http://www.everysoft.com/auction/ Rev. 4/23/99 _____________________________ E v e r y A u c t i o n 1.01 _____________________________ The Freeware Auction Solution ----------------------------------------------------------------- EULA: READ THIS CAREFULLY BEFORE INSTALLING OR USING EVERYAUCTION ----------------------------------------------------------------- EveryAuction is NOT shareware, GPL, or public domain... You MAY NOT redistribute, give away, rent, lease, share or sell this software. When you download or receive the files from a valid source (either http://www.everysoft.com/ or an authorized redistributor), you are granted permission to use a single copy of the script(s) free of charge on your own machine or server ONLY. You may modify the software for your own use, but you may not redistribute modified versions of the software. Any other use of this software is in violation of the license agreement. EveryAuction is distributed AS-IS, with no guarantees or warrantees of any kind. If you do not agree with this license agreement, please delete this software immediately. By using the software in this archive, you agree to accept all terms of this license agreement. If you feel you have received this software from an unauthorized source, please contact sales@everysoft.com immediately. By popular request, here are some FAQs about EverySoft's policies and license agreement: 1. I am a site developer. May I install the software for my clients? You may install the software for a client as long as the client has approached you and he/she has downloaded the software him or herself from http://www.everysoft.com/. You also must make it clear to the client that the software is freeware and you MAY NOT charge the client for the software. You must be sure the client has this readme file and all source code. 2. May I sell web sites with EveryAuction pre-installed or advertise auction installation on my site? No. That is in violation of the freeware license agreement. Contact us if you are interested in purchasing a redistribution license. 3. May I sell the script to my clients? No. That is in violation of the freeware license agreement. Contact us if you are interested in purchasing a redistribution license. 4. May I mirror the script (post it for download somewhere)? No. EveryAuction can be downloaded at http://www.everysoft.com/ 5. May I modify the script? Yes, but only for your own use on your own site. 6. May I remove the "powered by EveryAuction" link? Please do not remove the link unless you give us credit and a link elsewhere on your site. Links from auction sites are the only way for us to keep EveryAuction freeware. ----------------------------------------------------------------- EveryAuction (c)1998-99 EverySoft REDISTRIBUTION IS PROHIBITED ----------------------------------------------------------------- ===QUICK START (UNIX)=== 1. Make a directory that is given write permissions. 2. Open the script with a plain text editor and edit the first line of the configuration section to point to the directory you just made. Also, edit the first line of the script to point to the perl executable on your system. 3. Put auction.cgi in your cgi-bin dir and give it executable permissions. ===QUICK START (Windows, Mac, Other)=== 1. Make a new folder. 2. Open the script with a plain text editor (notepad, etc.) and edit the first line of the configuration section to point to the directory you just made. Use forward slashes like in the example. (ie: $basepath = '/auction/'; if it is in C:\auction\) 3. Put auction.cgi in your cgi-bin or cgi-shl dir. Read your server docs about how to use perl scripts. You may have to rename it to auction.pl. ===CONTENTS=== I. First Things First II. Installation III. Configuration IV. FAQ/Troubleshooting V. Support VI. Version History ===I. First Things First=== A legal copy of this script will always be available free of charge at http://www.everysoft.com/ or the author's current web site. If anyone is ever caught trying to sell this script or a modification of this script, immediate legal action will be taken. Perl is free, and so is this script. ===II. Installation=== 1. Make a base directory somewhere on your server. It should not be web-accessible, but the script should be able to read and write data to and from the directory. UNIX: mkdir auction chmod a+rwx auction (OR chmod 777 auction) WINDOWS95/NT: File->New->Folder 2. Install Perl if it is not already installed. Most ISPs/IPPs already have Perl installed. Perl is also included with most flavors of UNIX. You can also download Perl free of charge. UNIX: http://www.perl.com/ WINDOWS95/NT: http://www.activestate.com/ (get Perl for Win32) 3. Put auction.cgi in your CGI-BIN directory. Be sure it is executable. UNIX ONLY: chmod a+rx auction.cgi (OR chmod 755 auction.cgi) 4. Configure the script to run like you want it to! (see next section) ===III. Configuration=== Line 1: This should point to your Perl executable. UNIX EXAMPLE: #!/usr/bin/perl WINDOWS95/NT EXAMPLE: #!c:/perl/bin/perl Line 77: This should point to the base directory (the one you just made). It must be an absolute or relative path. Be sure to include the trailing slash. UNIX EXAMPLE: $basepath = '/home/hahnfld/auction/'; WINDOWS95/NT EXAMPLE: $basepath = 'c:/auction/'; Line 99: List your categories here. Follow the examples. Be sure it is in the correct format. All other lines in the configuration section are optional and heavily commented. If you want e-mail notifications to work properly, you must edit line 117 and line 128. ===IV. FAQ/Troubleshooting=== Q. My users keep getting the error message: Something is wrong with the NEWREG field. Hit back to try again! -or- Something is wrong with the NEWREG field. Hit back to try again! A. This is usually caused when a user is trying to bid on an item or post an item and the server permissions are not set correctly. Be sure the folder you made has write permissions and the path is correct in the script. You also should not put any files or directories in the folder you created. The script will create them automatically. Q. Mail is not sent to the user when the auction closes. Why? A. This is probably caused by a bad smtp server definition. Be sure line 117 of the script points the IP ADDRESS of a valid SMTP server. If it still doesn't work, visit the home page and download the sendmail add-on. Q. How do I make new/different categories? A. Edit line 54 of the script to point to new categories. The directories listed will be automatically created by the script. Each category should be listed like: [dir] => [category name], Q. How do I delete entries from the auction before the auction closes? A. The system administrator may remove items from the auction at any time. Just use the URL: auction.cgi?[category]&[number]&r&[adminpass] The easiest way to do this is to go to the item you want to remove and append "&r&[adminpass]" to the end of the URL. The administrator password is defined on line 109 of the script. If it is not set, anyone may remove any item. Q. Do users need accounts to post a product or place a bid? A. Maybe... If the $regdir variable is defined in the configuration section then users will be required to register. Random passwords will be sent via e-mail and user data will be stored in the regdir you specify. If $regdir is undefined, then users will be presented with the "classic" interface where registration is not required. Q. Are closed items retained on the server? A. Maybe... When an item closes, e-mail is sent to both the winning bidder and the seller explaining the results. If a closed item directory is specified, the item will be copied to that directory upon close, otherwise it will just be deleted. Users can view closed items using the closed item viewer utility included. Q. When is e-mail sent out? A. E-Mail is sent out when auctions close. If $scripturl is defined, then outbid e-mails will also be sent. If $regdir is defined, users will receive passwords via e-mail when they register. Q. I clicked on an item and it displayed the list of items or I clicked on a category and it displayed a list of categories. A. When the script is executed, it automatically determines whether the item/category exists. If it does not, it displays the list. Maybe the item you tried to access was closed or the item was deleted? Maybe you didn't give your base directory write permissions so the script could create its directories? Q. How does the command line for the script work? A. When called from a web browser, the script can be called with many different options. They are listed in the header of the script. Q. I do not want users to be able to post new items, but I want to be able to. Is this possible? A. Yes, set $newokay = 0 (or leave it undefined) and the link to post a new item will not be visible. Users who are supposed to post an item may post items using the command line: http://www.your.host.com/cgi-bin/auction.cgi?1&1&n Q. What is file locking, and how can I enable/disable it? In version 1.01, file locking is included to eliminate the risk of data corruption on high-traffic sites. If two users try to post a bid at the EXACT SAME TIME, file locking will delay the second poster until the first poster is finished posting. File locking should be enabled unless your server does not support it. If you get weird flock errors or your script crashes, try setting $flock = 0. If it complains about not finding a flock definition, you should delete line 966 (use Fcntl...) and change line 967 to say: flock (NEWITEM, 2); ===V. Support=== Free support is available via our online forums located at: http://www.everysoft.com/ Commercial support, installation, and customization services are also available at: http://www.everysoft.com/ ===VI. Version History=== This is EveryAuction version 1.01. Version 1.01 - Fixed reposting (quotes bug), fixed e-mail and closed item viewing for items that did not meet the reserve price, minor cosmetic changes (corrected link to EveryAuction home page, added site name to config section). Version 1.0 - First non-beta release. Added numerous new features and a new look. EveryAuction is now professional, reliable auction software being used by over 50 Internet auction sites.