
InvisionBoard LACI Version
==========================


Hello & thank you for taking the time to download the EchoForum InvisionBoard LACI (Local Access 
Component Interface), this PHP script will allow your InvisionBoard forum software to access the 
EchoForum network and gain access to a wealth of informational content that can be directly
imported into your forum.  This content includes existing private & public forum networks,
a selection of thousands of Usenet Newsgroups, RSS feeds from all over the globe, XML 
content networks, many thousands of public RSS feeds, mailing lists and even topical monthly
newsletters published by hundreds of sources. All this content can be seamlessly imported 
into your forum, enhancing it into a huge repository of information and constant activity 
that visitors will want to return to, again and again, for the information they are seeking.


REQUIRMENTS & COMPATIBILITY
===========================

1. You must have a website and InvisionBoard forum software installed and operational.

2. You must have a properly setup FTP program to upload the LACI and related files to
   your website, this could be the same program you used to initially upload your website
   Below are some example FTP programs that are available for use.
 
	WS_FTP   - http://www.wsftp.com/products/WS_FTP/home/index.html
	CUTEFTP  - http://www.cuteftp.com
	SMARTFTP - http://www.smartftp.com
	COREFTP  - http://www.coreftp.com

3. The LACI has been tested on a wide range of hosting services (from Dedicated to heavily 
   shared servers). It is safe to say that if your forum software runs with your current 
   host then youre 90% assured the LACI will run also. Two other aspects must be checked 
   to be 100% sure the LACI will run with your current hosting service: 1) That the hosting 
   service is using the ZEND Optimizer product 2) The Hosting company is not blocking port 
   3306 for Out Bound calls. The LACI talks to Echoforums database for Latest Version 
   Information, authentication requests, and other utilitarian tasks that are essential to 
   its operation.

4. If you run the LACI and it appears to be executing, but nothing is happening and there
   is no output going to the screen this could mean that outbound port 3306 (MySQL) is 
   blocked by the firewall your webhost is using. The LACI will try to connect and reconnect 
   for up to 3 minutes before exiting out. If this should continue, contact your webhost and 
   ask them to open port 3306 for outbound traffic. If they can't open the port for outbound 
   traffic, contact us about setting up your account to run remotely from our systems.



STEP 1 - CREATING AND ACTIVATING YOUR ECHOFORUM ACCOUNT
=======================================================

1. Now the first thing you need to do is setup your FREE trial account with EchoForum,
   this is an extremely easy process and only takes a few minutes. First visit our
   secure members control panel at http://members.echoforum.com The first thing you will
   notice is the "lock" at the bottom of your browser window, this ensures that your 
   session will be completely secure and all your information is protected with the highest
   level of encryption available.

2. Next click the "New User" button on the middle right of the screen to be taken to the 
   EchoForum new member signup form.

3. The new member signup form is very simple and only asks for seven pieces of information
   including your name, email address (this is where EchoForum will send the activation 
   email and all further account details and communications), forum type (no need to worry
   about version type as we will automatically detect this for you), the theme of your 
   forum (i.e. games, motor sports, football, etc), and finally, the login id and password
   that you wish to use from this point on to log into your control panel account. Once 
   done filling out this information just click the "Join" button and an email with your 
   account information will be sent to the email address you setup and you will be 
   returned to the main EchoForum.com website.

4. When you receive the "Activation Email" it has a lot of very useful information in it, 
   including direct links to support, our member forums, in addition to your control 
   panel account information. But the most important part of this email is to click the 
   "New member activation link at the top" this will activate your account and validate
   your email address. Congratulations your new EchoForum account is now active and you
   are ready to return to the control panel and search for new content that would benefit
   your forum.



STEP 2 - SETTING UP YOUR CONTENT FEEDS VIA OUR CONTROL PANEL
============================================================


1. Alright lets get started setting up your new content feeds, first return to the 
   control panel at http://members.echoforum.com and this time log in using your new
   login ID and password that you setup previously and click the "logon" button.

2. The first screen you will see is the main menu it is very simple to navigate and only
   has six options available, the first option "Manage Subscriptions" is the one we will
   be using in this guide, if you with you explore more of the interface and other 
   options as you become more familiar with the interface there is always a "help" button
   in the lower right to give you helpful hints and descriptions of what all the functions
   of a particular screen do.

3. Now let click "Manage Subscriptions", You will be taken to a screen which shows a list
   of all the content feeds you are currently a member of, since your new this list is 
   currently blank, at the bottom of the screen you should see an option called "search"
   lets click that now so we can search for some new content for your forum.

4. Welcome to the search page, this is where you will search for new content to be added
   to your forum. For this startup guide, we will have you join some testing forums that
   are completely free and always have new message content being sent out on a five 
   minute timer, this will allow you to verify that EchoForum is up and running with your
   system quickly and easily, after which you can return to the control panel and choose
   more "on topic" content from our vast library that would compliment your forum.

5. In the "search for forums" window type in "echoforum" and then hit the "search" button on
   the far right of the top of the page, and you will be presented with a list of forums
   that match your search and contained the word echoforum in them. Now that we have the list
   all we need to do is choose which once we would like to join and have added to our system.

6. Now on the far right, under the column entitled "Join" you can click the 'X' and join any
   of the forums currently being displayed, for now lets click and join the following forums
   "Echo Ping", "EchoForum Announcments","General Discussion", and "InvisionBoard Integration".

7. Now on the screen you should see that for the above four forums we just joined they now 
   say "member" under the joined column, this means you have joined these forums and are 
   now a member and will soon being to receive new messages into these forums on your system.

8. Congratulations, you have finished the initial setup of your control panel and may now 
   exit back to the main menu by using the "exit" button twice and then click the "logoff"
   button and you will be returned to the control panel logon screen.



STEP 3 - INSTALLATION OF THE FORUM LACI/AGENT TO YOUR WEBSITE'S FORUM
=====================================================================


1. First you need to use Windows "notepad" or another TEXT editor to load and 
   edit the config file named "efsettings.php", this is the main EchoForum 
   configuration file and only has a total of eight configuration options for 
   you to set, all of which are easy and explained in comments within the file 
   itself, very similar to your initial configuration of InvisionBoard's database 
   settings. Just follow the directions contained within the "efsettings.php" file 
   and save it when you are finished editing it.

2. The second step of the LACI install to your website, is to FTP upload all the files 
   contained within the archive to your ROOT install directory for your InvisionBoard forum
   (Root install directory is the subdirectory on the remote computer where you installed
   InvisionBoard to for example "home/public_html/InvisionBoard/" or "/home/www/forums/").

3. Now that all the files contained within the InvisionBoard LACI have been uploaded to your
   InvisionBoard directory on your website, its time for a trial run, just visit your 
   forum via your internet browser and from it run the PHP file ib_laci.php, i.e. if 
   your forums where http://www.website.com/forums/ you would run it via 
   http://www.website.com/forums/ib_laci.php.  You should have a brief pause and then 
   see the title and version of the LACI, as well as status messages keeping you 
   informed on its activities, i.e. Importing msgs, how many messages are any messages 
   being exported back to the EchoForum network, as well as, any error messages that 
   you may encounter. In addition to the error messages on your screen, any errors 
   that happen during the operation of the LACI will be written to a "error.log" file 
   contained within the same directory.

   ** NOTE ** If something doesn't seem to be operating correctly remember the two 
   minimum requirments to run the echoforum LACI (1) That the hosting service 
   is using the ZEND Optimizer product which is FREE and installed on most modern hosting
   companies and (2) The Hosting company is not blocking port 3306 for OUT BOUND calls.
   The LACI talks to Echoforums database for Latest Version nformation, authentication 
   requests, and other utilitarian tasks that are essential to its operation.

4. After the LACI says "done" refresh your forum and you should see the new forums that
   you choose in the control panel have appeared on your site and some already have 
   message traffic in them. Also any new users that have been created on your system 
   will have been created along with a new member group called "EchoForum Users" 

5. Well that's it, your done and your website's forum is now a member of the EchoForum
   network and is exchanging message traffic with other systems and has officially 
   became what we call a "Shared Community" benefiting from all the enhanced
   traffic and activity of a large network of sites. Enjoy.

6. If you have had any trouble or problems following this guide, or have ran into any
   system or LACI errors during the installation or operation of the LACI, please visit
   our support forums at http://forums.echoforum.com, our secure helpdesk at 
   https://echohelpdesk.com, or send us an email at support@echoforum.com, we are eager 
   to help solve any problems or technical difficulties you may have.


STEP 4 - INSTALLING THE LACI AS A BACKGROUND AUTOMATED TASK
===========================================================

1. After you have ran a few mailruns and are satisfied that things are running smoothly
   you can setup the LACI on a scheduled task or crontask on your server so it can run 
   "unattended" in the background and not require manual intervention. For the InvisionBoard 
   LACI there are no command line parameters to run it and it can be executed from the 
   scheduled task or crontask by just calling the ib_laci.php itself. We suggest setting 
   up the background task timer to run the LACI every 10-20 minutes, that will import 
   and export messages 3-6 times an hour to your system. *** If you are unfamiliar with 
   how to setup a scheduled task or crontask within your web host's control panel or on 
   your dedicated server please feel free to view our Knowledge Base from within our 
   helpdesk located at https://echohelpdesk.com for tips and guides to some of the more 
   popular web hosts and control panels, and as always if you run into trouble don't 
   hesitate to send up a support ticket or post in our official support forums 
   located at http://forums.echoforum.com.

