Web client for LysKOM

WebKOM
Web client for LysKOM

Starter/maintainer:	Peter Åstrand Peter Åstrand, christmas 2000.
Latest version:	0.22
Available from:	WebKOM runs on https://webkom.lysator.liu.se. The source code is in LysCVS, module webkom. Anonymous checkouts can be done via the following CVSROOT: :pserver:anonymous@cvs.lysator.liu.se:/cvsroot/webkom Please contact me if you want write access.
Status:	Working, but with less functionality than the Elisp client. For example, it's not possible to administrate or create new conferences via WebKOM.
Programming language:	Python
Requires:	Python 2.2 or newer, CGI-capable web server, HTMLgen.
Advantages:	+ Easy to learn + No client installation necessary + Several languages supported, currently Swedish, English and Finnish.
Drawbacks:	- Not as many features as the elisp client. - Hard to support certain features, like asynchronous messages, with a WWW interface.

Documentation

There is a simple swedish user's manual. More documentation about the server can be found in the directory doc in the WebKOM distribution.

Screen shots

Here are some screen shots.

Trying KOM

There are two KOM systems running at Lysator: kom.lysator.liu.se (Swedish, mainly discussions of local interest) and com.lysator.liu.se (a new server, intended for discussions in english). You can try out WebKOM against com.lysator.liu.se or kom.lysator.liu.se. Please note that our installation at webkom.lysator.liu.se uses Swedish as default language. Configure your web browser to use english (en) as preferred language, if you want the english interface in WebKOM.

Server installation

(SRPM versions of the RPM packages are available.)

WebKOM uses FastCGI. You need either a FastCGI compatible web server or the adapter cgi-fcgi. Apache with mod_fastcgi version 2.2.12 or newer is recommended.
If you are running Linux, you can install the RPM packages. Install the mod_fastcgi package after the Apache packages. If you already have Apache installed, you must uninstall it first.
The Python package HTMLgen is required. You can download the RPM package HTMLgen-2.2-1.noarch.rpm.
If you are installing HTMLgen by hand, you should apply the patch for Python 2.1 and HTML 4.01 support.
Verify that Python and HTMLgen are correctly installed by running:

python2 -c "import HTMLgen"
Install WebKOM. If you choose RPM, you can use the package webkom-0.22.noarch.rpm. This package is relocatable and can be installed in, for example, /usr/local with a command like this:

rpm -vhi webkom-0.22-1.noarch.rpm --prefix=/usr/local

(Note: Some RPM versions does not handle relocations. RPM 4.0.3 works.)

The tar-file webkom-0.22.tgz is also available.
After the installation, your web server must be configured for WebKOM. If you are using Apache, you can do this by running apache-setup.py. Read doc/README for more information about manual configuration.