Select the "Admin" item on the top of the screen. Choose Admin as login type and enter LNF as password or the value you set if you have already change it when it is asked to you. The only site options you can set are :
This is the LaNewsFactory User's Guide. It covers the installation, configuration and usage of the 0.6.2 LNF version.
LaNewsFactory (LNF) is a PHP web news and forums engine. It requires no database stuff, only a PHP enabled web server. LNF is a file-oriented tool.
LaNewsFactory provides following functionnalities :
LaNewsFactory is free software distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). See the files "Copying" and "Copyright" supplied with the distribution for additional info. For more info on GPL, see the Free Software Foundation.
LaNewsFactory can be downloaded from LaNewsFactory web site. New version announcement are made on freshmeat site and by lnf-announce mailing-list : to subscribe.
The only thing you need is a PHP-enabled web server. But, I currently test LaNewsFactory under a linux 2.2.12 / Apache 1.3.12 / PHP 4rc1 configuration. Windows version of PHP may be taken carefully. For instance, cryptographic functions are not fully supported under Win32 PHP version.
Installing LaNewsFactory is done via an unzip/untar of the distribution file in the directory you want to install it. Current distribution contains 4 directories :
IMPORTANT : your web server has to allow access to the LNF directory. If it is not configure for it, you have to configure your web server before starting using LNF.
That's all.
In 0.4.3 version, topics are implemented. It changes the localisation of the news articles. So, to use under this version the news already written :
Use the same procedure for the file in the "mod" directory.
The 0.4.5 version implements the threaded comments. So, you can reply to a reply. By the way, the news format has changed. To convert the news format to this new format, you have to run the newsconv.php3 script.
Take care to make the upgrade actions in the right order : first the "from 0.4.2 and before" step and then "from 0.4.4 and before" step.
You edit the "sitesettings.php3" file in the install directory. Just put the LNF directory access URL in the $url variable value instead of "http://foo.com/lnf/" value.
IMPORTANT : Don't forget the last /.
If it is not already done, set the following permissions :
Because LNF uses PHP crypt function whose results have OS dependencies, you have to generate original password (value : LNF). Do the following tasks :
For security purposes, please change the original password by using the admin menu.
IMPORTANT : if you are into trouble with password, you can come back to original value (ie LNF) by copying "original-pass.php3" on "pass.php3" in LNf install directory (Site Admin password). For problems in topics, copy "original-pass.php3" on "<topicname>-modpass.php3" (topic moderator's password) or "<topicname>-pass.php3" (topic admin's password) scripts.
Now, you just have to type the following URL : http://.../lnf-directory/listdir.php3. It is going to be the only URL you need to have access to all LNF functionnalities. Now you just have to go in the admin menu to create your first topic. There is no more default topic, you have to create it.
Select the "Admin" item on the top of the screen. Choose Admin
as login type and enter LNF as password or the value you set if you have already
change it when it is asked to you. The only site options you can set are :
The rest of the configuration is available at the topic level.
To write and answer a news, you need no authentification at all. But, if you want to modify settings or edit news, an authentification system is provided. You can access to admin functions by clicking on Admin item in the menu. 2 choices are available [ATTENTION : Topic Admin is not longer supported]:
What a topic is :
is the depth of answers you want to display.
Nota Bene : in the case of a news system site, these options can be set only for the site and not for each topic.
List of the different possible operations (site admin toolbar displayed, TAKE
CARE : see "Options" instead of "Topic/Site Options") :
Topic moderation status is the topic behavior against posting :
In fact, on unmoderated sites, news are directly written in the "news" directory. On moderated sites, news are written in "news/mod" directory.
News management is the possibility of deleting/editing an already published
news. Since 0.4.5 version, you can either select a group of news to delete them.
You can also read a news to delete or modify it. Click on "News management"
to do it.
You just have to execute rss.php3 script via a browser. You receive then a file in RSS 1.0 format containing the first lines of each news. Interesting with RSS format is that RSS is a normalized (RSS 1.0 is at a specification proposal stage in fact) export format. You can trust it to run automated LNF import job in another web site for instance.
Since 0.6.1 version, LaNewsFactory's HTML aspect is stored under HTML templates files. Thoses files are in the "templates/lnf" directory. Look at the source of a LNF HTML page under your browser : comments will help you to identify the HTML template file to modify. For colors, I use 3 files (colour1.tpl, colour2.tpl, colour3.tpl) that I use in the PHP scripts. Change color values in it to set your LNF colors.
From a technical point of view, I use PHP FastTemplate library. Thank to Sascha Schumann for his clear and straightforward FastTemplate tutorial.
Main documentation is provided by this document. A FAQ file also exists
on the web site.
Two mailing-lists are opened :
Please, read carefully this document and the FAQ file before doing anything else. To make a bug report, just send me an email with the following informations :
LaNewsFactory intends to be an usefull web news software with less product dependencies as possible. I am always interested by your suggestions and even more by code ;-) Just send me both to me. And, last but not the least, thank to Richard M. Stallman and the FSF crew for creating GPL without nothing could have been happened.
Christophe Brocas.
PS : Sorry for my english but I am french ;-)