Oxwall Software Documentation overview:admin_area_manual

Appearance

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Appearance

This section allows you to completely change the site's appearance.

Themes

You can add a theme to the site in the Add new theme section.

1. To install the theme, go to Admin area > Appearance > Themes > Add new theme section.

2. Upload the theme zip archive ¹⁾.

3. Click Enter. The theme will get listed in the Available Themes area.

4. Choose the theme and click the Activate button.

To delete the theme, click the Delete button²⁾.

Customize

In the Theme settings section you can:

Change the page and footer background color.

Click the square to choose the color.

Click the OK button to set the color.

Replace the page background image, header background image, logo image, mobile logo.

Change the site colors.

Click the square to choose the color.

Click the OK button to set the color.

As soon as you finish the theme customization, click the Save button to save your changes.

If you click the Reset button, all your custom changes will be lost.

The Mobile area allows you to change the colors, logo image on the mobile version.

CSS

Any theme comes with its own base.css file, that contains your site's default CSS. When you activate the theme, that default CSS gets added into Admin area > Appearance > Customize > CSS > Existing CSS Styles (read only) block.

You can add your custom CSS to the Edit CSS form.

So when user opens your site the system loads the default CSS first, then it checks whether you have any custom CSS and if you do it takes your custom styles instead of default ones.

You should add only your custom CSS into Edit CSS block. Don't copy the whole Existing CSS Styles and add them to the Edit CSS area. Only the styles you want to change or redefine should be placed to the Edit CSS area.

For example, to remove the Quick Search widget from the Turquoise theme, add the following style to Admin area > Appearance > Customize > CSS > Edit CSS:

.index_qs_widget {
        display: none;
}

Click the Save button.

To reset CSS to original, remove the styles you added to the Edit CSS form.

Note: All CSS changes should be applied via Admin area only. You should not apply them to the files on the server. Otherwise all your code customizations and CSS changes will be lost after the software update.

Graphics

This section allows you to upload the images to the site for the advertisement banners, custom pages, special pages etc.

If you want to add a logo to the Morning Sign in page, you should do the following.

1. Click the Upload Photo button.

2. Upload the image and click the Submit button.

3. Click the Copy URL link to copy the path to the image.

4. Add the image URL into the CSS styles via Admin area > Appearance > Customize > CSS > Edit CSS

To delete the image from the Graphics section, hover the mouse over the image and click the Delete button.

¹⁾ , ²⁾ enter your FTP username, password

Dashboard

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Dashboard

The Dashboard section consists of the latest news from on Oxwall software, Main and Finance tabs.

Main

All general statistics is available in the Main area.

It is represented by the following widgets:

Finance statistics shows all data on the transactions and amount for a certain period.

Click the Today or Yesterday link to see the data for a day.

Click the Last 7 days link to see the data for a week.

Click the Last 30 days link to see the data for a month.

Click the Last year link to see the data for a year.

By clicking the History button, you will be directed to the Finance page with the detailed information on the payments of users.

User statistics represents all users' registrations and logins for a certain period of time.

Click the Today or Yesterday link to see the data for a day.

Click the Last 7 days link to see the data for a week.

Click the Last 30 days link to see the data for a month.

Click the Last year link to see the data for a year.

If you want to view all users, click the Browse users button.

Content statistics consists of the information on the content added to the site.

You can choose the type of content in the drop down menu.

Click the Today or Yesterday link to see the data for a day.

Click the Last 7 days link to see the data for a week.

Click the Last 30 days link to see the data for a month.

Click the Last year link to see the data for a year.

Credit statistics provides the information on the credits purchased or spent by users.

Click the Today or Yesterday link to see the data for a day.

Click the Last 7 days link to see the data for a week.

Click the Last 30 days link to see the data for a month.

Click the Last year link to see the data for a year.

If you want to check the credits purchase history, click the Browse history button.

We provide a few tools to customize the Main page according to your needs.

1. To customize the page, click the Customize this page button.

2. You will be redirected to the customization page. Here you can perform the following customization actions:

Re-arrange widgets

3. Move the mouse cursor over the widget title and drag it ¹⁾

4. Then drop ²⁾ this widget to the preferred position.

5. Click the Finish Customizing button.

Configure an existing widget

You can configure settings for the existing widgets.

For example, to change the title and the default period of the Credit statistics widget, you should:

1. Click the Customize this page button.

2. Find the Credit statistics widget.

3. Click the Edit (wheel) icon against the widget’s title.

4. The Settings window will pop up.

5. Enter the new title in the Title field.

6. Choose the Default period from the Default period menu.

7. Click Save.

8. Click the Finish Customizing button.

Remove an existing widget from the Main page

To remove a widget from the Main page, you should:

1. Click the Customize this page button.

2. Find the widget you want to remove.

3. Click the Delete (cross) icon against the widget’s title.

4. Click the Finish Customizing button.

Finance

The Finance section displays all transactions.

This section consists of the statistics of the payments done by members using the payment provider activated on the site.

¹⁾ click on the widget with the left mouse button and hold it

²⁾ while still holding the left mouse button, move the mouse cursor to the position you want to add the widget to, and then release the button

Mobile

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Mobile

The browser mobile version allows users to access the site via mobile devices.

Menus

Here you can manage the mobile pages, menu items.

To hide or move the item to the top or bottom menu drag and drop it to the desired position.

To delete the item, click the Delete (cross) icon against the item’s title.

The item will move to the Hidden area.

To edit the item, click the Edit (wheel) icon against the item’s title.

Change the title and click the Save button.

To add a new page drag and drop the New page item to the top or bottom menu.

To configure the item, click the Edit (wheel) icon against the item’s title.

* Enter the menu label;

* Choose the page type.

There are two types of the custom pages:

Local - choose to create a new page with your own custom content.

External - choose to add a button redirecting to an external site.

* Enter the page title;

* Enter the page content to the HTML Content area;

* Make the page visible to guests and/or registered members;

* Click Save.

Index

In this section you can customize the widgets for the Mobile index page.

To add the widget to the User Profile page, drag and drop it to the Content block.

Click the Edit (wheel) icon against the widget’s title to manage the widget's settings.

You can make some widgets visible to a certain user role only:

1. Click the Edit (wheel) icon against the widget’s title;

2. Check the Restrict view box;

3. Uncheck the boxes for Free;

4. Check the box for VIP role;

5. Click the Save button.

This way the widget will be visible only to users with VIP user role.

To delete the widget, click the Delete (cross) icon against the widget’s title.

The following widgets are available on the Index page:

Mobile Promo Image
Join now
Photos

Dashboard

You can add/remove widgets from the Dashboard page.

Settings

In this section you can disable the mobile version.

Check the Disable site mobile version box.

Click the Save button.

Pages

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Pages

In this section all site pages and menu items are listed. Here you can:

add/delete/rename pages
change the menu's position
enable/disable pages for users and guests
customize the widgets on the pages
etc.

Manage pages

Here you can create the pages, rename the items, change permissions, move the pages, delete the pages.

Create a new page

To create a new page, go to Admin Area > Pages > Manage Pages.

The Manage Pages page is visually divided into three sections:

Main Menu ¹⁾
Bottom Menu ²⁾
Hidden Pages ³⁾

Choose the menu where you want to add the new page/button, and click Add Item.

The Add a new item page will appear.

1. Enter the button/page name into the Menu name field
2. Choose the Page Address

There are two types of the custom pages:

Local page - choose to create a new page with your own custom content

If you choose the Local page option:
Enter your new page meta tags ⁴⁾
Enter your new page content

External URL - choose to add a button redirecting to an external site.

3. Enter your page title
4. Select the type of users who can see this page in the Visible For field
5. Click Submit.

The system will redirect you back to the Manage Pages page.

Note: The menu buttons on this page are colored. You can find the values for the colors in the Legend section.

To edit the menu item hover the mouse cursor over the item and click the Edit button.

Enter the new name to the Menu Name field, change the permissions for guests, users and click the Save button.

Delete the page?

To delete the page hover the mouse cursor over the item and click the Edit button.

The click the Delete button at the bottom of the page.

Move the items?

The page where user lands after logging in can be set in Admin area > Pages > Manage Pages section.

The menu item located first within the list is the one where people will be redirected after logging in. By default the Dashboard page is the first page.

So if users should land on the Search page, simply drag and drop the Search menu item to the first place.

If the Join page should open first instead of the Index page, move the Join item to the first position.

If you want to hide a page without deleting it, move the item to the Hidden pages area.

Special pages

In this section you can enable/disable the Splash screen and Maintenance Page.

User Profile

Profile page is a component panel. It's general layout comes from whatever you place in Admin area > Pages > User Profile.

In addition to widgets available for placement there, page consists of hard coded components such as avatar image, gallery, toolbar and etc. Look and feel of each component can be changed in various places.

To add the widget to the User Profile page, drag and drop it to the Top, Bottom or Middle content.

Click the Edit (wheel) icon against the widget’s title to manage the widget's settings.

You can make the widget visible to a certain user role only:

1. Click the Edit (wheel) icon against the widget’s title;

2. Check the Restrict view box;

3. Uncheck the boxes for Free;

4. Check the box for VIP role;

5. Click the Save button.

This way the widget will be visible only to users with VIP user role.

To delete the widget, click the Delete (cross) icon against the widget’s title.

User Dashboard

In this area you can customize the Dashboard page by adding the widgets.

If the Allow users to customize this page box is checked, your changes in Admin area won't apply to user pages.

Note: Widgets will show up on the page only if they consist of some content. For instance, if a user has no gifts, the Gifts widget won't be visible on the User Profile page.

¹⁾ section for top menu buttons

²⁾ section for bottom menu buttons

³⁾ section for invisible buttons

⁴⁾ meta tags allow search engines to grab the information about your site

Plugins

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Plugins

Here you can add/remove, activate/deactivate and configure the plugins.

Install plugin

To install the available plugins, please follow the steps below:

1. Go to Admin Area > Plugins > Add New

2. Upload the plugin package by clicking the Browse button.

3. Enter your FTP access details ¹⁾

4. The uploaded plugin will appear in the Available Plugins section

5. Find the plugin you want to install

6. Move the mouse cursor over it - the Install button will appear

7. Click on it.

Once the page refreshes - the plugin will get moved from the Available Plugins list to the Installed Plugins.

Note: Some plugins have configuration options. So, once the plugin is installed, we recommend that you check if it comes with additional settings. Simply move mouse over it and check if the Settings button appears.

Delete a plugin

You can deactivate the plugin by hovering the mouse over plugin and clicking the Deactivate button.

The plugin will be moved to the Inactive plugins section. To activate the plugin, click the Activate button.

To completely remove the plugin from the site, hover the mouse over plugin, click the Uninstall button.

¹⁾ the details you are using to login to your server via FTP client

Settings

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Settings

Here you can modify the general site settings.

General

The general site settings category consists of three blocks:

Site Installation

The values available in this section were entered during the software installation, but you can change them anytime.

Site Name - enter the name of the site to the field. This value will be used in the {$site_name} variable.

Site Email - enter the email address which will be used by the software to send the emails (verification, mass mailing, welcome emails etc.) from the site. This value will be used in the {$site_email} variable.

Tagline - add the taglne for the site.

Description - enter a short description of your site.

Captcha Settings

Enable on Join form - check this box to add a captcha image to the registration page.

Time Settings

Date format - select the date format that will be displayed on the site.

TimeZone - choose an appropriate time zone. This time zone will be used for all time references on your site.

Use relative date/time - check this box if the time should be shown like this: “Yesterday, 5:31” instead of “June 1 '09, 5:31”

Use military time - check the box to use the 24 hour clock. If this option is active, the time on the site will be displayed like this: 02:01. Uncheck it to use the 12 hour clock (am/pm). If this option is inactive, the time on the site will be displayed like this: 02:01am

Finance

Currency - choose the currency that will be used on your site.

User Settings

Here you can manage the settings related to users.

Display Settings

Show profile name as: - choose if the profile name should be shown as username or real name.

Email Settings

Confirm email - check this box if all users should verify their email in order to access the site.

Avatar Settings

Avatar image crop size - set the size for the avatars. This value will apply to all user listings on the site.

Big avatar image crop size - set the size of the avatar shown on the Profile page.

Avatar file size limit - set the limit for the avatar file size.

Default avatar image - click the Change button below the default avatar image to replace it.

Profile questions

View sections as tabs - check the box to show the sections as tabs.

Registration

Avatar upload - this field allows you to configure the settings for the User photo field on the Join page.

Choose display and set required value to make the User photo field mandatory ³⁾.

Choose display value to show the User photo field and make it optional ⁴⁾.

Choose hide value to delete the User photo field from the registration ⁵⁾.

Enable 'Terms of use' checkbox - check this box to add the I agree with terms of use box to the Join page to make the users agree with the site terms of use.

Privacy

Mandatory user approve - if this feature is active, site admin will have to approve all users before they access the site.

The non-approved user won't be able to use the site and will see the following message:

All non-approved users will be listed in Admin area > Users > Browse users > Unapproved section.

To approve a user, click their username, review the user information. Then go back to Admin area > Users > Browse users > Unapproved section, check the box next to the user and click the Approve button.

Who can join: - this config allows you to choose how users can register on the site.

Choose Anyone value to allow all users register on the site.

If you choose the By my invitation only value, users will be able to register by your invitation only.

If they click the Join link on the site, they will see the message below:

You can invite the users by following the steps here

Guests can view the site - choose the way the non-logged users will access your site.

If you choose Yes, all site pages will be available to guests.

If you choose No, guests will access the Sign in page only.

If user clicks Search, Main, Photo or other links, they will be redirected to the Sign in page.

Choose the With password: value and set a password to access the site with password.

Your site will display the following message to visitors:

You can easily modify the text for this notification in the Languages section.

If you forgot the password and can't access the site, click here

Content settings

This section allows you to manage the content settings on the site.

Text content

Disable custom HTML - check this box to disallow users to add the HTML code to the blogs and forum posts and remove the Insert HTML icon.

Disable rich media - check this box to disallow users to add the photo, video to the blogs and forum posts and remove the Insert image, Insert video icons.

Content comments

Disable rich media - check the box to disallow users to add the photo, video to the comments.

Rich media settings

Maximum upload file size - set the limit for the files (photo, video) uploaded to the blogs, forum posts, comments.

Allowed resources list - add the sites the video can be embedded from.

File attachments

Maximum upload file size - set the limit for the attachments (photo, video) uploaded to the blogs, forum posts.

Allowed extensions - list the file types users can upload.

Page settings

This section allows you to add the meta information or code and upload a favicon for your site.

The Custom head code, Custom tail code sections allow you to add any kind of code (e.g. meta keywords, Google Adsense, Google Analytics, or any other one) within the admin area instead of modifying the source code.

Overall whenever you are asked to enter some code before the closing </head> tag - you will need to enter it within Custom Tail Code section.

If you are asked to enter some code before the closing </body> tag, you can use Custom Tail Code section.

Click here to learn more about the meta data.

To upload a favicon ⁶⁾, click the Browse button, upload the file from your device and click Save

The favicon image should be in the .ico format and should be 16x16px. You can use site to create your favicon.

Language

In this section you can edit or delete the existing languages, language keys and add new ones.

Click here for more information on how to manage the languages.

SMTP

If the native Email server is configured on the server, you shouldn't activate SMTP on your site. This feature should be used on the servers without mail server. If you enable SMTP in Admin area, emails from the site will be sent by Cron and it must be configured ⁷⁾.

Your server should not have limits on the number of outgoing emails. If your server provides the mail server, SMTP should be disabled and don't add your server details to the SMTP fields - it may cause the loop.

For example, if you are using Gmail mail server, you should enter the following settings:

Gmail SMTP server address: smtp.gmail.com

Gmail SMTP user name: Your full Gmail address (e.g. example@gmail.com)

Gmail SMTP password: Your Gmail password

Gmail SMTP port: 465

Gmail SMTP TLS/SSL required: yes

Contact your hosting provider if you are not using Gmail mail server; some hosting providers do not allow SMTP connections to the local mail servers.

SEO

This area allows to manage all SEO settings.

SEO Page

The SEO page allows you to manage the meta information for the base, users and photo pages.

Title - enter the title of the page or leave the default title.

Meta description - enter the page meta description.

Meta keywords - enter the page meta keywords.

Allow for indexing - check this box if the page should be indexed.

Sitemap

Sitemap is is a list of pages of a web site accessible to crawlers or users.

By default the Oxwall software package includes the sitemap.xml and robots.txt files. You will be able to access these files on your server in the public_html/directory or other directory the software is installed in.

To get the sitemap working add the following code to the end of the robots.txt file:

Sitemap:http://[your_site_URL]/sitemap.xml

Note: Replace [your_site_URL] with your site name.

The robots.txt file content for the Oxwall demo site looks like this:

# 
# This file contains rules to prevent the crawling and indexing of certain parts 
# of your web site by spiders of a major search engines likes Google and Yahoo. 
# By managing these rules you can allow or disallow access to specific folders
# and files for such spyders. 
# The good way to hide private data or save a lot of bandwidth. 
#
#
# For more information about the robots.txt standard, see:
# http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/robots.html
#
# For syntax checking, see:
# http://www.sxw.org.uk/computing/robots/check.html

User-agent: *
Disallow:/ow_version.xml
Disallow:/INSTALL.txt
Disallow:/LICENSE.txt
Disallow:/README.txt
Disallow:/UPDATE.txt
Disallow:/CHANGELOG.txt
Disallow:/admin/

Sitemap: https://demo.oxwall.com/sitemap.xml

The Sitemap settings section allows you to manage the sitemap settings.

Schedule updates - set the interval the sitemap should be updated within.

The recommendable value is weekly; this is the average frequency the pages' content is changed in.

Page types -choose the pages that should be included in the sitemap.

Base Pages like Join, Sign in custom pages like Terms of use etc., Users or Photos pages.

Since the sitemap generation process depends on Cron Jobs, make sure it is working on your server.

If the site is populated and consists of many pages, the sitemap generation may take up to several days.

The system grabs all content from the SEO Page Settings and adds it to the Open Graph Tags.

All you need is upload your site logo or image that should show when users share link to your site in the social media. It should be a .jpg image 1000px width.

³⁾ users won't be able to register until they upload a photo

⁴⁾ user can upload a photo or complete the registration without adding a photo

⁵⁾ all users will register without a photo

⁶⁾ a small icon shown in the browser next to your sitename

⁷⁾ check the guide on the Cron configuration here

Users

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Users

Here you can manage the users and information on them.

Browse Users

The Browse users area consists of the general information on the site users.

The Search by area allows you to search for users by Real name or Email. To find a user, enter their username or email and click Go.

You can invite the new members to the site by following the instructions here

The whole users' list is divided into three tabs:

Recently active

This section consists of all users who visited the site recently. You can visit the user's page by clicking their username.

Suspended

Suspended status is set by the site administrator if the user violates the site privacy policy or terms of use. A user with suspended status can do nothing on the site (their profile will not be shown in the matches lists, search results, online, latest users). They also cannot use the site services (reply to emails, add content, etc.) until Admin unsuspends them.

You can suspend a user either on the front end by clicking the Moderation > Suspend link.

Or directly from Admin area > Users > Browser users. Check the box next to the user who should be suspended and click the Suspend button.

Each time you suspend a user, you should provide a reason for suspending them and click the Submit button.

If the suspended user loggs in to the site, this message will appear:

To unsuspend the user, click the Re-activate button in Admin area > Users > Browser users.

Unverified

If the Confirm email box is checked in Admin area > Settings > User settings > Email Settings, all users should verify their email after the registration on the site.

All users who didn't confirm their email are listed in the Unverified section.

If a user can't verify their email for some reasons, you can verify them manually by clicking the Mark email verified button.

Unapproved

If the Mandatory user approve feature is enabled, all users will have to be approved manually and will get listed in this section.

Moderators

In this section you can add, remove the site moderators. They can moderate the content posted on the site and Admin area.

Follow the instructions to assign a moderator.

User Roles

User roles - is the core functionality of the software. All basic features (including user credits and paid memberships) are based on the user roles.

You can manage the user roles by following the instructions here

Profile Questions

Profile questions allow you to get more information on users to get their perfect matches. In this area you can add, edit, delete profile questions and sections.

Here is more information on managing the profile questions.

Restricted Usernames

This section allows you to add usernames that should not be used by your users. It consists of 2 areas: a Restricted Usernames List where you can view and delete usernames and the Add restricted username section where you can add usernames to the list.

To add a username, enter it to the Username box and click the Add button.

You can remove a username from the list of restricted usernames. Hover the mouse pointer over the username that should be removed and click the Delete button.

Mass Mailing

You can create and send messages to your users using the Mass Mailing section.

To send a message, choose the text or HTML⁸⁾ type from the Email format menu.

Choose a user role: you can send a message to all roles or to one role only ⁹⁾

Enter the subject, body of the message.

When you create the mail template, you can use the variables available below the Email body. Variables allow you to add the personal information of each user (username, email). In other words, if you use {$user_name} variable, it will automatically be replaced with each user's username.

Click the Start mailing button to send the message.

⁸⁾ choose this type if you want to use HTML code in your mail templates (the images, colors etc.

⁹⁾ instructions on how to create a user role are available here

Oxwall Software Documentation overview:admin_area_manual

Appearance

Appearance

Themes

Customize

CSS

Graphics

Dashboard

Dashboard

Main

Finance

Mobile

Mobile

Menus

Index

Dashboard

Settings

Pages

Pages

Manage pages

Create a new page

Edit the menu item

Delete the page?

Move the items?

Special pages

User Profile

User Dashboard

Plugins

Plugins

Install plugin

Delete a plugin

Settings

Settings

General

User Settings

Content settings

Page settings

Language

SMTP

SEO

SEO Page

Sitemap

Social Meta

Users

Users

Browse Users

Moderators

User Roles

Profile Questions

Restricted Usernames

Mass Mailing