Introduction

Tutorials / A Sample App (Shout Box)

A Shout Box, aka Tag Board, aka Chatter Block, is a way to allow your web site users to leave a short message without having to register. I've heard them called a "new age guestbook", which I suppose describes them well enough. They are a simple application to write, making them a good candidate for an article such as this, which is intended mainly to introduce developers to Sitellite as an application development platform.

Please note that I don't go into full detail in some parts of this article, since other articles already cover topics such as writing boxes, the application layout, forms, and the Sitellite API documentation also already covers the functions used throughout this article.

What is a Shout Box?

A Shout Box consists of a list of comments left by visitors, followed by an input form visitors can use to leave new messages, including their name, a URL, and a message. Shout Boxes are compact, usually the perfect size for them to live in the sidebar of a web site.