EverList Installation Guide
Drafted:  02.28.2009 by Kris Craig
-----------------------------------


PREFACE:

Thank you for choosing EverList!  This software is open-source FREEWARE.  I originally designed 
this for The Evergreen State College as an alternative to Lyris, which sucks donkey balls in my 
less-than refined opinion.  If you've had the misfortune of ever using Lyris, then you may notice 
that the user interface layout looks similar to Lyris in some respects.  This was deliberate, as 
I wanted to create something that students who were used to the old listserv would be comfortable 
transitioning to.  That being said, everything (PHP, HTML, etc) was written from scratch, with the 
obvious exception of the TinyMCE editor, though I did make a few minor modifications to that as 
well.

EverList is not just an email listserv.  It also has a fully featured web-based interface that 
rivals any online forum or message board software!  In fact, EverList is designed so that you can 
use it as a web-based forum for your website if that's what you're looking for.

For the latest news and releases, and to learn about how you can contribute to this project, visit 
our project website at:  http://everlist.sourceforge.net

To view a working demo of EverList before you install it on your server, you can visit the project 
demonstration website at:  http://everlist.craigcom.kriscraig.com


SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

Tested Platforms:
------------------

Note that other platforms that haven't been tested may work as well.  Please feel free to let me 
know if you test it successfully on a platform version not listed below.

Operating System:  Tested successfully under Unix and Windows XP.
Webserver:  Tested successfully on Apache 1.3.27.
PHP:  Tested successfully on PHP 5.2.3.
MySQL:  Tested successfully on MySQL 4.1.22.
Browser:  Tested successfully on Firefox 2.0.0.2 and IE 6.0.2900.xpsp_sp2_gdr.0503019-1519 128-bit

Other Requirements:
--------------------

Your PHP installation MUST have a sendmail configuration setup with IMAP and SMTP functions 
enabled.  This is *usually* already setup under most Unix hosts.  However, if you're running 
this under Windows, you'll probably need to install a mailserver program.  I've tested this 
successfully using an old 2002 version of MDaemon, but there are plenty of freeware mailservers 
out there for Windows as well.

You'll also need to be able to setup a cronjob (under Unix) or a scheduled task (under Windows).


STEP 1 - FILE INSTALLATION:

Decompress the archive you downloaded to a directory on your webserver.  That's it!


STEP 2 - DATABASE INSTALLATION:

You'll find everything you need for that in database.sql.  You could just import it directly, or 
copy/paste the commands contained therein and run them as manual queries.

The easiest way to do this is to do the following:

1. Logon to MySQL.
2. Type:  create database everlist;
3. Type:  GRANT ALL ON everlist.* TO everlist@localhost IDENTIFIED BY "<mysql-password>";
4. Quit MySQL.
5. In the command shell, type:  mysql -u<mysql-username> -p<mysql-password> everlist < database.sql

If you need additional help with this, you should consult the MySQL online documentation, or simply 
look it up on Google.


STEP 3 - FILE CONFIGURATION:

Edit config.php:

Just follow the commented instructions and edit in the section at the top.

The instructions in that file are pretty self-explanatory.  You will have to change the database 
user/server info, site URL (should point to the directory you decompressed the EverList files to), 
and the sendmail info.  Everything else you can just leave as default if you wish.

Edit config2.php:

Do NOT forget to do this!!  This file contains the MySQL password to be used by the scripts!  This 
must be set to whatever it was specified as in STEP 2.  This is contained in a separate file for 
added security.  If you like, it might not be a bad idea to stick it in a secured directory; just 
make sure you have it point to the right location in config.php if you do.


STEP 4 - SETUP THE CRONJOB

You will need to setup your operating system to run a wget query on relaymail.php at regular 
intervals.  To do this under Unix, you'll want to set it up as a cronjob and make sure wget is 
installed on the system (it usually is in my experience).  For information on how to setup a 
cronjob, just type it into Google and you'll find plenty of help with that.

For those of you running this under Windows, you'll notice I included a file for you named 
"windows_cronjob.bat".  You'll want to setup a Scheduled Task (listed under Control Panel) to run 
this file at regular intervals.  Chances are, you probaly don't have wget installed on your 
system.  There is a handy little Windows version out there that is licensed as freeware.  Just 
type in "wget windows" into Google and you'll have no problem finding it.  You'll then want to edit 
windows_cronjob.bat and make sure it points to the correct location of your wget.exe file.

Though you can set the cronjob interval to whatever you want, I recommend you set it to run 
every 5 minutes.  Basically, relaymail.php is the file that, when executed by the cronjob, checks 
your mailserver for messages and relays them accordingly.  Without it, none of the email-based 
posting functions will work, though the web-based interface should still run just fine if you're 
just going to use this as a message board.


STEP 5 - "SUPERUSER" SETUP:

This is really easy!  Just point your web browser to the EverList site URL on your webserver.  
Then click on the big "Login" link in the upper-right corner.  This will take you to the login 
screen.  Click the "Click HERE to Register!" link.  This is the standard user registration page.  
Enter in whatever info you like (you can always change it later), then click the "Register!" 
button at the bottom and you're all set!  EverList will automatically make the first user 
registered the "SUPERUSER", which is basically just like an ADMIN except no other admins can edit 
your account in any way.

Within a few minutes, you should receive an automated email from the listserv congratulating you 
on creating your account and giving you some subsequent instructions.  You may have to check your 
"junk mail" or "spam" folder (or whatever your email provider calls it) for this message.  The 
main purpose of this is to test your sendmail configuration to make sure everything works.  All 
subsequent users will be sent an email with an activation link instead, so you'll want to make 
sure this is working before you start inviting people to join your listserv!


STEP 6 - CREATE SOME FORUMS!

EverList is broken down into Forums.  Each Forum contains a Topic (thread).  Each Topic contains 
Posts.  Pretty straight-forward, eh?  You can have one forum, or one million-- it's up to you!

But you're gonna want to have at least one forum, otherwise your listserv will be useless.  So, 
click the "Login" link again and enter the username/password you just created.

In my scripts, I like to put the admin functions in the same interface with the user functions, so 
you won't have to worry about jumping through any extra login hoops.  Once you've logged-in, click 
on the "My Account" tab.  You'll now see 5 tabs below that.  The first three are the functions that 
all users have access to.  The fourth tab, "Manage Forums", is visible to admins, as well as users 
who have been given moderator access to one or more forums.  The fifth tab, "Manage Users", is 
accessible/visible only to admins like yourself.

For now, let's click on the "Manage Forums" subtab.  Click on the "Create New Forum" link (only 
admins can do this).  Now, create your first forum and you're good to go!  If you want more help 
on the different options available in creating a new forum, consult the database_spec.txt file.


YOU'RE DONE!

Congratulations!  You now have EverList fully installed and ready to go!  Now, that wasn't so hard, 
was it?

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me by visiting the project 
website!  Thank you again for choosing EverList!  =)


--Kris Craig
EverList Creator
02.28.2009
