FAQ Wizard ---------- Author: Guido van Rossum Version: 0.5 Date: 2 June 1997 This is a CGI program that maintains a user-editable FAQ. It uses RCS to keep track of changes to individual FAQ entries. It is fully configurable; everything you might want to change when using this program to maintain some other FAQ than the Python FAQ is contained in the configuration module, faqconf.py. Note that the bulk of the code is not an executable script; it's an importable module. The actual script in cgi-bin is minimal. Files: faqw.py executable script to be edited and installed in cgi-bin faqwin.py main module, lives in same directory as FAQ entry files faqconf.py main configuration module faqcust.py additional local customization module (optional) Setup Information ----------------- This assumes you are familiar with Python, with your http server, and with running CGI scripts under your http server. You need Python 1.4 or better. Create a dedicated working directory, preferably one that's not directly reachable from your http server. Drop the Python modules mentioned above in the working directory. Create a subdirectory named RCS. Make both the working directory and the RCS subdirectory wrld-writable. (This is essential, since the FAQ wizard runs as use nobody, and needs to create additional files here!) Edit faqconf.py to reflect your setup. You only need to edit the top part, up till the line of all dashes. The comments should guide you in your edits. You can also choose to make your changes to faqcust.py and leave faqconf.py alone. Don't forget to edit the SECTION_TITLES variables to reflect the set of section titles for your FAQ! Next, edit faqw.py to reflect the pathname of your Python interpreter and the directory you just created. Then install in in your cgi-bin directory. Make sure that it is world-executable. You should now be able to connect to the FAQ wizard by entering the following URL in your web client (subsituting the appropriate host and port for "your.web.server", and perhaps specifying a different directory for "cgi-bin" if local conventions so dictate): http://your.web.server/cgi-bin/faqw.py If you are unable to get this working, check your server's error_log file. The documentation for Python's cgi module in the Python Library Reference Manual gives plentyu additional information about installing and debugging CGI scripts, including setup debugging. This documentation is repeated in the doc string in the cgi module; try ``import cgi; print cgi.__doc__''. Assuming this woks, you should now be able to add the first entry to your FAQ using the FAQ wizard interface. This creates a file faq01.001.htp in your working directory and an RCS revision history file faq01.001.htp,v in the RCS subdirectory. You can now exercise the other FAQ wizard features (search, index, whole FAQ, what's new, and roulette). --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)