Site Global Configuration

Description

The Global Configuration screen allows you to configure the Joomla site with your personal settings. Settings made in this screen apply to the whole site.

How to access

To access this screen you can either:

• Click the Global button in the Control Panel or
• Select System → Global Configuration from the drop-down menus.

Screenshot

Details

Site

Site Settings

• Site Name: Enter the name of your Web site. This will be used in various locations (e.g. the backend browser title bar and Site Offline pages).
• Site Offline: (Yes/No). Select whether access to the Site frontend is available. If Yes, the frontend will display or not a message depending on the settings below.
• Offline Message: (Hide/Use Custom Message/Use Site Language Default Message). Display or not a frontend message when the site is offline. The custom offline message uses the value defined in the 'Custom message' field. The language offline message uses the value defined in the site language ini file.
• Custom Message: The custom offline message will be used if the 'Offline Message' field is set to 'Use Custom Message'.
• Offline Image: Select or upload an optional image to be displayed on the default offline page. Make sure the image is less than 400px wide.
• Inline Editing: (Modules & Menus/Modules/None). Select if you want inline editing for modules and menu items (support may depend on your template).
• Default Editor: (Editor - CodeMirror/Editor - None/Editor - TinyMCE). Select the default text editor for your site. Registered Users will be able to change their preference in their personal details if you allow that option.
• Default Captcha: (None Selected). Select the default captcha for your site. You may need to enter required information for your captcha plugin in the Plugin Manager.
• Default Access Level: (Public/Guest/Registered/Special/Customer Access Level (Example)/Super Users). Select the default access level for new content, menu items, and other items created on your site.
• Default List Limit: (5/10/15/20/25/30/50/...). Sets the default length of lists in the Control Panel for all users.
• Default Feed Limit: (5/10/15/20/25/30/50/...). Select the number of content items to show in the feed(s).
• Feed Email Address: (Author Email/Site Email/No Email). The RSS and Atom newsfeeds include the author's email address. Select Author Email to use each author's email (from the User Manager) in the news feed. Select Site Email to include the site 'Mail from' email address for each article.

Metadata Settings

• Site Meta Description: Enter a description of the overall website that is to be used by search engines. Generally, a maximum of 20 words is optimal.
• Site Meta Keywords: Enter the keywords and phrases that best describe your website. Separate keywords and phrases with a comma.
• Robots: (Index, Follow/No index, follow/Index, No follow/No index, no follow). Robots instructions.
• Content Rights: Describe what rights others have to use this content.
• Show Author Meta Tag: (Yes/No). Show the author meta tag when viewing articles.
• Show Joomla! Version: (Yes/No). Show the Joomla! version number in the generator meta tag.

SEO Settings

• Search Engine Friendly URLs: (Yes/No). Select if the URLs are optimised for Search Engines.
• Use URL Rewriting: (Yes/No). Select to use a server's rewrite engine to catch URLs that meet specific conditions and rewrite them as directed. Available for IIS 7 and Apache. Apache users only! Rename htaccess.txt to .htaccess before activating. IIS 7 users only! Rename web.config.txt to web.config and install IIS URL Rewrite Module before activating.
• Add Suffix to URL: (Yes/No). If yes, the system will add a suffix to the URL based on the document type.
• Unicode Aliases: (Yes/No). Choose between transliteration and unicode aliases. Transliteration is the default.
• Site Name in Page Titles: (After/Before/No). Begin or end all Page Titles with the site name (for example, My Site Name - My Article Name).

Cookie Settings

• Cookie Domain: Domain to use when setting session cookies. Precede domain with '.' if cookie should be valid for all subdomains.
• Cookie Path: Path the cookie should be valid for.

System

System Settings

• Path to Log Folder: Please specify a folder to store log files.
• Help Server: (English (GB) - Joomla help wiki/Français (FR) - Aide de Joomla!). Select the name of the help server from which your system will collect the help screen displays.

Debug Settings

• Debug System: (Yes/No). If enabled, diagnostic information, language translation, and SQL errors (if present) will be displayed. The information will be displayed at the foot of every page you view within the Joomla Backend and Frontend. It is not advisable to leave the debug mode activated when running a live website.
• Debug Language: (Yes/No). Select if the debugging indicators (**...**) or (??...??) for the Joomla! Language files will be displayed. Debug Language will work without Debug System being activated, but you will not get the additional detailed references that will help you correct any errors.

Cache Settings

• Cache Handler: (File). Choose the cache handler. Native caching mechanism is file-based. Please make sure the cache folders are writable.
• Path to Cache Folder: Specify a writable folder to store cache files if you do not wish to use the default folder.
• Cache Time: The maximum length of time in minutes for a cache file to be stored before it is refreshed.
• Platform Specific Caching: (Yes/No). Enable or disable platform specific caching. Enable when HTML output on mobile differs from other devices. (Default disabled.)
• System Cache: (OFF - Caching disabled/ON - Conservative caching/ON - Progressive caching). Enable or disable caching and set caching level. Conservative level: smaller system cache, Progressive level (default): faster, bigger system cache, includes module renderers cache. Not appropriate for extremely large sites.

Session Settings

• Session Handler: (Database/PHP/APC User Cache). The mechanism by which Joomla! identifies a User once they are connected to the website using non-persistent cookies. If 'PHP' is selected, the session.save-handler value from the PHP configuration will be used.
• Session Lifetime: Auto log out a User after they have been inactive for the entered number of minutes. Do not set too high.
• Shared Sessions: (Yes/No). When enabled, a user's session is shared between the frontend and administrator sections of the site. Note that changing this value will invalidate all existing sessions on the site. This is not available when the "Force HTTPS" option is set to "Administrator Only".

Server

Server Settings

• Path to Temp Folder: Please specify a writable folder to store temporary files.
• Gzip Page Compression: (Yes/No). Compress buffered output if supported.
• Error Reporting. This parameter sets the level of error reporting to be used by PHP on the Joomla site. It has five options: System Default, None, Simple, Maximum and Development. “System Default” leaves the level of PHP error reporting to that set up in the server (usually in the php.ini file). “None” switches off PHP error reporting, and “Simple”, “Maximum” and “Development” override the server setting to give a basic level of reporting (for “Simple”) and the reporting of all errors (“Maximum” and “Development”).
  Tip: Should your Joomla site fail to the extent that it is not possible to use the administrator page to activate error reporting, you can switch on full PHP error reporting by editing the configuration.php file. Changing the $error_reporting parameter in that file to a value of 'maximum' is the equivalent to setting Error Reporting to “Maximum”.
• Force HTTPS: (None/Administrator Only/Entire Site). Force site access in the selected areas to occur only with HTTPS (encrypted HTTP connections with the https:// protocol prefix) and also force the use of secure cookies. Note, you must have HTTPS enabled on your server to utilise this option.

Location Settings

• Website Time Zone: (Universal Time, Coordinated (UTC)/Abidjan/Accra/Addis Ababa/Algiers/Asmara/...). Choose a city in the list to configure the date and time for display.

FTP Settings

• Enable FTP: (Yes/No). Enable the built in FTP (File Transfer Protocol) functionality which is needed, in some server environments, to be used instead of the normal upload functionality of Joomla!

Proxy Settings

• Enable Proxy: (Yes/No). Enable Joomla to use a proxy which is needed in some server environments in order to fetch URLs like in the Joomla Update component.

Database Settings

• Database Type: (MySQL (PDO)/MySQLi). The type of database in use, selected during the installation process. Do not edit this field unless you are migrating to a different type of database, perhaps due to changing your hosting provider.
• Host: The hostname for your database entered during the installation process. Do not edit this field unless absolutely necessary (eg the transfer of the database to a new hosting provider).
• Database Username: The username for access to your database entered during the installation process. Do not edit this field unless absolutely necessary (eg the transfer of the database to a new hosting provider).
• Database Name: The name for your database entered during the installation process. Do not edit this field unless absolutely necessary (eg the transfer of the database to a new hosting provider).
• Database Tables Prefix: The prefix used for your database tables, created during the installation process. Do not edit field unless absolutely necessary (eg the transfer of the database to a new hosting provider).

Mail Settings

• Send Mail: (Yes/No). Select Yes to turn on mail sending, select No to turn off mail sending. Warning: It is recommended to put the site offline when disabling the mail function!
• Disable Mass Mail: (Yes/No). Select Yes to disable the Mass Mail Users function, select No to make it active.
• From Email: The email address that will be used to send site email.
• From Name: Text displayed in the header "From:" field when sending a site email. Usually the site name.
• Reply To Email: The email address that will be used to receive end user(s) reply.
• Reply To Name: Text displayed in the header "To:" field when end user(s) replying to received email.
• Mailer: (PHP Mail/Sendmail/SMTP). Select which mailer for the delivery of site email.

Text Filters

These text filter settings will be applied to all text editor fields submitted by users in the selected groups. These filtering options give more control over the HTML your content providers submit. You can be as strict or as liberal as you require to suit your site's needs. The filtering is opt-in and the default settings provide good protection against markup commonly associated with website attacks.

Permissions

Manage the permission settings for the user groups below. See notes at the bottom.

• Site Login: (Not Set/Allowed/Denied). Allow or deny Site Login for users in the Public group. Allows users in the group to login to the frontend site.
• Administrator Login: (Not Set/Allowed/Denied). Allow or deny Administrator Login for users in the Public group. Allows users in the group to login to the Backend Administrator site.
• Offline Access: (Not Set/Allowed/Denied). Allow or deny Offline Access for users in the Public group. Allows users in the group to access to the Frontend site when site is offline.
• Super User: (Not Set/Allowed/Denied). Allow or deny Super User for users in the Public group. Allows users in the group to perform any action over the whole site regardless of any other permission settings.
• Configure Options Only: (Not Set/Allowed/Denied). Allow or deny Configure Options Only for users in the Public group. Allows users in the group to edit the options except the permissions of any extension.
• Access Administration Interface: (Not Set/Allowed/Denied). Allow or deny Access Administration Interface for users in the Public group. Allows users in the group to access all of the administration interface except Global Configuration.
• Create: (Not Set/Allowed/Denied). Allow or deny Create for users in the Public group. Allows users in the group to create any content in any extension.
• Delete: (Not Set/Allowed/Denied). Allow or deny Delete for users in the Public group. Allows users in the group to delete any content in any extension.
• Edit: (Not Set/Allowed/Denied). Allow or deny Edit for users in the Public group. Allows users in the group to edit any content in any extension.
• Edit State: (Not Set/Allowed/Denied). Allow or deny Edit State for users in the Public group. Allows users in the group to edit the state of any content in any extension.
• Edit Own: (Not Set/Allowed/Denied). Allow or deny Edit Own for users in the Public group. Allows users in the group to edit any content they own in any extension.
• Edit Custom Field Value: (Not Set/Allowed/Denied). Allows users in the group to edit any value of custom fields submitted in any extension.

Toolbar

At the top left you will see the toolbar:

The functions are:

• Save. Saves the global configuration settings and stays in the current screen.

• Save & Close. Saves the global configuration settings and closes the current screen.

• Cancel. Closes the current screen and returns to the previous screen without saving any modifications you may have made.

• Help. Opens this help screen.

Quick Tips

• Most, if not all, of these settings can be set once and then left alone.
• If major modifications need to be made, then consider taking the site offline to test it and to make sure everything is in working order.
• The settings are saved in '<Joomla-root>/configuration.php'. You have to either activate the FTP-layer or make the 'configuration.php' file writable to save your changes.

Related Information

• Control panel
• Info about .htaccess
• ACL Tutorial for Joomla!