to find files

WebBoard’s HTML, help, and text files reside in the \WebBoard\Html folder and subfolders, Chat, Help, and Wizards. Note that if you installed WebBoard into a folder other than WebBoard, Html is a subfolder of that folder. Do not move these files from this folder, or WebBoard will not function properly.

Images included in the WebBoard HTML files reside in the Images folder. (The default location is \WebBoard\Images, but this can be changed from the Change Board Appearance page as described in Chapter 6.) The Images folder is mapped to the URL /wbimages/. You can change the default images called by the WebBoard files simply by replacing those files with new image files. Make sure the names you use for the new images are the same as those for the original files or that you change the names of the images called in the HTML file.

Backing up

Before you make any changes to a WebBoard file, make a backup copy of it. In fact, we recommend you make a backup of the entire Html folder in case you need to recover a file.

Customizing one board only

Avoid unpleasant surprises by paying close attention to whether you are changing HTML pages that are used by the entire site or those used only by a particular board. When you create a board (see Chapter 6, Managing Boards), WebBoard uses the default HTML, help, and text files from the Html folder. You can maintain a custom set of these files (any or all of them) for a specific board by copying the desired files to the board’s subfolder in the Html folder. Board folders have the same name as their alias (for example, the marketing board has an HTML folder named marketing).

If you customize the HTML pages in the Html folder, your changes affect all boards on the site. To customize one board, copy the desired pages to that board’s subfolder and edit the copied files. For example, to customize the text notification files and the introductory message users receive on the marketing board, copy welcome.txt, notify.txt, and intro.html to the subfolder marketing and edit them as necessary.

For more information about customizing your WebBoard, please refer to chapters 10 and 11 in the manual "Conferencing with WebBoard".