Creating a Book-like PHP Guestbook

Today I prepared new and interesting tutorial – I will tell how you can create an Ajax PHP guestbook with your own unique design. Our records will be saved into an SQL database. This table will contain: name of sender, email, guestbook record, date-time of record and ip of sender. Of course, we will use jQuery too (to make it ajax-y). One of the important features will be spam protection (we can post no more than one record every 10 minutes)!

Live Demo

download in package

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Now – download the source files and lets start coding !

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Step 1. SQL

We need to add one table to our database (to store our records):

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `s178_guestbook` (
  `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
  `name` varchar(255) default '',
  `email` varchar(255) default '',
  `description` varchar(255) default '',
  `when` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
  `ip` varchar(20) default NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY  (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

Step 2. PHP

Here are source code of our main file:

guestbook.php

<?php
// disabling possible warnings
if (version_compare(phpversion(), "5.3.0", ">=")  == 1)
  error_reporting(E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE & ~E_DEPRECATED);
else
  error_reporting(E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE); 

require_once('classes/CMySQL.php'); // including service class to work with database

// get visitor IP
function getVisitorIP() {
    $ip = "0.0.0.0";
    if( ( isset( $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'] ) ) && ( !empty( $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'] ) ) ) {
        $ip = $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'];
    } elseif( ( isset( $_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'])) && (!empty($_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'] ) ) ) {
        $ip = explode(".",$_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP']);
        $ip = $ip[3].".".$ip[2].".".$ip[1].".".$ip[0];
    } elseif((!isset( $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'])) || (empty($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR']))) {
        if ((!isset( $_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'])) && (empty($_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP']))) {
            $ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
        }
    }
    return $ip;
}

// get last guestbook records
function getLastRecords($iLimit = 3) {
    $sRecords = '';
    $aRecords = $GLOBALS['MySQL']->getAll("SELECT * FROM `s178_guestbook` ORDER BY `id` DESC LIMIT {$iLimit}");
    foreach ($aRecords as $i => $aInfo) {
        $sWhen = date('F j, Y H:i', $aInfo['when']);
        $sRecords .= <<<EOF
<div class="record" id="{$aInfo['id']}">
    <p>Record from {$aInfo['name']} <span>({$sWhen})</span>:</p>
    <p>{$aInfo['description']}</p>
</div>
EOF;
    }
    return $sRecords;
}

if ($_POST) { // accepting new records

    $sIp = getVisitorIP();
    $sName = $GLOBALS['MySQL']->escape(strip_tags($_POST['name']));
    $sEmail = $GLOBALS['MySQL']->escape(strip_tags($_POST['name']));
    $sDesc = $GLOBALS['MySQL']->escape(strip_tags($_POST['text']));

    if ($sName && $sEmail && $sDesc && $sIp) {

        // spam protection
        $iOldId = $GLOBALS['MySQL']->getOne("SELECT `id` FROM `s178_guestbook` WHERE `ip` = '{$sIp}' AND `when` >= UNIX_TIMESTAMP() - 600 LIMIT 1");
        if (! $iOldId) {

            // allow to add comment
            $GLOBALS['MySQL']->res("INSERT INTO `s178_guestbook` SET `name` = '{$sName}', `email` = '{$sEmail}', `description` = '{$sDesc}', `when` = UNIX_TIMESTAMP(), `ip` = '{$sIp}'");

            // drawing last 10 records
            $sOut = getLastRecords();
            echo $sOut;
            exit;
        }
    }
    echo 1;
    exit;
}

// drawing last 10 records
$sRecords = getLastRecords();

ob_start();
?>
<div class="container" id="records">
    <div id="col1">
        <h2>Guestbook Records</h2>
        <div id="records_list"><?= $sRecords ?></div>
    </div>

    <div id="col2">
        <h2>Add your record here</h2>
        <script type="text/javascript">
        function submitComment(e) {
            var name = $('#name').val();
            var email = $('#email').val();
            var text = $('#text').val();

            if (name && email && text) {
                $.post('guestbook.php', { 'name': name, 'email': email, 'text': text },
                    function(data){
                        if (data != '1') {
                          $('#records_list').fadeOut(1000, function () {
                            $(this).html(data);
                            $(this).fadeIn(1000);
                          });
                        } else {
                          $('#warning2').fadeIn(2000, function () {
                            $(this).fadeOut(2000);
                          });
                        }
                    }
                );
            } else {
              $('#warning1').fadeIn(2000, function () {
                $(this).fadeOut(2000);
              });
            }
        };
        </script>

        <form onsubmit="submitComment(this); return false;">
            <table>
                <tr><td class="label"><label>Your name: </label></td><td class="field"><input type="text" value="" title="Please enter your name" id="name" /></td></tr>
                <tr><td class="label"><label>Your email: </label></td><td class="field"><input type="text" value="" title="Please enter your email" id="email" /></td></tr>
                <tr><td class="label"><label>Comment: </label></td><td class="field"><textarea name="text" id="text" maxlength="255"></textarea></td></tr>
                <tr><td class="label"> </td><td class="field">
                    <div id="warning1" style="display:none">Don`t forget to fill all required fields</div>
                    <div id="warning2" style="display:none">You can post no more than one comment every 10 minutes (spam protection)</div>
                    <input type="submit" value="Submit" />
                </td></tr>
            </table>
        </form>
    </div>
</div>
<?
$sGuestbookBlock = ob_get_clean();

?>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en" >
    <head>
        <meta charset="utf-8" />
        <title>PHP guestbook | Script Tutorials</title>

        <link href="css/main.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
        <!--[if lt IE 9]>
          <script src="http://html5shiv.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"></script>
        <![endif]-->
        <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.min.js"></script>
    </head>
    <body>
        <?= $sGuestbookBlock ?>
        <footer>
            <h2>PHP guestbook</h2>
            <a href="http://www.script-tutorials.com/php-guestbook/" class="stuts">Back to original tutorial on <span>Script Tutorials</span></a>
        </footer>
    </body>
</html>

When we open this page we will see a book, at the left side we will draw a list of the last three records, at the right – new records. When we submit the form a script will send POST data (to same php page), the script will save this data to the database, and it will return a list of 3 fresh records. Then, via the fading effect we draw returned data at left column. All of the code contains comments – read it for better understanding of the code. Ok, the next PHP file is:

classes/CMySQL.php

This is my own service class to work with the database. This is a nice class which you can use too. Database connection details are located in this class in a few variables so that you will able to configure this to your database. I don`t will publish its sources – this is not necessary for now.  It's available in a package.

Step 3. CSS

Now – all used CSS styles:

css/main.css

*{
    margin:0;
    padding:0;
}
body {
    background-color:#fff;
    color:#fff;
    font:14px/1.3 Arial,sans-serif;
}
footer {
    background-color:#212121;
    bottom:0;
    box-shadow: 0 -1px 2px #111111;
    display:block;
    height:70px;
    left:0;
    position:fixed;
    width:100%;
    z-index:100;
}
footer h2{
    font-size:22px;
    font-weight:normal;
    left:50%;
    margin-left:-400px;
    padding:22px 0;
    position:absolute;
    width:540px;
}
footer a.stuts,a.stuts:visited{
    border:none;
    text-decoration:none;
    color:#fcfcfc;
    font-size:14px;
    left:50%;
    line-height:31px;
    margin:23px 0 0 110px;
    position:absolute;
    top:0;
}
footer .stuts span {
    font-size:22px;
    font-weight:bold;
    margin-left:5px;
}

.container {
    background: transparent url(../images/book_open.jpg) no-repeat top center ;
    color: #000000;
    height: 600px;
    margin: 20px auto;
    overflow: hidden;
    padding: 35px 100px;
    position: relative;
    width: 600px;
}
#col1, #col2 {
    float: left;
    margin: 0 10px;
    overflow: hidden;
    text-align: center;
    width: 280px;
}
#col1 {
    -webkit-transform: rotate(3deg);
    -moz-transform: rotate(3deg);
    -ms-transform: rotate(3deg);
    -o-transform: rotate(3deg);
}
#records form {
    margin:10px 0;
    padding:10px;
    text-align:left;
}
#records table td.label {
    color: #000;
    font-size: 13px;
    padding-right: 3px;
    text-align: right;
}
#records table label {
    font-size: 12px;
    vertical-align: middle;
}
#records table td.field input, #records table td.field textarea {
    background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.4);
    border: 0px solid #96A6C5;
    font-family: Verdana,Arial,sans-serif;
    font-size: 13px;
    margin-top: 2px;
    padding: 6px;
    width: 190px;
}
#records table td.field input[type=submit] {
    background-color: rgba(200, 200, 200, 0.4);
    cursor: pointer;
    float:right;
    width: 100px;
}
#records table td.field input[type=submit]:hover {
    background-color: rgba(200, 200, 200, 0.8);
}
#records_list {
    text-align:left;
}
#records_list .record {
    border-top: 1px solid #000000;
    font-size: 13px;
    padding: 10px;
}
#records_list .record:first-child {
    border-top-width:0px;
}
#records_list .record p:first-child {
    font-weight:bold;
    font-size:11px;
}

Live Demo

download in archive

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Conclusion

Today we have prepared great PHP guestbook for your website. Sure that this material will be useful for your own projects. Good luck in your work!

Source: http://www.script-tutorials.com/php-guestbook/