smg help
I know, signmyguestbook is a) unreliable and b) no longer free. That said, it remains the only hosted guestbook service to allow complete customisation of your html, which is why I’m keeping the list of variables up.
Guestbooks differ from diaries and blogs in that your template needs to incorporate not only a space for entries, but also a form where people can leave messages. If you’re trying to improve the appearance of your guestbook, a basic knowledge of CSS is indispensible; otherwise you’ll be stuck with big courier new font in the textbox and grey entry buttons.
I compiled this list of variables for my own reference, but it should be useful for anyone trying to design or edit a guestbook template:
tags in main template
%%entries%% inserts the guestbook entries. As you’d expect.
%%links_to_older_entries%% lists the pages in your guestbook; without this tag, your visitors have no way of accessing your archived messages. (Well, not unless they enter the page numbers manually, and who’s going to bother doing that?)
tags in individual entry template
%%entry_number%% pretty self-explanatory; allows you to display the number of the post so people can see at a glance how many adoring messages you’ve been left.
%%signername%% the name of the guestbook signer
%%email%% the email address of the guestbook signer.
%%url%% the url of the guestbook signer. You’d probably want to use this in a link, e.g. <a href=”%%url%%”>site</a>
%%date%% the date and time of the guestbook signing. You can’t adjust the format of this. I know, it sucks, but how much time do you want to spend twiddling with your guestbook, really?
%%message%% at last! this is the tag that displays the guestbook entry
%%option1%% etc. These display the optional fields, of which you can have up to five (unlike diaryland, where you only have three and have to pay to get them. Truly, we are blessed.) For example, if you desperately wanted to know your readers’ favourite kind of cheese, you’d have included a field to this effect in your guestbook form (located in the main template or your sidebar):
What is your favourite cheese? <input type=”text” name=”option1″>
Then, somewhere in your individual entry template, you’d add something like:
Favourite cheese: %%option1%%
and in place of %%option1%%, your guestbook would display whatever your reader had entered in the ‘option1′ box (like ‘cheddar’, or ‘mozzarella’, or ‘what are you, some kind of a freak?’). As I mentioned, you can have up to five of these extra fields; just change the option number to 2, 3, 4 or 5. When I was taking requests through my guestbook I found this feature pretty useful.
help! how do I get rid of those links at the bottom?
They’re not pretty, are they? You have a couple of options: insert a string of line-breaks after the entries in the main template, so people have to scroll waaaaay down to see them; make your links the same colour as your background (this can work, if all your text is in a contrasting table or div), or insert <noscript> at the end of the main template html. Whatever you do, ensure there’s a readable, functioning link back to signmyguestbook.com somewhere on your page. Those links may not be the most aesthetically pleasing thing ever, but they’re more attractive than a pop-up and you owe Andrew a little bit of acknowledgement, right?
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