Copyright (c) 2003-2005 Barnraiser. All rights reserved.
http://www.barnraiser.org/


>> UPGRADING
   Please see 'doc/upgrade.txt' for template, language file and database 
   upgrade notes.
   

>> DOCUMENTATION
   Full up to date documentation is available for free from 
   http://build.barnraiser.org/ . Register and join the 'beacon support and 
   development' group if you want support and or a full set of intallation 
   instructions and a user guide. All documentation is stored in the group 
   wiki which you will see in the groups menu. You are very welcome to join 
   our community of contributors there! All documentation is free (as is the 
   community) and all documentation is released under the GNU Free 
   Documentation License (GFDL).
   
   
>> PRE-INSTALL
   Please check the following prior to installation.
   
   PHP requirments
    * You have PHP4.x version installed. Beacon is not yet tested on PHP5.x.
    * GDLib 2.x extension is installed.

    Spell checking
    You can enable spell checking support (recommended) if your server supports
    Aspell. To Install Aspell follow the instructions at
    http://aspell.sourceforge.net/ [Windows users please not the link 'Windows
    Port' on the page. Follow that and install the 'Full installer']. After
    you have installed please follow the link to 'Dictionaries' and install the
    dictionaries you require.

    Database types and UNICODE support
    The standard SQL statements we supply create InnoDB, a MySQL 
	transaction-safe storage engine. It has been designed for maximum 
	performance when processing large data volumes. Its CPU efficiency is 
	probably not matched by any other disk-based relational database engine. 
	It has been proven to handle an average load of 800 inserts/updates per 
	second.

	For more information: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/innodb-overview.html
	
	Character sets
	Unicode provides a unique number for every character, no matter what the 
	platform, no matter what the program, no matter what the language. The 
	Unicode Standard has been adopted by such industry leaders including 
	Apple, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Sun, Sybase and Unisys. Unicode 
	is required by modern standards such as XML, Java, ECMAScript 
	(JavaScript), LDAP, CORBA 3.0, WML, etc., and is the official way to 
	implement ISO/IEC 10646. It is supported in many operating systems, all 
	modern browsers, and many other products.

	Unicode enables a single software product or a single website to be 
	targeted across multiple platforms, languages and countries without 
	re-engineering and allows data to be transported through many different 
	systems without corruption.

	For more information:
	http://www.unicode.org/
	http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/charset-unicode.html

	We recommend creating InnoDB UNICODE tables for MySQL 4.x1.x databases. 
	Please select the beacon-mysql.sql file when prompted. All other database 
	installations should use the beacon.sql file when prompted.
   
   
>> WHO SHOULD INSTALL
   This is a web site and should be installed by a web site systems 
   administrator (webmaster). Any understanding of FTP, changing directory 
   privileges and web servers is required. We cannot support you if you are 
   not able to understand these things.
   
   
>> INSTALL
   1. Please read the terms of the license prior to install. 3rd party classes 
      are included for ease. Please note, these are under separate license.
	  
   2. Use the included install/beacon.sql file to populate a database (you will need 
      to manually create a new database first). For development we recommend 
      using MySQL, however ADOdb supports many database types. Please note, we 
      have only tested this software with MySQL. No support for other databases 
      can be given at this time.

      You can edit the beacon.sql file to change the prefix of the database 
      name. By default this is "beacon_<database_table_name>", but if you wish 
      to have multiple instances of beacon under one account you can edit this 
      to anything such as "beacon_dev_<database_table_name>" - remember to update 
	  the config file beacon_prefix var to reflect your changes.

   3. Edit the /config/config.inc.php with your server and database 
      connection variables.
      
   4. [optional] If you require spell checking and you have Aspell installed 
      update the $c_node['node']['language']['aspell']['command'] variable to 
      include the path to you Aspell installation. Standard aspell installs 
      are:
        
        WINDOWS          '"C:\Program Files\Aspell\bin\aspell.exe"'
        GNU/Linux        "/usr/local/bin/aspell"

   5. Edit the .htaccess file and replace the 404 error URL with your own.
   6. chmod 777 the following directories:
          * beacon/log/
          * beacon/asset/
          * beacon/asset/thumbs/
          * beacon/cache/
          * beacon/cache/feed/

          Example $> chmod 777 beacon/log/
   

>> SETUP
   1. Register yourself.
	 
   2. Add permission to your user in the db - We assume that you are the first 
      person to register, therefore you are user_id 1 (row 1 in the users 
	  table).
	  
	  Run the following queries on you database:
	  
	  INSERT INTO beacon_permission (`user_id`,`permission_id`) VALUES (1,1);
	  INSERT INTO beacon_permission (`user_id`,`permission_id`) VALUES (1,2);
	  INSERT INTO beacon_permission (`user_id`,`permission_id`) VALUES (1,3);
	  INSERT INTO beacon_permission (`user_id`,`permission_id`) VALUES (1,4);
	  INSERT INTO beacon_permission (`user_id`,`permission_id`) VALUES (1,5);
	  INSERT INTO beacon_permission (`user_id`,`permission_id`) VALUES (1,6);
   
   3. start playing.


>> COMMON ERRORS
   1. No GDLIB Installed (Windows only)

	You will need GDLib support active for uploading images. Php4.3.x and up 
	has this built in, but not activated:

	Now you should have a file named php.ini.dist (for this document we will 
	assume it to be in in this path "c:\php\"). Rename that to php.ini and copy 
	it to the root of you Windows directory, C:/WINDOWS/ (be sure to back up 
	the one that is there).
	
	change:
		extension_dir = ":/"
	to:
		extension_dir= " C:\php\extensions"

	uncomment to extension:
	
	change:
		;extension=php_gd2.dll
	to:
		extension=php_gd2.dll
		
	You must restart to see the changes take effect.
	
   2. Session Errors (Windows only)
	You will need to set up a session save path in php.ini. Edit php.ini:
	
	change
		session.save_path = "/tmp"
	to:
		session.save_path = "C:\tmp\"
	
	(C:\tmp\ used as example - you can change the directory path to suit you)

      	
>> UNSUPPORTED LANGUAGES
   You can add a language by translating the language files, but 
   we would be happier if you worked with us so that we add it and everyone 
   gets it.


>> TECHNICAL SUPPORT
   See our community at http://build.barnraiser.org/ for support. If in doubt 
   contact Barnraiser and we will try to help you - http://www.barnraiser.org/





