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# Minivend V4.x
# 
# Copyright 1996-2000 by Michael J. Heins <mikeh@minivend.com>
#
# Originally based on Vend 0.2
# Copyright 1995 by Andrew M. Wilcox
#
# Portions from Vend 0.3
# Copyright 1995,1996 by Andrew M. Wilcox
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it
# and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
# License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
# version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
# version. 
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
# License along with this program; if not, write to the Free
# Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston,
# MA  02111-1307  USA.

Welcome to Minivend! This program is completely unsupported, without
warranty of any kind. The author is interested in problems, suggestions,
or comments, but does not have time to offer free individual support
in most cases. See the Minivend website at http://www.minivend.com/
for more information.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  Minivend 4.0 requires, repeat REQUIRES, Perl 5.005 or Perl 5.6.

The information you need is in the following files:

    README     Copyright info, roadmap to installation
               and pointers to support system
    
    Copying    Your Minivend license -- please read.

    WHATSNEW   Change information for all versions in this
               version family.

    MANIFEST   List of all core distribution files.
    
Major files/directories in the distribution:

    Makefile.PL The installation scripts

    dist/       The distribution files, exclusive of executable
                files and modules. Includes:

                minivend.cfg.dist   Distribution minivend.cfg
                basic/              The basic MV catalog demo application.
                simple/             The not so aptly named "simple" demo
                                    application.
                src/                C and Perl code for CGI links
                compat/             Some Minivend-3 compatibility tags
                lib/                Minimate
                usertag/            Some fairly-standard usertags

    extra/      Some not-always-needed Perl libraries.

    lib/        The library modules needed to run Minivend.
                 
    scripts/    The executable files, relocated to bin in the run
                directory.

    test.pl     The installation test script.

    win/        Windows-specific files
            
--------------------------------------------------------------

                        M I N I V E N D
                                       
   Minivend is a full-featured electronic catalog system (commonly known
   as a shopping cart) with online ordering capability. It is a high-end
   database access and retrieval system with SQL support via the Perl DBI.
   
   Minivend is freely-redistributable under the GNU General Public
   License -- you can download it via FTP.

    Minivend 4.0 Features

       * Users maintain a "shopping cart" for ordered items
       * Multiple independent or shared catalogs allow one server
         to run many storefronts or a "mall"
       * SSL support means secure and practical credit card ordering
       * PGP and GPG support for secure off-site mailing of orders
       * Complete addressable database support with virtually
         unlimited rows and columns
       * Complete SQL support via DBI
       * Catalogs can be of almost unlimited size with excellent
         performance
       * Multi-server mode for very high capacity on systems with
         sufficient memory
       * Cookie support allows browsers to leave catalog and come
         back without losing session state
       * Minimate web administration interface allows complete
         database editing
       * Complete user authentication and database with address
         books and stored shopping carts
       * Many, many, other features

    Powerful search capability

       * One-click scan and search -- build a whole search in a single HREF
       * Pageable results, configurable in many ways
       * Versatile built-in text search
       * Complete Glimpse support
       * Fast binary search
       * Independent field search selection and return
       * Range searching, numeric and alphanumeric
       * Search sorting with reverse, numeric and case-insensitive options
       * Search any file, build results from any database

    Complete control of appearance

       * Over 90 predefined tag functions
       * Powerful user-definable tags
       * Catalog pages automatically selected -- either built
         "on the fly" from the database or pre-made for popular items
       * Embedded Perl and conditional HTML allow complex and
         flexible catalog pages to be completely built from the database
       * ASP-like syntax available

    Flexible Ordering Process

        * Single- or multi-level order screens with configurable field
          verification
        * Multiple shopping carts per catalog, allows both buy
          and sell operations
        * Shipping calculation, mixed modes, with UPS table lookup
        * Sales tax calculation, with fully independent non-taxable
          item and taxed shipping
        * Route orders to multiple fulfillment houses with
          complete configurability
        * PGP encryption of credit card information or
          the entire emailed order
        * Fully-configurable discounts with coupons or
          across-the-board discounts
        * Fully-configurable quantity pricing
        * Fully-configurable item price adjustments
        * Sophisticated back end order entry capability including CyberCash(R)
        * Fully configurable order reports and receipts

    Miscellaneous

        * Automated installation and configuration
        * Runs under Perl 5.005/5.6, Windows, and almost any UNIX
        * Designed to be secure
        * Static page build option for high performance
        * Works well with all browsers

-------------------------------------------------------------------

                      A V A I L A B I L I T Y
                              A N D
                     C O M P A T I B I L I T Y

Minivend 4 has been tested on Solaris 2, Linux, FreeBSD, and Digital
UNIX/Tru64. Its predecessor Minivend 3 also reportedly runs on SCO, AIX,
and other Unix ports.  It should work on any UNIX or Win32 OS with Perl
5.005 or higher.

Windows does not support fork(), so the server runs in the foreground. There
are other differences; the canonical installation is UNIX.

UNIX INSTALLATION
------------------
Here is the short version:

    gzip -dc minivend-4.xxx.tar.gz | tar xvf -
    cd minivend-4*
    perl Makefile.PL
    make test && make install

-- WHEN IN DOUBT, RE-START THE SERVER.  It won't take but a few
   seconds, and changes in configurable options don't take effect
   until it is done. You may even change a page and not see the
   effect until the server is restarted.

WINDOWS INSTALLATION
--------------------

    Not yet. You can manually create a software directory and
    get things going if you know your way around Perl. But I 
    don't recommend trying unless you are prepared for some
    serious work.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

                         D E M O

There are two demo applications included; one is not so aptly named "simple",
the other is "basic". For the best instructional experience, start
with "basic" and then try "simple".

To install the demo, go to the directory where you installed 
Minivend (default is "mvend" in your home directory or /usr/local/minivend
for root installations) and run:

    bin/makecat basic

     or 

    bin/makecat simple

Follow the prompts and after restarting the Minivend server you
should be able to access the demo catalog.

-------------------------------------------------------------

                     D O C U M E N T A T I O N

The documentation is in several man pages and HTML files in the doc/
subdirectory of the main Minivend directory.

There is an extended documentation package available
at www.minivend.com.

-------------------------------------------------------------

                    K N O W N   P R O B L E M S

BSDI, FreeBSD:
       If installing as root, you should use this procedure:

           perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/usr/local/minivend

Windows:
       Just a few things don't work the same as UNIX. See the
       README-win.txt file for more information.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

I, the author, am very interested in learning your problems with
Minivend, and am interested in clarifying the documentation for
future improvements.  I am not much interested in BEING your
documentation, though, unless you pay well and promptly. Please
send kudos, comments, questions, and complaints to:

       mikeh@minivend.com

Note that I receive thousands of emailed questions per year and cannot
answer them all. The more research you do on your own the more likely
I am to respond. Helpful suggestions and real bug reports are almost
always acknowledged.

There is an active user support mail list, minivend-users@minivend.com,
which has traffic of about 600-900 messages per month. To subscribe,
send "subscribe minivend-users" in the *body* of a message to
majordomo@minivend.com, or visit the mail list page at www.minivend.com.

Good luck with Minivend!