1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,000 One of the first things you might want to configure when you hop into Joomla! 2 00:00:03,001 --> 00:00:05,001 is the Global Configuration. 3 00:00:05,002 --> 00:00:11,002 And just like the name suggests this is where you configure the big pieces of your Joomla! Website. 4 00:00:11,003 --> 00:00:15,003 So let's go ahead and take a look at Global Configuration. 5 00:00:15,004 --> 00:00:19,004 There are several ways you can access Global Configuration from the Control Panel. 6 00:00:19,005 --> 00:00:22,005 It's available here under system; 7 00:00:22,006 --> 00:00:25,006 the second link down is for Global Configuration. 8 00:00:25,007 --> 00:00:29,007 It's available here on the right side of the screen under the QUICK ICONS there 9 00:00:29,008 --> 00:00:34,008 is a link to Global Configuration, and it's over here on the left side of the screen under system. 10 00:00:34,009 --> 00:00:39,009 All three of these links take you to the same place, so pick one and click it 11 00:00:39,010 --> 00:00:41,010 and you'll be located here inside of the Global Configuration. 12 00:00:41,011 --> 00:00:47,011 So this is where we can change many of the big items on this Website, things 13 00:00:47,012 --> 00:00:53,012 like the site name, so the site name is KinetECO, perhaps I really want this 14 00:00:53,013 --> 00:00:58,013 to be KinetECO, Inc. so I could change my site name to that. 15 00:00:58,014 --> 00:01:02,014 The Offline functionality I described to you a little bit earlier while we 16 00:01:02,015 --> 00:01:05,015 were installing Joomla!, let me just show you how that works. 17 00:01:05,016 --> 00:01:10,016 If I put the Site Offline by saying Yes and then I click this big green save 18 00:01:10,017 --> 00:01:14,017 button up here at the top of the page, the big green save button will save my 19 00:01:14,018 --> 00:01:18,018 settings but will keep this window open so I can continue editing. 20 00:01:18,019 --> 00:01:23,019 You'll see a message on the top saying that I just saved this particular page. 21 00:01:23,020 --> 00:01:29,020 If I now click on my icon at the top here, which note now it says KinetECO, Inc. 22 00:01:29,021 --> 00:01:34,021 I can open up another tab and you'll see here, here is my front-end of my 23 00:01:34,022 --> 00:01:37,022 Website but it's now hidden behind a login. 24 00:01:37,023 --> 00:01:42,023 So I can type in my UserName and Password and I can login to the front-end of the Website. 25 00:01:42,024 --> 00:01:46,024 The advantage of doing this of course is that only those who have the login can 26 00:01:46,025 --> 00:01:48,025 see a site while it's under construction. 27 00:01:48,026 --> 00:01:52,026 So I am going to go ahead and turn that back off again because it's a little 28 00:01:52,027 --> 00:01:57,027 bit of a pain in the neck to work with it, while we're just working here on our local machine. 29 00:01:57,028 --> 00:02:02,028 So I am going to set that back to no and click the big green Save button one more time. 30 00:02:02,029 --> 00:02:07,029 You can customize some of the features associated with the Site Offline in the next few blocks. 31 00:02:07,030 --> 00:02:10,030 We can also set our default editor and a couple of other things; 32 00:02:10,031 --> 00:02:13,031 I will be covering some of these in a future video. 33 00:02:13,032 --> 00:02:17,032 Over here on the right side of the screen is where we can turn on or off our 34 00:02:17,033 --> 00:02:22,033 Search Engine Friendly URLs. Those are turned on by default so that's great. 35 00:02:22,034 --> 00:02:25,034 You may want to take a look at some of these other settings when your site gets 36 00:02:25,035 --> 00:02:29,035 to a Web server, but probably the default settings are fine for running this 37 00:02:29,036 --> 00:02:30,036 on the computer that's in front of you. 38 00:02:30,037 --> 00:02:34,037 Include Site Name and Page Titles is a really important thing to turn on. 39 00:02:34,038 --> 00:02:39,038 If you take a look at the front-end of the Website and you take a look here at 40 00:02:39,039 --> 00:02:41,039 the tab where this Webpage is being displayed. 41 00:02:41,040 --> 00:02:46,040 That tab displays the HTML title tag and right now that is set to Home, why 42 00:02:46,041 --> 00:02:50,041 because this is the homepage and Joomla! sets it up as Home by default. 43 00:02:50,042 --> 00:02:55,042 But it's by itself is not a terribly descriptive HTML title tag. 44 00:02:55,043 --> 00:02:59,043 Search engines weight words that are located in the HTML title tag, 45 00:02:59,044 --> 00:03:00,044 actually fairly heavily. 46 00:03:00,045 --> 00:03:05,045 And what's more, if you're trying to bookmark a Webpage, right now I'm 47 00:03:05,046 --> 00:03:08,046 bookmarking something called Home which tells me nothing about what the 48 00:03:08,047 --> 00:03:11,047 site that I'm going to. So, by default Joomla! 49 00:03:11,048 --> 00:03:15,048 ships without this turned on, but it's far better to change this setting because 50 00:03:15,049 --> 00:03:18,049 it will make your page name a little bit more descriptive. 51 00:03:18,050 --> 00:03:21,050 So where it says include site name and page titles, they are talking about this 52 00:03:21,051 --> 00:03:25,051 site name that you set over here in the left column and we're going to change 53 00:03:25,052 --> 00:03:28,052 that to either After, so it would say Home-KinetECO, Inc. 54 00:03:28,053 --> 00:03:33,053 or Before so it would say KinetECO, Inc.-Home. 55 00:03:33,054 --> 00:03:37,054 And some people have philosophies as to whether one is better than another; 56 00:03:37,055 --> 00:03:41,055 I'm going to say Before because I like that better for bookmarking. 57 00:03:41,056 --> 00:03:45,056 You can certainly say After if you think search engines prefer that type of thing. 58 00:03:45,057 --> 00:03:51,057 So by putting this to Before and saying Save again, when I refresh the front-end 59 00:03:51,058 --> 00:03:56,058 of the Website, click on the Refresh icon, you'll see now that my tab says 60 00:03:56,059 --> 00:04:01,059 KinetECO, Inc.-Home, so that's a little bit more descriptive. 61 00:04:01,060 --> 00:04:04,060 But of course the word Home isn't terribly descriptive either. 62 00:04:04,061 --> 00:04:10,061 I'll show you how to customize the rest of this HTML title tag in a future video. 63 00:04:10,062 --> 00:04:15,062 But this is key to the first part of it, at least get the company name in the HTML title tag. 64 00:04:15,063 --> 00:04:19,063 Okay, so down here a little bit further on the page on the left hand side we 65 00:04:19,064 --> 00:04:23,064 have the ability to set up our metadata for this Website including a meta 66 00:04:23,065 --> 00:04:24,065 description and meta keywords. 67 00:04:24,066 --> 00:04:28,066 My understanding is that search engines generally aren't reading meta keywords 68 00:04:28,067 --> 00:04:30,067 these days, so I didn't prepare any of those. 69 00:04:30,068 --> 00:04:34,068 But I do have a meta description; it's inside your Exercise Files. 70 00:04:34,069 --> 00:04:38,069 And if you open that up there's a little bit of text that is located there. 71 00:04:38,070 --> 00:04:43,070 I am going to go ahead and highlight all of that and say Edit>Copy and I'm going 72 00:04:43,071 --> 00:04:48,071 to go ahead right here in this box and do a Ctrl+V or Cmd+V to paste in that 73 00:04:48,072 --> 00:04:50,072 text right here in this box. 74 00:04:50,073 --> 00:04:55,073 And you'll see, well it put in a little funny space there so I'll get rid of that. 75 00:04:55,074 --> 00:04:59,074 You'll see that I have a nice meta description here. 76 00:04:59,075 --> 00:05:02,075 This meta description will display on every page of the Joomla! 77 00:05:02,076 --> 00:05:06,076 Website unless I choose to override it on a page by page basis which I can do 78 00:05:06,077 --> 00:05:10,077 either through an article or through a menu item and I'll show you how to do 79 00:05:10,078 --> 00:05:12,078 that in a future video. 80 00:05:12,079 --> 00:05:16,079 But I think it's a good practice to set a global site meta description, because 81 00:05:16,080 --> 00:05:20,080 they are used in Google and because the keywords that are located here can be 82 00:05:20,081 --> 00:05:22,081 weighted again for search engines. 83 00:05:22,082 --> 00:05:26,082 So, write a short, precise meta description that's full of keywords that people 84 00:05:26,083 --> 00:05:30,083 will use to find your Website and make sure you put it on in here. 85 00:05:30,084 --> 00:05:34,084 The last few parts here that might be of interest to you down here at the bottom 86 00:05:34,085 --> 00:05:38,085 is a thing that says Show Joomla! Version. This does not show the Joomla! 87 00:05:38,086 --> 00:05:41,086 version on the back-end of Joomla! This will show the Joomla! version 88 00:05:41,087 --> 00:05:44,087 in the HTML head of the documents. 89 00:05:44,088 --> 00:05:48,088 So if somebody viewed the source for the Webpage they would see what's called a 90 00:05:48,089 --> 00:05:52,089 meta generator tag, it's another type of meta tag that would indicate that the 91 00:05:52,090 --> 00:05:54,090 site was built using Joomla! 3.0.1 92 00:05:54,091 --> 00:05:59,091 in this particular case, what I am using to record today. 93 00:05:59,092 --> 00:06:04,092 And so some people feel that that is a security issue, so you may not want to 94 00:06:04,093 --> 00:06:08,093 show that and that is in fact why this is turned off by default. 95 00:06:08,094 --> 00:06:11,094 But if you wish to show your Joomla! version in the head of your Joomla! 96 00:06:11,095 --> 00:06:15,095 document you can certainly turn this on, so that's what that's there for. 97 00:06:15,096 --> 00:06:20,096 Alright, scrolling back on up to the top here, there are some additional tabs 98 00:06:20,097 --> 00:06:22,097 here that you can look through. 99 00:06:22,098 --> 00:06:25,098 In general, things that are located under System are things that you're not 100 00:06:25,099 --> 00:06:27,099 going to need to change. 101 00:06:27,100 --> 00:06:29,000 These are things like Cache Settings and Session Settings and 102 00:06:29,001 --> 00:06:31,001 Debugging Settings. 103 00:06:31,002 --> 00:06:35,002 One of the things though that might be helpful to you is the Session Lifetime. 104 00:06:35,003 --> 00:06:39,003 The Session Lifetime is how long can you walk away from your screen while 105 00:06:39,004 --> 00:06:41,004 working with Joomla! 106 00:06:41,005 --> 00:06:45,005 and then return but still be logged in and right now that's set to 15 minutes. 107 00:06:45,006 --> 00:06:50,006 So I can walk away from my computer for 15 minutes or up to 15 minutes and when 108 00:06:50,007 --> 00:06:53,007 I come back I'll still be logged into the back-end of Joomla!, Many people 109 00:06:53,008 --> 00:07:00,008 like to change this to a larger number than 15, in fact I'll go ahead and change mine to 30. 110 00:07:00,009 --> 00:07:04,009 I would not recommend changing your Session Lifetime to any more than about 111 00:07:04,010 --> 00:07:06,010 an hour, 60 minutes. 112 00:07:06,011 --> 00:07:11,011 And the reason why is, you want to automatically be logged out of the site if 113 00:07:11,012 --> 00:07:15,012 for some reason you walk away for an extended period of time, you don't want to 114 00:07:15,013 --> 00:07:18,013 leave yourself logged in as a session, somebody could come up to your computer 115 00:07:18,014 --> 00:07:22,014 and make changes to your Website and it's just generally a bad practice to stay 116 00:07:22,015 --> 00:07:27,015 permanently logged into the back-end of your Joomla! Website, it's a security issue. 117 00:07:27,016 --> 00:07:32,016 So up the Session Lifetime if you wish but don't up it too far. 118 00:07:32,017 --> 00:07:37,017 So I am going to go ahead and hit my greens Save button to take that setting. 119 00:07:37,018 --> 00:07:41,018 Over here on the Server tab there is pretty much nothing here you'll ever need 120 00:07:41,019 --> 00:07:44,019 to change unless you want to change your Server Time Zone. 121 00:07:44,020 --> 00:07:48,020 So right now this is set to UTC or Greenwich Mean Time. 122 00:07:48,021 --> 00:07:53,021 You can change this on a city by city basis, at least for those of us in the United States; 123 00:07:53,022 --> 00:07:56,022 you can also set this on a basis of your country. 124 00:07:56,023 --> 00:08:01,023 So if you hit the down arrow here Africa is listed first followed by America 125 00:08:01,024 --> 00:08:06,024 and America you can find cities here that would be relevant to your particular time zone. 126 00:08:06,025 --> 00:08:10,025 I am here on the West Coast of the United States so I am going to choose 127 00:08:10,026 --> 00:08:14,026 Los Angeles, but you could certainly set this to New York or Indianapolis or some 128 00:08:14,027 --> 00:08:19,027 of the other major cities that would correspond to other Time Zones into the United States. 129 00:08:19,028 --> 00:08:22,028 And if you're in a country where there is only one time zone you'll find your 130 00:08:22,029 --> 00:08:23,029 country listed in the list. 131 00:08:23,030 --> 00:08:28,030 You may eventually want to change something with Mail Settings, you probably 132 00:08:28,031 --> 00:08:32,031 won't need to touch the FTP Settings and you shouldn't need to touch the 133 00:08:32,032 --> 00:08:38,032 Database Settings, you set all of that up as part of your installation process. 134 00:08:38,033 --> 00:08:42,033 Under permissions you'll see that this is where some of the ACL issues come in, 135 00:08:42,034 --> 00:08:48,034 I am going to cover this in detail in the chapter on ACL, the Access Control Lists. 136 00:08:48,035 --> 00:08:53,035 For right now don't touch anything here, it's very easy to break your site messing with ACL. 137 00:08:53,036 --> 00:08:57,036 And then finally there's a tab here for Text Filter Settings, this controls what 138 00:08:57,037 --> 00:09:01,037 kind of HTML tags various levels of users can put into their Website. 139 00:09:01,038 --> 00:09:06,038 I now have a video later where I'd go through this screen in detail. 140 00:09:06,039 --> 00:09:09,039 So, pretty much the only things you're really going to need to touch inside of 141 00:09:09,040 --> 00:09:13,040 the Global Configuration are this first tab, first Site, there are a couple of 142 00:09:13,041 --> 00:09:17,041 issues that you may want to change and then possibly under System you may want 143 00:09:17,042 --> 00:09:21,042 to change the Session Settings to a higher number, but don't go over an hour. 144 00:09:21,043 --> 00:09:25,043 The rest as these tabs are things that you may not necessarily really need to 145 00:09:25,044 --> 00:09:29,044 change or they are things that you're going to change in a different context and 146 00:09:29,045 --> 00:09:32,045 I'll be going through those in many of the upcoming videos. 147 00:09:32,046 --> 00:09:37,046 So for now I am going to go ahead and hit Save & Close and this will return me 148 00:09:37,047 --> 00:09:39,047 to my Control Panel.