CGI Scripts

This page researched and written by Tom Irish, owner, webkewl design

While I'd love to be uploading sites to Mac servers on a regular basis, the fact is that more often than not web servers are of the UNIX flavor. There are a wide variety of free CGI scripts available for UNIX on the web. I offer the following overview.

Many of these scripts are free though a number are complex enough to be considered commercial applications. For free scripts, most often the author will request credit. Some may make additional requests depending on the level of use. You will want to thoroughly review the materials before using them and contact your ISP or web host to make sure you have permission to use scripts on the server. Often you can find this informatiion from their website along with instructions for any CGI functions they provide.The scripts listed among the resources presented here are for use on UNIX (and often NT) servers. I have written a short tutorial and provided additional resources to get you started.

This area was created because so many of the resources we cover in this conference are CGI's. A CGI (Common Gateway Interface) is a script (most often written in Perl) that takes information from a webpage and "does something with it". What it does is dependent upon the script. It may send information from a form to an email address, tally vote information and write the results in html to a new page, or read a database and return results based on inputted variables.

Just about every kind of third party remote hosted solution we cover in the conference can be handled locally with a CGI, indeed many of these third parties are using the very same technologies. The array of uses are far too lengthy to cover in any depth, and I have included a large but certainly not encompassing list of typical uses below. While configuring the scripts and files needed to make it all run is certainly more work, it gives much greater control over what is displayed on your site. You don't have to have results returned with a banner ad. You can configure the html that the script returns not limiting you to the look of someone else's table (though you probably won't want to mess with this much if you are just starting out). You also get the satisfaction of knowing that you "got your hands dirty, played around in someone else's code, and made it all work. :-)

Example Functions of CGI Scripts

• FormMail
  
• Voting/Polling
  
• Quiz
  
• Message Boards
  
• Banner Rotation/Tracking
  
• Auctions
  
• Audio Management
  
• Calendar
  
• Mailing List Management
  
• Counter
  
• Statistics
  
• Database Manipulation
  

• Shopping Cart
• Browser Redirection
  
• Classifieds
  
• Password Protection
  
• Greeting/Post Cards
  
• Random Image Generator
  
• Remote Site Management
  
• Chat
  
• Banner Exchange
  
• Search
  
• Form Processing
• Games
  

As you can see, there is much you can do with CGI scripts.

Since many of these are "free" it is important to remember that just because a script is posted on the web doesn't mean it's "bug free". You must remember that many a new programmer may be posting the first fruits of their programming efforts. We have included links to scripts in other resource categories that we think are worthy of looking at and highlighted those which we think are superior. When looking for scripts, I think it is important to visit the site of the author. Most will have a working demo to show you. Major Hint: If the author can't get his/her own script to work, most likely you won't be able to either. Changing the look and feel of the pages returned by these applications can be a labor intensive proposition, so look for scripts that return html pages you will be happy with.

Numerous sites review, rate, and archive these scripts and I have included links to some of the biggest below along with other links of interest. Should you choose to take this route in providing interaction to your site, you will be rewarded not only by having learned something new and useful, but with more site traffic as the increased level of interaction makes it a more interesting, and maybe even more productive place to visit. Happy hunting!

Script Resources

CGI Resource Index
Matt's Script Archive
FreePerlCode
HotBot
FreeWell at IceMall
BigNoseBird
Perl FAQ