Nuking The Competition - Building Blocks (
Page 3 of 8 )
The administration
section contains everything you need to configure the PHP-Nuke system - however,
the first thing you should do is visit the "Edit Admins" section and alter the
super-user password for greater security.
At this point, you may also add new administrators to
the system - this comes in handy if you expect a great deal of activity on your
portal and would like to assign specific individuals or editors to moderate
different sections of the site. Administrator rights can be assigned either for
specific sections - articles, topics, downloads, links, discussion boards - or
for the complete system.
If required, you can also edit registered user
accounts - this includes altering the account password and assigning the user
moderator privileges.
The administration section is also your starting
point if you need to customize the PHP-Nuke interface. For example, let's
suppose you'd like a shorter main menu on your front page. The administration
section offers the "Main Block" item, which allows you to customize the menu
items which appear in the main menu - delete existing items or add your own, the
process is as simple as filling out a text box.
You can do the same with the other blocks which appear
on the right and left borders - simply select the "Left Blocks" and "Right
Blocks" options in the administration menu to edit or delete existing blocks, or
add new ones. The changes you make will be immediately reflected throughout the
site.
This is probably one of the better features of the PHP-Nuke system.
Most of the time, the default blocks are not what you will want, and you will
need to alter them to reflect your own preferences. Of the various options
available, I try to always make sure that the login block, the news block and
the survey are always visible; additionally, the last time I deployed this
system, I added a couple of new blocks containing useful information or
instructions for visitors, a link to the "site of the day", and promotional
blocks containing sponsor messages.
The "Preferences" section is the
place to go when you need to alter site-specific information - the name of your
site, the URL and logo, the theme you'd like to use, the language, the text
which appears at the bottom of every page, and default configuration options for
different sections of the site. This is one of the more important administration
sections, and I'd suggest you spend some time on the options
available.
This article copyright Melonfire 2001. All rights
reserved.
