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User Settings

You can configure Scooch for your own needs in some interesting ways. In this guide we take you through setting up Scooch for the first time and what the individual settings do.

After installing Scooch you can access user settings in two ways:

  1. Using the built-in settings form via the admin menu. The admin menu is displayed on the index page when you are logged in.
  2. By editing the /inc/user_settings.php file directly.

Accessing the User Settings Form

  1. Go to the Scooch homepage in your web browser (http://mysite.com/scooch/index.php).
  2. Login at the bottom of the page using the default password, 'scooch'.
  3. Choose, 'Settings' from the admin menu.

Most of the settings you will see are self-explanatory but there are additional explanations for each one below.

Settings In Detail

Generic Settings
  • Web site name: This should be your web site name (e.g. Grow Collective). It is used by the application in the <title> tag for the index, the <title> and <description> of the global RSS feed and the <title> of the individual slide show comments RSS feeds.
  • Admin password: Default is 'scooch'. Please set your own secure password after installation.
Homepage Display
  • Summaries: This sets how many slide shows are displayed with summary text on the Scooch homepage. Default is 4. Other shows will display as thumbnails with the summary text inserted in to the <alt> and <title> attribute values.
  • Total shows: This is the total number of shows your Scooch homepage will show when visitors enter. Default is 10.
  • Randomise: This picks a random image from the latest slide show to display on the homepage. Default is unchecked. Check the box to enable it.
Slide Show Display
  • Only allow a single ratings vote per slide per IP? - This does what it says on the tin. However, it might be useful to note that often people on networked computers will share an IP address (such as company employees). Single voting by IP is checked by default.
  • Enable Emoticons in Comments? - Checked and enabled by default.
Images
  • Max Width: This sets the maximum width of individual slide images. The default is 700px which is the maximum the default design allows. If you redesign the template set this value to whatever your own design allows.
  • Default Width: This sets the default width displayed in the form for uploading slide images. Default is 700px.
  • Watermark images? This sets whether or not the images are automatically watermarked on upload. The file used for watermarking images is img/watermark.png. Default is enabled. You can replace this image or upload a new one and change the path (described in the Advanced Settings Section).
  • Use rounded corners on images? Sets whether the images have rounded corners or not. See Advanced Settings for information on setting the corner radius. Default is enabled.
  • Corner colour: Sets the corner background colour for the images if rounded corners are selected (should be the page background colour).
  • Thumbnail size: Sets the thumbnail image size. Scooch crops and resizes PNGs and GIFs and JPGs to square high quality thumbnails. Default size is 75px.
  • Max file size: This sets the maximum file size you are allowed to upload. Upload size may be limited by your web host either directly or by limiting the amount of virtual memory the upload routine is allowed to use. This setting will over-ride that. Default is 817000 bytes.

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Advanced Settings

Advanced users can edit the /inc/user_settings.php file directly to edit all of the previous parameters and advanced settings at the bottom of the file.

  • $home="http://mysite.com/scooch/"; This is the (URI) of scooch on your server and it must be set set prior to installing Scooch on your server. If you change it after installation Scooch will not function. Default is http://www.mysite.com/scooch prior to initial editing.
  • $rad_x=7;$rad_y=7; This sets the radius of the rounded corners on images if selected. The value is expressed in pixels. You can set different values for the X and Y axis to produce different effects on your images if you wish. Default values are 7.
  • $watermarkimage="watermark.png"; This is the file name of the image used for watermarking images on upload. You can use either a .png or a .gif as the watermark image. Change the file name here if you upload a new image with a different name.
  • $ip_vote_qty=1; This sets the number of times an IP address can vote on a slide if you allow more than one vote per IP.
  • $allowedimages = array(".jpg",".jpeg",".gif",".png"); This sets the allowed image types for upload.
  • $emoticons=array();: This sets the emoticon text equivalent (code), the image path (face), and the alt attribute description (text).

Next: Code editing scooch overview - an introduction for designers and developers who wish to edit the CSS, XHTML or PHP.

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