3.1 Initial Setup
Ok, you go to the URL of your website and there's the ``Welcome to Scoop!'' message. Before you make the site public, there are a few things that you'll really want to change.
Note: if you just get a directory listing, check to make sure that you followed the directions in the section 2 completely, and that the Apache that's running is the one you compiled, has mod_perl working, and has been freshly started with the Scoop code present.
First, log in as `scoop' with the password you entered in the install phase. If you installed by hand and didn't use the install.pl script, the initial password is also `scoop'. Once you're logged in, the login fields should disappear and in their place is a box titled `scoop'. Not far below that, another new box has appeared, titled `Admin Tools'.
The first thing to do is to make sure all of the required settings are right. All site-wide settings can be found in Site Controls, in your Admin Tools box.
Note: if you get `Permission Denied' when you click on Site Controls, there's probably something wrong with your cookies. See section 2.5.2 for details on how it should be set up.
Most of the default settings should work, but there are some that you should definitely change, all in the `General' category:
- imagedir: check this and make sure it's correct. If your images are showing up on the page, it probably is.
- local_email: put the email you want Scoop to send stuff like new account notices from. This email address must be a valid one, both for the program and because people sometimes reply to it. You can put a name in it as well as the email address, by putting ``My Site Name <scoop@mysite.org>'' (without the quotes) in the field. If this email is invalid, Scoop will often tell people that their email is invalid when they try to create an account.
- logout_url: put the full address of your website here, unless you have a specific page you want to direct people to when they log out, then put that. The front page is a good default. Don't leave it blank, or Apache will try to redirect you to nowhere. This should be a complete URL, including http://
- sitename: The official name of your site, not the URL. This is used for display and in emails, mostly.
- site_url: The full URL of your site's front page, without a trailing slash. If there is a trailing slash, links sent in email to new accounts won't work properly because the double slash screws up Scoop's path parser (which separates parameters with slashes).
- slogan: Put a witty saying here. It shows up in the title bar of the browser on the front and section pages.
- time_zone: Put your time zone here. Rather, put the time zone your server runs on here, otherwise people will get very confused about posts coming from the future or the past, and the like.
- admin_alert: The email(s) Scoop should email when it has a problem. This is generally rarely used, but extremely important.
The Site Controls interface allows two ways of changing settings:
- You can choose a variable by name directly from the drop-down list in the form, click ``Get'', make your changes, and click ``Save''.
- You can choose a category of variables from the list above the form, scroll down and change as many variables as you like, then click ``Save'' to change them all at once.
When using the category list, you can only change the value; when using the single variable form, you can change any part of the variable. You'll generally only need to change the value, and once your site is set up you probably won't visit this tool very often.
janra
2004-03-26