Emaze Forums: Installation

If you have any questions, please let us know. You can email us at sales@emaze.com. If you discover a bug or want to request that we add a feature, change a feature, or make any other change which will make the world a better place, please email us at support@emaze.com.

Copyright and License Agreement:
Emaze Forums is the sole property of Emaze Software Corporation. This license entitles you to install Emaze Forums one time on a single server. Additional installations cost 50% of the normal price. (Discounts are given for multiple installations. Please contact us at sales@emaze.com for more information.) You do not have permission to resell or distribute Emaze Forums in whole or in part, without the permission written approval of Emaze Software.

Installation

To upgrade from the trial or standard version of Emaze Forums, please do the following:

1. Replace all files in EmazeForums/admin/ directory with the files in the new admin directory.
2. Replace all files in EmazeForums/program/ directory with the files in the new program directory.

3. If you downloaded the trial version of Emaze Forums before Wednesday, June 3, 1998, you must run a script to update your installation. We changed the format of many of the text files to make the system faster. The script is available at http://www.emaze.com/forums/updateTextFiles.zip . Unzip the script, place it in your server's EmazeForums/ directory and then call it via a web browser like a normal file. If possible, we recommend backing up the following directories within the EmazeForums/ directory before running the script in case of an error:
   • conf
   • default
   • forum
   • system

To install a clean version of Emaze Forums:

1. Create a directory for Emaze Forums in your webserver's public directory. This can be named EmazeForums or whatever you wish. For the sake of convenience, we assume you named it EmazeForums.

2. Copy all of the subdirectories within the EmazeForums directory to the directory you just created on your webserver. For a complete list of directories and files, see files.html. The only file in the EmazeForums directory which needs to be copied to the server is initialize.cfm, although createdb.cfm will need to be copied if you are using a database other than Access 97.

3. If you are using Microsoft Access 97, copy the database template, emazeforums.mdb, to your webserver. The database can be anywhere you choose. It does not need to be within the EmazeForums/ directory. Rather, it should be outside of your public directory. You are welcome to rename the file to anything you want.

   If you do not have Microsoft Access 97, you may use any SQL database. Just create a blank database file. After initializing Emaze Forums and setting up the Cold Fusion datasource, you will need to run the createdb.cfm script to set up the database. We also provide the database specification in database.html, which lists the tables, fields, field types, and initial data.

4. Log into the Cold Fusion Administrator and add the emazeforums.mdb database to the list of Cold Fusion datasources. You may name the datasource anything you want. Be sure to check that the datasource is working properly.

5. To initialize Emaze Forums, point your browser to: http://www.yourdomain.com/EmazeForums/initialize.cfm . Fill in the appropriate fields and submit the form to initialize Emaze Forums.

6. If using a database other than Access, run the createdb.cfm script to set up the database. Point your browser to: http://www.yourdomain.com/EmazeForums/createdb.cfm.

7. The following files should be deleted from the EmazeForums directory on your server since they are not needed and are potential security risks. You should keep each file on your own computer. Basically, all files in the EmazeForums directory should be deleted after initializing the system.
   • createdb.cfm
   • initialize.cfm
   • All HTML files

8. To set up your discussion forum, point your browser to the Emaze Forums Admin screens at http://www.yourdomain.com/EmazeForums/admin/index.cfm.

      username: master
      password: emaze

   We strongly recommend you at least change the password after logging in. Just click on System and choose option 6, Master user info.

For an overview of how Emaze Forums works, please see help.html. The help file also contains instructions on what to do upon initializing Emaze Forums.

For details on the Emaze Forums code base, including the purpose of each file, please see code.html

Please note that the functionality for automatic hypertext of URLs and email addresses is not yet complete. Both features are built into the Emaze Forums Admin screens, but are not yet available. They will be available in a future release though.

Thanks again for purchasing Emaze Forums. We appreciate your support!