The DotNetNuke Admin Site Settings administration page is divided across four tabs.
Basic Settings
On this tab there are 3 sections. Click on one of the tabs to view the content. Clicking on the title text for a section within a tab will hide/show that section.
Site Details
The first 3 text boxes relate to the meta data fields within a web page. Entering text in these fields will show these details in these areas. The meta data fields have been used by search engines to derive information and rank a website in the returned results. Keywords is now less significant.
The content of the copyright field is transcribed into the copyright control within the skin, if one has been included.
Site Marketing
The site may be promoted to one of the popular search engines. Whilst it is tempting to do this early on, it is better to wait until the initial release of the website, rather than incomplete or wrong content being publicised.
The Google use a sitemap as a reference for the pages to be indexed, their relative importance and the frequency to visit the website. This is defined in the Site Map URL. This is verified with the verification field.
The Site map URL requires an interaction with Google to link with a Webmaster tools account, an account can be created if required.
Once you have signed up to the Goolge Webmaster tools a reference link can be placed in the verification field to confirm the website to Google.
The banners associated with the admin vendors can be configured to be from the website or from all websites in this DotNetNuke installation.
Appearance
If the skin in use for the website has a logo control implemented setting the logo image here will be displayed.
The background image and favicon images can also be configured.
The favicon is the small image seen alongside the site tile in the web browser’s tittle bar. Historically the image was an icon file of limited colours and size. more recently other image formats are supported, although browser compatibility should be considered.
The skins and containers used throughout the website can be selected and configured.
Advanced Settings
This tab covers the remainder of the configuration settings for the website. Is is divided into a number of sections
Page management
A number of specific pages can be configured, for example rather than being able to login at any page, setting the login page will take the user to that page. This enables content to be added which is specific to this operation.
Note that setting a login page without adding the account module to that page, prior to logging out (or timing out) can result in the website user access becoming unavailable. It is good to test this configuration with a different browser, or even better a different computer. to recover this situation require editing of the database with associated restarting of the application pool.
Security Settings
Little to configure under this section. The administrator account is a user account with the administrator role set. Email notifications from the site, for example new user or password change, are sent from this account. I have often configured a dummy account which can be used for this purpose.
Payment Settings
The payment for the hosting of the website can be automated using the fields under payment settings. PayPal is the default payment processor. It runs an effective sandbox which allows transactions to be simulated, together with their email messaging.
Usability Settings
Control panel and pop-up options for the website.
Site Aliases
The website can handle a number of URLs. At the very least this can be the with/without www. Each entry entered will be treated as a separate website unless otherwise configured.
It is good practise to set one URL as the default. Search engines prefer this, disliking the same content being shown at different URLs, even the with/without www combination. To do this set the default alias ant select the Redirect mapping mode.
SSL Settings
Ensure that you have configured the SSL details correctly. I have previously rescued a website by direct access to the database, turning off the SSL. Note if you need to do this, and have the necessary access to the database, don’t forget to restart the application.
Messaging Settings
Limits and restrictions associated with messaging between registered users of the website.
Host settings
The host settings are configured if the logged in user has host/superuser access. Generally the entries are self explanatory.
I have found that enabling limitless site log history can impact on the website. The table for the tie log grows, causing the site to slow. it can also be difficult to reduce the size of the entries. Ensure that the schedule task associated with cleaning the site log is running.
Client Resource Management
This is a host only option. Clicking on the checkbox to override the host settings provides checkboxes to select whether to enable composite files and to use minification.
Minification is a reduction is a standard process whereby the size of a file, typically CSS and JavaScript, is reduced to its minimum by removing the white space. This tends to make the files less readable. It can be a preferred practice because the volume or weight of a website is reduced, making download times faster.
User Account Settings
The user account tab has expanded to offer more features and options. The settings are covered in three sections.
Registration Settings
The settings within this section are generally straightforward.
Login Settings
The option to require a valid profile will ensure that all required entries in the profile are completed before a user can proceed to the website, once they have completed their username and password login.
Profile Settings
Older versions of DotNetNuke included these fields within the user administration. The visibility and required field options were displayed as checkboxes at the end of the item row.
Items entered here can be given a data type, which will be reflected in the presentation of the item.
Categorising items groups their display together. the order of items is adjusted using the arrows in the table of entries.
Stylesheet Editor
A large text area style of textbox is provided for the entry of CSS content.
The references to the CSS files associated with the core DotNetNuke and the modules included within a particular web page are referenced early on within the page source code. The last of these to be referred to is the content entered within this textbox.
I have used this textbox to trial changes to a website, useful if the owner of the website wants a minor change but is unsure of the precise result desired. It can be useful too if the only ready available method to make CSS changes to the website are by uploading a skin.
Admin Advanced Pages
Further pages in the admin common settings section are given in the table below:
