Web Programming Assignment #3: Admin and User Functions Old Dominion University Department of Computer Science CS 418/518 Fall 2007 Michael L. Nelson <mln@cs.odu.edu>

Requirements - Users Keep track of user stats: number of posts date of last post date joined “ranking” e.g.: newbie, user, veteran, no life make up your own values & formula make the levels/values editable from admin interface Users can upload avatars during registration example: http://www.lateral-g.net/forums/showthread.php4?t=6465 some users have avatars, some don’t Avatars & “levels” are displayed when users read posts

Requirements - Users User registration uses "reCAPTCHA" as well as email confirmation Users specify email preferences at registration time: text/plain, text/html, or both User input is HTML-safe i.e., "nasty" HTML messages will be part of the test scenario! Users can edit their own posts (leave some indicator that the post was edited) e.g. “this post edited on 2007-10-12T23:20:11 by mln” Users have a “remember me?” option when logging in example: http://www.lateral-g.net/forums/ server will send a session cookie to the client so the user will automatically be logged in if they return to the BBS in, say, 5 minutes (a real value would be longer) Explicit “log out” function that terminates the current session & the “remember me” cookie from the above requirement

Requirements - Admins Administrator should have an “overview” of all registered users, summarizing their activities Administrator functions: "sticky" messages (stay at the top of the display; can be frozen or not) http://www.pro-touring.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=6 (welcome to board, board rules) http://www.techsideline.com/message_board/football/ (advertisements, featured articles) “freeze” threads (no more posts, but not deleted) edit posts (leave some indicator that the post was edited) delete posts (recursively delete all replies or "children" as well) check for race conditions: e.g. a post being deleted after a user has begun the reply process but before they hit “submit” “suspend”, “unsuspend” & delete users suspend = no messages until suspension is lifted send email re: action to the user in all cases

baseURL for Submission http://mln-web.cs.odu.edu/~username/assignment3/ These URLs will be valid for all students If you are in a group, only 1 URL will have the actual PHP The “other” URL will auto-redirect to the “right” URL

Recommendations Debug within your group first, then ask for other groups to help debug your operations Your status report the week before is for the benefit of your peers more than for me… status report is not optional

Grading There will be an in-class demo Arjun will assign 20 points based on a detailed examination after the class Do not edit the files after midnight! Each student will grade the aesthetic appearance of the other groups’ BBSs by emailing Arjun <apolu@cs.odu.edu> (and cc’ing me) a score of 0-3; each group will recv the average value (rounded up) If you do not send your grades in within 24 hours, you will lose 3 points from your assignment Grades should be available before the next class