Documentation for phpMyFAQ 1.6.x

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[ phpMyFAQ 1.6.x Documentation ]

Introduction
1. License
2. Support
3. Copyright
4. Donations
Installation
Upgrading
Administration
Customising phpMyFAQ 1.6.x
One more thing

1. Introduction

phpMyFAQ is a multilingual, completely database-driven FAQ-system. It supports various databases to store all data, PHP 4.1.0 (or higher) is needed in order to access this data. phpMyFAQ also offers a multi-language Content Management-System with a WYSIWYG editor and an Image Manager, flexible multi-user support with LDAP support, a wiki-like revision feature, a news-system, user-tracking, language modules, enhanced automatic content negotiation, templates, extensive XML-support, PDF-support, a backup-system, a dynamic sitemap, built-in spam protection systems, and an easy to use installation script.

This documentation should help you with installing and administrating phpMyFAQ.

1.a. License

phpMyFAQ is published unter the Mozilla Public License Version 1.1 (MPL). This license guarantees you the free usage of phpMyFAQ, access to the sourcecode and the right to modify and distribute phpMyFAQ.

The only restrictions apply to the copyright, which remains at all times at Thorsten Rinne and the phpMyFAQ Team. Any modified versions of phpMyFAQ will also fall under the terms of MPL. Any other program, that may only be accessing certain functions of phpMyFAQ is not affected by these restrictions and may be distributed under any type of license.

A commercial usage or commercially distribution of phpMyFAQ, e.g. on CD-ROMs, is allowed, as long as the conditions mentioned above are met.

We decided to use MPL as the licensing model for phpMyFAQ because we feel that it is a good compromise between the protection of the openness and free distribution on the one hand and the interaction with other software regardless of its licensing model. When compared to other licensing models its text is short and easily comprehensible, even for newcomers.

This documentation is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

1.b. Support

If you should run into any problems using phpMyFAQ check out our support forums at forum.phpmyfaq.de. There is no support for free by phone or email, please refrain from calling or mailing us.

The phpMyFAQ team offers the following paid services:

Customizing
Support

If you're interested, just take a look at our support page.

1.c. Copyright

1.d. Donations

If you find phpMyFAQ useful and want to express your appreciation, have a look at Thorsten's amazon.de Wishlist. We also accept online donations through PayPal. Please use the button below to make a donation online:

2.Installation

2.a. Requirements for phpMyFAQ

phpMyFAQ addresses a database system via PHP. In order to install it you will need a webserver that meets the following requirements:

PHP
- from version 4.1.0 (recommended: PHP 4.4.2 or PHP 5.1.2)
- register_globals = off (recommended)
- safe_mode = off
Webserver (Apache 1.3.x/2.0.x or lighttpd or IIS)
Database server
- MySQL 3.23.23+, 4.0.x, 4.1.x, 5.0.x, 5.1.x (recommended: 4.1.x)
- MySQL 4.1.x, 5.0.x, 5.1.x with the PHP5 MySQLi extension (recommended: 5.0.x)
- PostgreSQL 7.2.x, 7.3.x, 7.4.x, 8.0.x, 8.1.x (recommended: 8.1.x)
- Sybase
- Microsoft SQL Server 2000, 2005
- IBM DB2 Universal Database 8.2.x, 9.0.x, IBM Cloudscape, and Apache Derby
- SQLite with PHP5
- MaxDB 7.5 or later (experimental)
correctly set: access permissions, owner, group

You can only run phpMyFAQ successfully, when the PHP directive safe_mode is set to off, further constraints affect the directives open_basedir and disable_functions, which can be set in the central php.ini or the httpd.conf respectively.

In case PHP runs as module of the Apache, you will have to be able to do a chown on the files before installation. The files and directories must be owned by the Apache user.

You can determine which versions your webserver is running by creating a file called info.php with the following content:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Upload this file to your webspace and open it using your browser. The installation-script checks which version of PHP is installed on your server. Should you not meet the requirements, you cannot start the installation process.

In case you have PHP 3.0.x or PHP 4.0.x or PHP 6.0.0-dev installed you cannot use phpMyFAQ.

phpMyFAQ uses a WYSIWYG online editor. It uses a non-standard feature based on JavaScript implemented in Mozilla Firefox 0.7+ (any platform), Mozilla 1.3+ (any platform) and Internet Explorer 5.5+ for Windows, therefore the editor will only work in one of these browsers. You have to enable JavaScript. Opera, Safari, and Konquerer aren't supported by this time but future versions should work.

2.b. Preparations

Please unzip the downloaded archive on your harddisk.

You can modify the layout of phpMyFAQ using templates. A description of how this is done can be found below. Copy all unzipped files to your webserver in a directory using FTP. A good choice would be the directory faq/.
Important:
Writing permission for your script is needed in this directory to be able to configure the files data.php and config.php during installation. This is the case if you're running PHP as CGI or as mod_php with disabled safe-mode. The installation script will stop when your webserver isn't configured as needed.

It might help to set chmod 777 to the whole phpMyFAQ directory to avoid problems during the installation. If you're running a very restrictive mod_php installation you should keep the chmod 777 for the following files and directories even after the succesful installation:

the files data.php and config.php in the directory inc/
the directory attachments/
the directory data/
the directory images/
the directory pdf/
the directory xml/

All other directories shouldn't be world-writable for your own security.

2.c. Install-Script

Open your browser and type in the following URL:

http://www.example.com/faq/install/installer.php

Substitute www.example.com with your actual domain name. When the site is loaded enter the address of your database server (e.g. db.provider.com), your database username and password as well as the database name. The datebase must be availible before running the installation script. You can leave the prefix-field empty. If you are planning on using multiple FAQs in one database you will have to use a tableprefix, though (i.e. sport for a sports-FAQ, weather for a weather-FAQ, etc.). Please note that only letters and an underline: "_" can be used as the prefix.

If your PHP was compiled with the LDAP extension you can add your LDAP information, too. You have to insert your LDAP informations, too.

When using multiple FAQs you need to install them independently into different directories (e.g. faq1/, faq2/. faq3/ etc.). In addition you can enter your language, default here is English. Furthermore you should register your name, your email address and - very importantly - your password. You must enter the password twice and it have to be at least six places long. Then click the button "install" to initialize the tables in your database.

2.d. First Steps

You can enter the public area of your FAQ by entering

http://www.example.com/faq/index.php

into your browser's address field. Your FAQ will be empty and presented in the the standard layout.

To configure phpMyFAQ point your browser to

http://www.example.com/faq/admin/index.php

Use the username admin and your selected password for your first login into the admin section.

Some variables that doesn't change regulary, can be edited in the file inc/constants.php. You can change the

the time zone of your server (default: 0:00 hours
the timeout in the admin section (default: 30 minutes)
the solution id start value (default: 1000)
the incremental value of the solution id (default: 1)
the number of records in the Top10 (default: 10)
the number of latest records (default: 5)

2.e. Notes regarding the search-function

The boolean fulltext-search will only work with MySQL and if there are some entries in the database (5 or more). The term you are looking for should also not be in more than 50% of all your entries, or it will automatically be excluded from search. This is not a bug, but rather a feature of MySQL. Please remember that you need MySQL 4.1 to use the boolean fulltext search for languages like Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Korean or Japanese.

2.f. Automatic content negotiation

To set the default language in your browser you have to set a variable that gets passed to the web server. How this is done depends on the browser you are using.

Mozilla Firefox
Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Edit Languages

Mozilla/Netscape 4.x and later versions

Edit -> Preferences -> Navigator -> Languages

Safari
Safari uses the MacOS X system preferences to determine your preferred language:
```
System preferences -> International -> Language
```

Opera
Most versions:

File -> Preferences -> Languages

Linux/*BSD versions 5.x and 6.x:

File -> Preferences -> Document -> Languages

Internet Explorer
Windows:

Tools or View or Extras -> Internet Options -> (General) Languages

MacOS:

Edit -> Preferences -> Web Browser -> Language/Fonts

2.g. PHP settings

If you're able to edit the php.ini file, please check that the variable file_upload = On is set; otherwise the file upload will not work for the attachments.

2.h. Enabling mod_rewrite support

Apache Webserver

If you want to enable the search engine optimization you have to rename the file _.htaccess to .htaccess in the root directory where your FAQ is located. Then you have to activate the mod_rewrite support in the admin backend in the configuration page.

IIS Webserver

If you want to enable the search engine optimization you have to rename the file _httpd.ini to httpd.ini in the root directory where your FAQ is located. Then you have to activate the mod_rewrite support in the admin backend in the configuration page.

lighttpd Webserver

If you want to enable the search engine optimization you have to copy the rewrite rules in the file _lighttpd.conf to your lighttpd.conf. Then you have to activate the mod_rewrite support in the admin backend in the configuration page.

2.i. Enabling LDAP support

If you're entered the correct LDAP information during the installation you have to enable the LDAP support in the configuration in the admin backend. After this action phpMyFAQ reads the full username and email address from LDAP and fills this information automatically into the input forms in the public frontend.

2.j. PDF export

Not every (X)HTML tag is supported by the PDF export. Currently we're supporting the following tags in the PDFs:

support for bold, italics, underlined text
support for images
basic support for tables
support for lists <li>
<pre> will be displayed using Courier font
support for <br>, <br /> and <p>
support for <hr> and <hr />
support for <sup> and <sub>

2.k. Firefox and IE7 search plugins

phpMyFAQ 1.6.x provides search plugins for Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer 7. This plugins can be created in the admin section and every user in the frontend can install it. With an installed search plugin you can search through the phpMyFAQ installation with the search box in upper right corner of Mozilla Firefox or Microsoft Internet Explorer 7. We recommend to use Mozilla Firefox. For further informations about Mozilla Firefox, please visit the homepage of the Mozilla Foundation.

2.l. Static solution ID

Introduced with version 1.6.0, phpMyFAQ implements a static solution ID which never changes. This ID is displayed next to the question on a FAQ record page. You may think why do you need such an ID? If you have a record ID 1042 it is now possible to enter only the ID 1024 in the input field of the fulltext search box and you'll be automatically redirected to the FAQ record with the ID 1024. By default the numbers start at ID 1000 but you can change this value in the file inc/constants.php. You can also change the value of the incrementation of the static IDs.

2.m. Spam protection

phpMyFAQ 1.6.0 and later perform these three checks on public forms:

Check against IP/Network address
Check against banned words
Check against the captcha code

The IP/Network addresses can be added or removed in the configuration panel in the administration backend. If you want to add banned words to phpMyFAQ, then you have to edit the file inc/blockedwords.txt. Please add only one word per line.

3. Upgrading

Upgrading to phpMyFAQ 1.6.x is possible from the following versions:

phpMyFAQ 1.3.x
phpMyFAQ 1.4.x
phpMyFAQ 1.5.x

If you're running an older version of phpMyFAQ we recommend a new and fresh install.

3.a. Upgrading from phpMyFAQ 1.3.x

Upgrading from 1.3.x to 1.6.x is a really major upgrade. Please make a full backup before you run the upgrade! Nevertheless the update from phpMyFAQ 1.3.x to the current release is fairly simple. First you have to delete all files except:

the files data.php and config.php in the directory inc/
the directory attachments/
the directory data/
the directory images/
the directory pdf/
the directory xml/

Copy the new files to your webspace and open the following URL in your browser:

http://www.example.com/faq/install/update.php

Choose your currently installed phpMyFAQ version and click the button of the update script, your version will automatically be updated. It is possible that your attached images or documents are gone. You have to reinsert them in the new Image Manager. Additionally you have to reorder your categories.

After that you have to convert the BBCode from phpMyFAQ 1.3.x into XHTML code because phpMyFAQ 1.6.0 doesn't support BBCode anymore.. This will be done by a convert script. Open the following URL in your browser:

http://www.example.com/faq/install/bbcode2xhtml.php

Maybe this update will work some seconds due to the fact that in all entries the BBCode have to converted into XHTML.

Note: You cannot update from MySQL to another database.

3.b. Upgrading from phpMyFAQ 1.4.x

Updating from phpMyFAQ 1.4.x is fairly simple. Via FTP copy all new files from the phpMyFAQ package except:

the files data.php and config.php in the directory inc/
all files in the template/ directory

Open the following URL in your browser:

http://www.example.com/faq/install/update.php

Choose your installed phpMyFAQ version and click the button of the update script, your version will automatically be updated.

Note: You cannot update from MySQL to another database. You have to add the RSS links from the XHTML header into your 1.4.x based templates. You also have to add some more new stuff in the templates, please read the new templates for all changes.

3.c. Upgrading from phpMyFAQ 1.5.x

Updating phpMyFAQ 1.5.x is fairly simple. Via FTP copy all new files from the phpMyFAQ package except:

the files data.php and config.php in the directory inc/
all files in the template/ directory

Open the following URL in your browser:

http://www.example.com/faq/install/update.php

Choose your installed phpMyFAQ version and click the button of the update script, your version will automatically be updated.

If you update from a version prior to phpMyFAQ 1.5.4 you have to add the following string into the file template/search.tpl:

{msgFirefoxPluginTitle}
{msgMSIEPluginTitle}

If the Firefox or IE7 search plugin is created, the installation link to the plugin will appear automatically on the search page.

You also have to change in index.tpl the following code from

<form action="{writeSendAdress}" method="post">
<label for="suchbegriff">{searchBox}</label>
<input alt="search..." class="inputfield" type="text" name="suchbegriff" id="suchbegriff" size="18" /><br />
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Go" class="submit" />
</form>

<form action="{writeSendAdress}" method="get">
<label for="suchbegriff">{searchBox}</label>
<input alt="search..." class="inputfield" type="text" name="search" id="suchbegriff" size="18" /><br />
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Go" class="submit" />
<input type="hidden" name="action" value="search" />
</form>

You can find the changed files between the 1.6.x version in the file docs/CHANGEDFILES.txt.

3.d. Upgrading phpMyFAQ 1.6.x

Updating phpMyFAQ 1.6.x is fairly simple. Via FTP copy all new files from the phpMyFAQ package except:

the files data.php and config.php in the directory inc/
all files in the template/ directory

Open the following URL in your browser:

http://www.example.com/faq/install/update.php

Choose your installed phpMyFAQ version and click the button of the update script, your version will automatically be updated.

If you update from a version prior to phpMyFAQ 1.6.1 you have to add the following string into the file template/search.tpl:

{msgMSIEPluginTitle}

You also have to change in index.tpl the following code from

<form action="{writeSendAdress}" method="post">
<label for="suchbegriff">{searchBox}</label>
<input alt="search..." class="inputfield" type="text" name="suchbegriff" id="suchbegriff" size="18" /><br />
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Go" class="submit" />
</form>

<form action="{writeSendAdress}" method="get">
<label for="suchbegriff">{searchBox}</label>
<input alt="search..." class="inputfield" type="text" name="search" id="suchbegriff" size="18" /><br />
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Go" class="submit" />
<input type="hidden" name="action" value="search" />
</form>

You can find the changed files between the 1.6.x version in the file docs/CHANGEDFILES.txt.

3.e. Modifying templates for phpMyFAQ 1.6.x

The 1.3.x templates are not compatible with phpMyFAQ 1.6.x, so please take the default XHTML templates from the package. The 1.4.x templates are partly compatible with phpMyFAQ 1.6.x, so you have to edit them and add some new placeholders for the captcha support. The 1.5.x templates are mostly compatible with phpMyFAQ 1.6.x, if your layout is completly based on CSS, you only have to change the .tpl files listed in docs/CHANGEDFILES.txt. If you need help to integrate phpMyFAQ into your website feel free to contact us.

3.f. Migration

Prerequisites:

Application that is capable of exporting csv data
Ready configured phpMyAdmin for importing the csv data
A recent backup copy of your database

If you would like to migrate your existing data into your phpMyFAQ database we recommend the following steps:

Write down your categories to have them available later (or print them with phpMyAdmin); you will find the data in the xx_faqcategories table. If you do not have any categories yet this is a good time for creating them, you´ll need them in less tha a minute...
Open your application used for calculations (e.g. OpenOffice, Excel, etc.)

Create a new sheet containing the following data:

id   lang   solution_id    revision_id    active   keywords   thema   content   author   email   comment   datum

In case you do not have any data already in the phpMyFAQ database your "id" field counts from 1 otherwise look at your current xx_faqdata to find out the highest "id" number to start counting from. The field "lang" contains the language you prefer. In my case you´ll find "de" becuase my preferred language is German. Set "active" to "yes" (without qoutation marks of course) otherwise the data won´t display later. You can leave out "keywords" for now but remember that you´ll need them in case you want to find your FAQs by keywords. "thema" describes the FAQ topic or in other words the question. "content" contains the answer to the frequently asked question. "author" and "email" shold be seld-explanatory. "comment" is just a value and can be "y" or "n". I´d prefer "n" to disable users from commenting but this is up to you. You should be careful with "datum" as this value strongly depends on the format. An example would look like this: 20050401090000 in other words: 4digits year (2005), 2 digits month (04), 2 digits day (01), 2 digits hour (09), 2 digits minutes (00) and 2 digits seconds (00). Your table could look like this now:

id   lang   solution_id    revision_id    active   keywords   thema                  content   author      email         comment   datum
1   de   1000    1    yes   FAQ   Is there any better solution than phpMyFAQ?   No!   John Doe   john@doe.com   n   20050401090101

Be aware that the fields containing numbers should default to "number" with 0 decimals otherwise phpMyAdmin could do wrong. Now you are ready to export to csv. Do yourself a favour and avoid any spaces in the filename, UNIXes could have trouble to read the filename otherwise.

Open your phpMyAdmin URL and open your phpMyFAQ database (even if it was still empty). Scroll down the page click on the link "import text file", choose your file and click "submit" button.

That´s it. Should you have any trouble it is a good time to restore your data from the backup you saved earlier. Then edit the imported records and reassign the record to the categories.

4. Administration

The administration of phpMyFAQ is completely browser-based. The admin area can be found under this URL:

http://www.example.com/faq/admin/index.php

If you have lost your password, there you can reset it. A new random password will be generated and sent to you via e-mail. Please change it after your successful login with the generated password.

After entering your username and password you can log into the system. On the startpage you can see the admin menu on the left, some statistics about visits, entries and comments on the right. At the bottom of the main admin page you'll see a button for version information. If you click on that button your version of phpMyFAQ will check the latest version number from our website www.phpmyfaq.de. We do not log anything in this process!

The menu contains the following sections:

User Administration
Create Records
Approve Records
Edit Records
Category Administration
Add News
Edit News
Edit open questions
Rating Statistics
Cookies
View Sessions
View Adminlog
Change Password
Edit configuration
Backups
Export your FAQ
Logout
Startpage

4.a. User Administration

phpMyFAQ offers a flexible management of privileges (or rights) for different users in the admin area. It is possible to assign different priviledges to real people (represented by the term users). Those priviledges are very detailed and specific, so that you could allow a certain user to edit but not to delete an entry. It is very important to contemplate which user shall get which priviledges. You could edit an entry by completely deleting all content, which would be equivalent to deleting the whole entry. The number of possible users is not limited by phpMyFAQ.

In the main screen of the user administration you'll see an overview of all active user profiles, whereas a combination of "1" and "0" represents the priviledges of a user. A "1" symbolizes that a user has this priviledge, a "0" shows that a user cannot perform a certain action. The order is essentially the same as the listing of the "Rights" when creating or editing a user.

Keep in mind that new users have no priviledges at all, you will have to assign them by editing the user's profile. The admin user cannot be deleted, nor can the name be changed.

4.b. Category Administration

phpMyFAQ lets you create different categories and nested sub-categories for your FAQ. You can also re-arrange your categories in a different order. It is possible to use varius languages per category, too. For accessibility reasons you should add a small description for every category.

4.c. Record Administration

You can create entries directly in the admin area. Created entries are NOT published by default. The meaning of the fields is as follows:

Category
The place in the FAQ hierarchy where this entry will be published depends on these settings. You can choose one or more categories where to store the entry. If you want to add a FAQ record to more than one category you have to select the categories with your mouse and press the CTRL key.
Question
This is the question or headline of your entry.
Content
The content is an answer to the question or a solution for a problem. The content can be edited with the included WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor when JavaScript is enabled. You can place images where you want with the integrated image manager. The editor provides the following key combinations:
- CTRL-A - select all
- CTRL-B - bold
- CTRL-I - italic
- CTRL-U - underline
- CTRL-S - strikethrough
- CTRL-L - justify left
- CTRL-E - justify center
- CTRL-R - justify right
- CTRL-J - justify full
- CTRL-1 .. CTRL-6 - headings (<h1> .. <h6>)
- CTRL-0 (zero) - clean content pasted from Word
Keywords
Keywords are relevant for searching through the database. In case you didn't include a specific word in the entry itself, but it is closely related to the content you may wish to include it as a keyword, so the entry will come up as a search result. It is also possible to use non-related keywords so that a wrongly entered search will also lead to the right results.
Author
It is possible to specify an author for your entries.
Language
You can select the language of your entry. By default the selected language saved in the configuration will be chosen. You can create entries in multiple languages like this: Write an article in English (or any other language) and save it. Now choose edit records and edit your English entry. Change the theme, content and keywords and change language to, let's say Brazilian portuguese. Save the entry. Now you can, when you click edit records, see both entries in your list, having the same id, yet different languages.
Solution ID
Every entry generates automatically a so-called solution ID. All records can be accessed directly by putting this ID into the search box.
Active?
If an entry is "active" it is visible in the public area and will be included in searches. Is it "deactivated" it will be invisible. Suggested entries are deactivated by default to prevent any abuse.
Comments?
If you do not want to allow public comments for this entry you can disable the feature here.
Revsion
Lika a wiki, phpMyFAQ 1.6.x supports revisions of every entry. New revisions won't be created autmatically but you can create a new one if you click on "yes". The old revision will be stored in the database and the new current revision will be displayed in the public frontend. You can also bring back old revisions into the frontend if you select an old revision and save them as a new one.
Date
Date of the last change.
Changed?
This field is reserved for comments that can reflect what changes have been applied to a certain entry. This helps multiple admins to keep track of what happened to the entry over time. Any information entered here will remain invisible in the public area.
Changelog
The changelog lists all previous changes, including user and date of change.
approve records
All entries in the database that are not active (and therefore not publicly visible) are listed here. Content suggested by visitors will also be placed here. To approve those entries click on the entry to edit it. Change it to "active" so it becomes visible. You can also delete entries here (this includes a security check if you are certain).
edit records
All available entries are listed here. By clicking on them the same interface that lets you create records will open up, this time with all the relevant data of the specific entry.

You can edit and delete all records as well. Please note that old revisions won't be deleted.

4.d. News Administration

phpMyFAQ offers the ability to post news on the starting page of your FAQ. In the administration area you can create new items, edit existing news or delete them.

4.e. Edit open questions

phpMyFAQ lets visitors contribute to the FAQ by asking questions. Every visitor is able to view these open questions in the public area, and may give an answer. If you wish to get rid of open questions you can do so using this section. Alternatively you can take over a question and answer it yourself and hereby add it to the FAQ.

4.f. Rating statistics

Below every entry visitors have the chance to rate the overall quality of an article by giving ratings from 1 to 5 (whereas 1 is the worst, 5 the best rating). In the statistics the average rating and number of votes becomes visible for every rated entry. To give you a quick overview entries with an average rating of 2 or worse are displayed in red, an average above 4 results in a green number.

4.g. Cookies

phpMyFAQ can save the login information to the admin area as a cookie on your computer. Although this feature may be very comfortable it is a potential security hole. Only use cookies if you are the only person using the computer.

4.h. View Sessions

This functions lets you keep track of your visitors. Every visitor is assigned an id when coming to your starting page, that identifies him during his whole visit. Using the information gathered here you could reconstruct the way visitors use your FAQ and make neccessary adjustments to your categories, content or keywords. There is also a search function that you can use to look for a certain IP, the number of minimum actions or the date of a visit.

4.i. View Adminlog

The adminlog allows you to track any actions taken by users in the admin area of phpMyFAQ. If you feel you have an intruder in the system you can find out for sure by checking the admin log.

4.j. Change passwords

This section lets you change your password. It is possible to deny this function for a certain user, which is very reasonable for group accounts. In order to change the password you need to have "Change Password" enabled for this user.

4.k. Edit configuration

Here you can edit the general settings of phpMyFAQ. Should you want to enter multiple email addresses in the configuration separate them by a comma (",").

4.l. Backups

Using the backup function it is possible to create a copy of the database to a single file. This makes it possible to restore the FAQ after a possible "crash" or to move the FAQ from one server to another. It is recommended to make regular backups of your FAQ.

backup data
A backup of all data will include all entries, users, comments, etc.
backup LOGs
The sessions of visits and the adminlog will be saved (i.e. all LOG files). This information is not necessary for running phpMyFAQ, they serve only statistical purposes.

4.m. Export your FAQ

You can export your contents of your FAQ in four formats:

a XML file
a plain XHTML file
a PDF file with a table of contents
a DocBook XML file

nach oben

4.n. Firefox search plugin

You can enter the title and a description for your unique Firefox search plugin for your version of phpMyFAQ. If you want to change the title or the description just re-create the plugin.

If you want an own favicon for the Firefox search box you have to change the PNG image file called pmfsearch.png in the folder images/. If you don't change it the phpMyFAQ logo will be used.

4.o. Logout

Clicking on Logout will end the current session. It is recommended to logout before closing the browser to prevent exploits.

5. Customising phpMyFAQ 1.6.x

In phpMyFAQ 1.6.0 code and layout are almost completely seperated. The layout is based on several templates, that you can modify to suit your own needs. The most important files for phpMyFAQ's layout can be found in the directory template/. All original templates are valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional and we don't use tables for layout reasons.

Note: You can change the layout of the admin area using the CSS file admin.css.

5.a. The file template/index.tpl

The default layout of phpMyFAQ is saved in the index.tpl file. This is a normal HTML-file including some variables in curly brackets, serving as placeholders for content.

Example:

<span class="useronline">{userOnline}</span>

The template-parser of the FAQ converts the placeholder {userOnline} to the actual number of visitors online.

You can change the template as you wish, but you may want to keep the original template in case something goes wrong. Theoretically you can use any editor for changing the templates, test using Dreamweaver were successful. Modifying the files with Microsoft Frontpage, Adobe GoLive or NetObjects Fusion may mess up the template, since they alter the source-code.

5.b. The file template/style.css

All formattings such as fonts and the like can be modified in the CSS-file style.css. The colors are defined in the file colors.css. More info can be found at the official W3C website.

5.c. More Templates

You need an other template design or more XHTML/CSS features? Then write us an email and we can talk about it.

6. One more thing

Thank you for using phpMyFAQ! :-)

Author: Thorsten Rinne
Co-Authors: Stephan Hochhaus, Markus Gläser
Last Change: 2006-06-13

This documentation is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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