Install Smarty into an include directory

1. This is most easily done by extracting the lib/ directory from the Smarty package into a new directory called includes/
2. Rename the lib/ directory to smarty/
3. Add the following line to your Help Center’s config file:
   set_include_path(get_include_path() . PATH_SEPARATOR . '/path/to/includes/');

Install the HTTP_Request PEAR library

Install this like any other PEAR library. If you don’t have PEAR, download the archive and extract the HTTP_Request-* into the previously created includes directory. Then rename the HTTP_Request-* to HTTP

Setup the database

1. Create a database called “sprinkles”
2. Import the schema from the included SQL file, sprinkles-schema.sql

Create a folder for compiled templates

Create the templates_c/ directory in the Help Center directory to hold the compiled templates for Smarty and make sure it is writable.

Edit your config

Edit config.php in your Help Center installation and add the following, replacing “root” and “password” with your respective database username and password:
$mysql_username = 'root';
$mysql_password = 'password';

Run the web installer

Head to your installation of Help Center in your browser and the web installer will kick in.

Hopefully this process becomes easier in the future. I would recommend to the Get Satisfaction developers to include HTTP_Request and Smarty with the Help Center package.

define('FTP_HOST', 'ftp://example.com/');
define('FTP_USER', 'example_user');
define('FTP_PASS', 'example_pass');
//Set to true if your host uses SSL connections
define('FTP_SSL', false);

This can be reduced to just your password, if your database already remembers the other details.

Et viola. I wrote myself a simple PHP program to convert a list of URLs into an OPML file (the code’s free for any use, should you find a use for it) and used a list of URLs I had obtained by doing mass copies from the directory pages.

Enjoy

(As a side note, there are 3325 different test feeds.)

1. Extract everything in mediawiki-1.11.0/ into your current MediaWiki folder (i.e. replace the files)
2. Delete the following files:
   • .cvsignore
   • Version.php
   • irc/
   • docs/deferred.doc
   • docs/design.doc
   • docs/globals.doc
   • docs/hooks.doc
   • docs/language.doc
   • docs/linkcache.doc
   • docs/memcached.doc
   • docs/schema.doc
   • docs/skin.doc
   • docs/title.doc
   • docs/user.doc
   • docs/html/.cvsignore
   • images/.cvsignore
   • includes/BlockCache.php
   • includes/CacheManager.php
   • includes/DatabasePostgreSQL.php
   • includes/FulltextStoplist.php
   • includes/Group.php
   • includes/Image.php
   • includes/Interwiki.php
   • includes/killthread.php
   • includes/MessageCacheHints.php
   • includes/ParserXML.php
   • includes/Profiling.php
   • includes/SearchMySQL3.php
   • includes/SiteStatsUpdate.php
   • includes/SkinPHPTal.php
   • includes/SpecialAsksql.php
   • includes/SpecialDebug.php
   • includes/SpecialGeo.php
   • includes/SpecialListadmins.php
   • includes/SpecialMaintenance.php
   • includes/SpecialMakesysop.php
   • includes/SpecialSitesettings.php
   • includes/SpecialUserlevels.php
   • includes/SpecialValidate.php
   • includes/UpdateClasses.php
   • includes/normal/.cvsignore
   • languages/Language*.php
   • maintenance/build-intl-wiki.sql
   • maintenance/changeuser.sql
   • maintenance/checktrans.php
   • maintenance/cleanupDupes.php
   • maintenance/compressOld.inc
   • maintenance/compressOld.php
   • maintenance/database.sql
   • maintenance/DiffLanguage.php
   • maintenance/dumpMessages.php
   • maintenance/dumpRev.php
   • maintenance/importPhase2.php
   • maintenance/InitialiseMessages.inc
   • maintenance/liveCmdLine.inc
   • maintenance/rebuildMessages.php
   • maintenance/recount.sql
   • maintenance/redundanttrans.php
   • maintenance/remove-brokenlinks.php
   • maintenance/trivialCmdLine.php
   • maintenance/postgresql/
   • maintenance/archives/convertdb.php
   • maintenance/archives/moveCustomMessages.inc
   • maintenance/archives/moveCustomMessages.php
   • maintenance/archives/patch-curid-covering.sql
   • maintenance/archives/patch-list.txt
   • maintenance/archives/patch-rename-user_rights.sql
   • math/.cvsignore
   • skins/amethyst/
   • skins/wikimania/
   • skins/common/common.css
   • skins/common/images/favicon.ico
   • skins/common/images/fileicon-mid.png
   • skins/common/images/fileicon-ogg.png
   • skins/common/images/fileicon-ogg.xcf
   • skins/common/images/fileicon.png
   • skins/common/images/magnify-clip.png.old
   • skins/common/images/redirect.png
   • skins/common/images/valid-html401.png
   • skins/disabled/Amethyst.php
   • skins/disabled/Amethyst.pt
   • skins/disabled/Chick.php
   • skins/disabled/Chick.pt
   • skins/disabled/MonoBook.pt
   • skins/disabled/MonoBookTal.php
   • skins/disabled/Wikimania.php
   • skins/disabled/WikimediaWiki.php
   • skins/disabled/WikimediaWiki.pt
   • tests/.cvsignore
   • tests/RunTests.php
   • tests/SearchMySQL3Test.php
3. Rename LocalSettings.php to LocalSettings.old.php (Important: maintenance/upgrade.php will not work)
4. Run the installer again, with the same options as before
5. Delete config/LocalSettings.php
6. Rename LocalSettings.old.php back to LocalSettings.php
7. Done!

The .htaccess

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl$ /damnthatyabb.php [L,NC]

The PHP

<?php
if ($_GET['msg']) {
	echo 'Thanks for posting, spammer.';
}
else {
	echo '<form action="/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl" method="GET"> <textarea name="msg"></textarea><input type="submit" /></form>';
}

What it does

It basically takes their input and does nothing with it, but gives them a sense of achievement. We don’t want to disappoint our guests now, do we?

And I wonder if anyone over there has noticed that the developers login, link from the bottom of the page still has the old UI?