Configuration Manager

Contents

1. Introduction
    1.1 Features
        1.1.1 Areas features
        1.1.2 Site features
        1.1.3 Alerts features
    1.2 Assumptions

2. Configuration Manager overview

3. Areas
    3.1 Areas overview
    3.2 Add an area
    3.3 Edit basic properties of this area
    3.4 Configure theme 'Theme name' for area n
    3.5 Reset properties of theme themename for area n (Area Name)
    3.6 Delete an area

4. Site
    4.1 Site configuration

5. Alerts
    5.1 Alerts overview
    5.2 Add an alert
    5.3 Edit an alert
    5.4 Delete an alert
    5.5 Alert tips

6. Concluding remarks

1. Introduction

With the Configuration Manager Areas, the overall site configuration and Alerts are managed.

1.1 Features

1.1.1 Area features

The Area Manager has the following features, in no specific order:

1.1.2 Site features

In fact, every configuration option is a feature. No need to list them here. Please see the section 4. Site where all configurations options are discussed.

1.1.3 Alerts features

The Alert Manager has the following features (in no particular order):

NOTICE:
After Website@School installation with demodata, two alerts are automatically installed. The first one is a daily alert to the e-mail addres of the person who installed Website@School (Wilhelmina Bladergroen in our examples). The second one is an hourly alert for changes in area 2 (Exemplum Intranet) to Amelia Cackle, using the same e-mail address.

1.2 Assumptions

This chapter elaborates on other chapters. We assume you have read and done the General part of the Table of Contents.

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2. Configuration Manager overview

Click the Configuration Manager [ configuration ] icon, to open the Configuration Manager dialogue:

[ Configuration Manager ]
configurationmanager_overview.png

Explanation:

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3. Areas

Areas resemble sites; to the site visitor Areas appear as separate sites. This section discusses adding Areas, editing their properties, the Areas' theme configuration and deleting Areas.

3.1 Areas overview

In the Configuration Manager Menu, select Areas to enter the Areas dialogue:

[ Areas, list ]
configurationmanager_areas_overview.png

The list of areas is shown, the Areas link is underlined.

Explanation:

3.2 Add an area

To add an area, in Areas click Add an area to enter the Add an area dialogue:

[ Add an area, entry fields ]
configurationmanager_area_add.png

Explanation:

After clicking the [Done] button, the Area is saved and added:
[ Areas, message= success, area added ]
configurationmanager_area_addded.png

NOTICE:
Do not forget to add a page to the area. If no page is added, this results in a painful message for the visitors:

[ Fatal error, error code 080 ]
configurationmanager_area_addded_no_page.png

3.3 Edit basic properties of this area

In the Areas overview, click on the (public/private )Name of the area (nn,nn) (inactive) link to open the Edit basic properties of this area dialogue:

[ Edit basic properties of this area, entry fields ]
configurationmanager_area_basic_properties_edit.png
In the Menu the Basic properties link is underlined.

Explanation:

3.4 Configure theme 'Theme Name' for area n

Here the properties of the previously chosen theme can be configured. Each theme has its own configuration options, which are discussed in their respective chapters. Please go to the Table of contents, section Themes and select the chosen theme to configure its theme specific options.

The Bazaar Style Style options for themes are the same for every theme and are extensively discussed in chapter Bazaar Style Style, section 4.1 BSS at Area level

3.5 Reset properties of theme themename for area n (Area Name)

[ Reset properties of theme 1 ]
configurationmanager_area_reset_properties.png
Resetting the theme properties restores the properties as they were set during the installation of the theme.

NOTICE:
Take care! It is a good idea to copy and paste complex style information to a safe location before resetting a theme.

3.6 Delete an area

NOTICE:
In general it's a bad idea to delete an area. Maybe it contains content that now seems useless but that might become useful in a year or so. Maybe it's a better idea to rename the area as Archive: [old areaname], make the Area inactive and put it at the bottom of the list of Areas.

To delete an area, in the Areas overview, click the Trashcan icon to open the Confirm delete of area Area Name dialogue:

[ Confirm delete of area Exemplum Parents ]
configurationmanager_area_delete.png

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4. Site

In the Site configuration the global parameters for the complete site are set. In a normal school situation it's not necessary to change any of these values.

NOTICE:
If you do not know what you are doing here, it might be better to leave the Site configuration untouched.

4.1 Site configuration

In the Menu, select Site to enter the Site configuration dialogue:

[ site configuration entry fields top ]
configurationmanager_site_configure-top.png
[ site configuration entry fields bottom ]
configurationmanager_site_configure-bottom.png

Explanation:

Press [Done] to save your changes and return to the Configuration Manager overview.

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5. Alerts

Alerts associate sets of 1 or more rules selecting pages and sections with an e-mail address. Every time something changes on one of the selected pages and sections an alert message is added to a buffer. Once it is time to process the alert messages an e-mail containing the accumulated messages is prepared and sent to the corresponding e-mail address.

The frequency of sending alert messages is configurable, from 'every hour' to 'weekly'. An alert can be associated with 0, 1 or more rules.

NOTICE:
In order for the alerts to work properly, cron.php must be configured correctly, see section 4.4 Configuring cron.php in chapter Installation and also the option Interval between cron-jobs (in minutes) in section 4.1 Site configuration above.

5.1 Alerts overview

In the Configuration Manager Menu, select Alerts to enter the Alerts dialogue.

[ alerts configuration overview ]
configurationmanager_alert_overview.png

Explanation:

5.2 Add an alert

To add an alert, click Add alert. The first of two dialogues is displayed.

[ alerts configuration add an alert ]
configurationmanager_alert_add.png

Explanation:

Press [Save] to continue. The second dialogue (Add rule) will appear.

[ alerts configuration add a rule ]
configurationmanager_alert_add_rule.png

Explanation:

Press [Save] to continue. The Edit alert dialogue appears. Here you can change all aspects of the alert, including adding, editing or deleting rules. See section 5.3 Edit an alert below.

5.3 Edit an alert

To edit an alert, click Name <e-mail address> (frequency). The following dialogue is displayed.

[ alerts configuration edit an existing alert ]
configurationmanager_alert_edit.png

Explanation (upper part):

Explanation (lower part):

5.4 Delete an alert

Click on the Trashcan icon to delete an alert. The following confirmation dialogue is displayed.

[ alerts configuration delete an alert ]
configurationmanager_alert_delete.png

Press [Delete] to confirm the removal of this alert and all associated rules, or press [Cancel] to keep the alert after all.

5.5 Alert tips

There are several use cases for alerts

You can make an alert for a teacher on a page owned by a pupil. When the pupil changes something on his page, the teacher receives an alert, only for that specific page.

You can create an alerts for Catherine and Andrew for the Althing page with their chocolate research (see chapter Althing (weblog)). This way they can receive alerts whenever something changes in that page.

NOTICE:
The e-mail addresses of the alerts are not bound to an account, but are completely separate. This is done to be able to send alerts to addresses that have NO account.

In this way, a visitor can take a subscription to the changes on a certain page. For example: subscribe me to this page with the advertisement 'for sale'. When something changes in the price of the advertised articles, the visitor automatically receives an alert.

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6. Concluding remarks

Power to the Bazaar!

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Authors: Dirk Schouten <dirk (at) websiteatschool (dot) eu> and Peter Fokker <peter (at) websiteatschool (dot) eu>
Last updated: 2016-06-23