Usage
It is very simple to use the guest book (thus the name :)). On your homepage, put something like the following: ...blah blah blah... Sign my guest book! ...blah blah blah...
The ...blah blah blah... are optional, of course.

You should not attempt to edit the book.htm file too much. Everything before the <FORM ACTION=...> and after the </FORM&gt> is OK to edit, but in between, there really are only two things you should change:

1. The "How did you get here?" section can be modified fairly easily. Each of the entries except the "Following a Link" methods can be changed. For example, if you don't like the "Dumb Luck" entry, you can simply change everywhere that you see "Dumb Luck".

2. Note the different wording, however, in the value="..." section and after the final >. That's because the stuff in the value="..." part is preceded by "Found us by: " in the actual guest book, calling for gerunds where appropriate, whereas in the fill-out form it is preceded by "How did you get here?", which calls for a past particple.
Example:
<INPUT TYPE="radio" NAME="theWay" VALUE="Using WebCrawler or other search engine"> From WebCrawler or other search engine. Notice the difference in the value="..." part and the part after the final >?

Another example: suppose you want to add "Had monkey type in random URL" as a way for people to say they got to your homepage. Then add the following right before "Other means":
<INPUT TYPE="radio" CHECKED NAME="theWay" VALUE="Having monkey type in random URL"> Had monkey type in random URL.

That's all there is to customizing this section.

You should try signing the guest book first to make sure it is functioning. Go to the book.htm page, fill it in (note that people only need to leave their names and cities) and press the "Sign the book" button. You should get a message like:

Thank You!

Thank you for taking the time to sign our guest book.
You were the 1st person to sign in.
Click here to read the guest book.
Return to homepage
If you click where it says "click here". You should see something like:

My Guest Book

Name: Mickey Mouse
E-mail: mickey@disney.com
City: Disneyland, USA
Homepage: http://www.disney.com/mickey/
Found us by: Dumb luck
Comment: Cool Guest Book

Signed on: Sun Mar 03 10:48:28 2001

Troubleshooting
Problem: I tried to sign my guest book, but one of the following happened:
I clicked on "Click here to see guest book" and I got URL not found.
Solution: Double-check what you put for the [Guest_Book_URL] section of book.cfg

Problem: I got a message saying "Can't find guestbook file"
Solution: Double-check what you put for the [Guest_Book_Filename] section.

FAQ
Q: Can people put HTML tags in any of the fields?
A: No. This is to prevent the guest book from getting messed up by people sticking in poorly written HTML or worse, poorly written JavaScript. Some people also sign guest books and for the comment they put in <img src="..."> where ... is the URL of a XXX rated picture. I'm sure you don't want that.

Q: How can I tell how many people have signed my book?
A: Look at the book.dat file

Q: I want to remove someone from the guest book
A: Simply edit the file book.html. If you remove someone, you should also edit book.dat by decreasing the number there by one. REMEMBER TO DOWNLOAD THE MOST CURRENT GUESTBOOK BEFORE EDITING IT!