Joomla! 1.5 Global Configuration

The Global Configuration can be access through  the top joomla menu, Site -> Global Configuration, or in the main Control Panel, click on Global Configuration.

The Global Configuration screen is divided into three areas: Site, System, and Server. allowing you to configure the Joomla! website with your personal settings.


Joomla! Global configuration SITE 

Site Settings, Metadata Settings, SEO Settings.

In Joomla! Site Settings we can put the site in offline mode and set a message for our users with why the website is offline. The message will be displayed under the website's name.

Still here you can change the website's name, you can change the editor you use to write your articles (hint: I use JCE editor for Joomla!), here you can change the number of articles displayed in the Feed list (RSS) or you could change the default number of items displayed in a Joomal! list. (the list of articles, the list of plug-ins, menus, modules, etc..)

Here is PrintScreen of where this number is.

In Joomla! Metadata Settings you can change the Global Site Meta Description and Global Site Meta Keywords.

The meta information will be displayed on every page of your website that has no other meta data information assign to it.

You can find the meta description and meta keyword at the beginning of the code of every page.

Joomla! SEO Settings makes your Jooma! website's URL search engine friendly.

What does that mean? First if you check the radio button for "Search Engine Friendly URLs", Joomla! will make your URL from:

http://localhost/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=25&Itemid=28

into

http://localhost/index.php/about-joomla

Second if you check "Use Apache mod_rewrite", for this to work, you will have to rename the file htaccess.txt from your Joomla! install folder into .htaccess, yes there is a dot in front of htaccess.

This will transform your website's URL from:

http://localhost/index.php/about-joomla

into

http://localhost/about-joomla


Finally if you select all three options, meaning "Add suffix to URLs" also, your Joomla! website URL's will look like this:

http://localhost/about-joomla.html


Joomla! Global configuration System

System Settings, User Settings, Media Settings, Debug Settings, Cache Settings, Session Settings.

Joomla! System Settings is made of:  a secret word, the path to the log folder, web services and the path to the help file.

The secret word is a unique alphanumeric code for every Joomla! installation an is used internally for security propose.

The path to the log folder is where Joomla! stores all the logs.

Web Services are used for compatibility with third-party extension , but are usually set to "no".

Help Server set the server from where you'll get your help. To access help go to the top menu Help - > Joomla! Help.

Joomla! User Settings, work's with an active "Login" module and it sets if you let your users to register on your website, if they register, here you can set what type of access would they have, if they have to confirm the registration and if they can set some parameters.

Here is a print screen of a "Login" module with User Registration set to Yes. If registration is set to NO, the highlighted link will not appear.

Joomla! Media Settings here you set where Joomla! will store your media files.

File type is what kind of file you can upload trough Media Manager and the maximum file size, the default is ~10MB.

The Path to Media Folder is where all your media is stored, Path to Image Folder is where you keep your images for writing articles.

You will see that if you want to add a image to an article by clicking the image button you'll only see the images in this folder.

Restrict uploads, set to YES, restricts only those type of users that have access less then manager. Minimum User Level for Media Manager.

Here you can select which type of users have access to the media manager, you have to select the lowest access group.

Check MIME Types, this is a verification for the files type, for more information you can read mime media types.

Legal Image Extensions, this allows you to limit the type of image users can upload.

Ignored Extensions, what types of files will be ignored. Legal MIME Types / Illegal MIME Types, better left as is, only for advanced users.


Enable Flash Uploader, the default is "No", if set to "Yes", may appear problems due to flash setting.


Debug Settings, here you have two options Debug System and Debug Language, by default both are set to off, if you activate Joomla! debug system you'll get something like the print screen below every page, showing you what Joomla! loads and what errors appear if there are any.

If you want Joomla! to use cache, here is the place you have to look.

In the Cache Settings you can enable/disable cache, set the maximum length of time the cache will be stored before it is refreshed, and the caching mechanism. I do recommend you not to use the cache system in the development period of your website.

In Session Settings you can configure the Session Lifetime, where you set how long a user can stay signed in, before the system disconnect it for inactivity, and the type of Session Handler.

I recommend setting a higher value for the session lifetime in the development stage of your website, so that you don't have to reconnect frequently, but don't forget to set it back to a lower value when you launch the site on the web.


Joomla! Global configuration Server

Server Settings, Locale Settings, FTP Settings, Database Settings, Mail Settings.

In Server Settings you can set, the Path to Temp-folder, where Joomla! keeps it's temp files, the website's "GZIP Page Compression" which could make it load faster (This option by default is turn off, if you want to turn it on, first check your server if it's supports GZIP Compression).

Also in Server Settings, you can set the appropriate level of error reporting, and configure your Joomla! system to use SSL for some areas of the website(I recommend using this option only if you know what your doing. Advanced user only).

Locale Settings, here you set the Time Zone of your website, which should be the same as the web server time zone.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol), if you don't have access to use the php upload function, Joomla! can use, this FTP build in function. To enable this function you'll need a your ftp host name, the port is usually 21 (the default), an username and a password for the Joomla! system to have access and finally the path to the folder where Joomla! will upload the files, this being the FTP Root in the configuration screen.

Database Settings, this settings were made during the Joomla! install process.

Here we can set the database type, in most cases is mysql, the hostname, the name of the server that hosts the database, the username, the password and the database's name.

Database prefix is a feature that allows you to have multiple Joomla! installations in the same database.

Warning! do not change anything here, unless, you know what you're doing.

Mail Settings. Three option here:

• PHP Mail Function(mail function build in PHP) is the default,

• Sendmail is typically used when you want to sent a HTML email.

• SMTP Server uses the site's SMTP server and you have to fill all the fields that start's with SMTP.

Mail From and From Name are the the email and the name that will be used for sending email, by default Joomla! fills "From Name" with the site's name. The "Mail From" is the email you were asked for at the Joomla! installation.

This is it with the Joomla! Global Configuration, I hope you liked it and understood it, thank for reading.