The infocall.pl is an extremely useful tool. Using server slide include (SSI), this application will allow you to call user account information directly onto any page within a protected area. Such as tool will prove useful for many occasions.
For example, if you are creating a form within your members’ area but do not want your members to have to input basic information such as their name or email address every time they fill it out, then you are going to need infocall.pl. This comes especially in handy if you have an online helpdesk and need to put in place a ticket creation form.
Or perhaps you wish to include a small area in the top corner of your page that displays the member’s username. This too can easily be accomplished using the infocall.pl system.
Step-by-Step
There is no limit to the number of infocall.pl utilities that can be created. Simply copy and paste the original file and rename it to whatever you wish. For this example, we will create one called “infocall-ticket.pl" that will be used to create a ticket opening form with basic contact information already filled out.
Open the new file (infocall-ticket.pl) and search for the following text:
templates/userinfo.data
Once found, replace with the name of the new template that will contain the ticket creation form. This new template should be created from start by you and then uploaded to the “templates" folder. In this case, our new template will be called “userticket.data" and will be uploaded to “templates/userticket.data".
Once this is done, you will have to edit the userticket.data file. Open it in any text editor and proceed to create HTML content that will be displayed on the member’s area where the program is called. The following information can be included within the template:
| Field’s Name | What to place on the infocall*.pl file |
| Username | %username% |
| %email% | |
| Firstname | %firstname% |
| Surname | %lastname% |
| Expiration | %expiredate% |
| Join Date | %joindate% |
| Area | %area% |
| Credits | %credits% |
Placing any of the above caller IDs will call the shown field at that location within the template.
Once the template has been formatted, upload both the template and new infocall*.pl file to the Password Protector v6.2 folder within the cgi-bin and CHMOD them to 755. Proceed to place the following SSI caller tag on your page within the protected area of your web site.
<!--#include virtual="/cgi-bin/path/to/infocall-ticket.pl" -->
Also remember that you will need to change the extension on all protected files using an SSI caller tag to “.shtml" or the above will not work.
