#### Step 1 --- Basics of the Control Panel, and themes

##### Overview

In this section, you will first learn the basics of the Control Panel. Then, you will set up the general information of your site using General Settings, and then you will change themes, to alter the way the site looks.

###### User Mode and Administration Mode

There are two modes to your website, the user mode is that part of the site that is visible to the outside world, your users. This mode you're accessing now is the administration mode. The interface area in adminstration mode is called the Control Panel and it is this that you use to manage the site, to add modules, change themes and so on.

##### The basic layout of the Control Panel

###### Left Column - Control Menus

You use various menus to manage the site. See the left column. Each of these control menus belongs to a module. When you add a module, you will get a new control menu. This Help file is part of the Legacy System module and hence the Legacy system control menu is currently expanded while the other menus are not.

You have already installed some modules during the installation stage, so there are some control menus in the left column. By default, the menu of the current module is expanded and menus of other modules are collapsed (hidden). Clicking the [+] icon will expand that menu but leave the main screen and other menus as they are. Clicking an item in a menu will close any other expanded menus, and take you to the item that you clicked on.

###### Action Search

You can find the Action Search box in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. This is a special search feature for administrators. By typing in keywords, you can search for the menu you are looking for. When you have forgotten which menu you need, try it!

For example --- if you have forgotten how to delete a user, input 'user'. The action search will give you some menu links.

###### Other Links

Just under the Action Search box you will find three quick links.

Control Panel Home
  Go to the top page of the Control Panel.
Homepage
  Go to the top page of the user side (public side) without logging out.
Logout
  Logout, and go to the top page of the user side (public side).

##### First steps for your site (1) --- General Settings

Well then, let's start building your site. Go to the user side of your site, look at the title of your site in your browser bar. 'XOOPS Cube Site - Just Use it' ---- You will agree, I'm sure, that it would be nice to change that to something more appropriate to your site's content.

You can change your basic general information like a title or a slogan in General Settings. Go to the general settings by clicking the menu of Legacy System module.

There you will see a lot of items that can be configured, nearly 30 of them.

Here are just those that are important to getting you up and running, you can come back and look at the others in detail a bit later.

###### Site name

The name of your site.

###### Slogan for your site

The slogan of your site. This is good for a sub-title.

###### Server timezone

This is the timezone where your server is. It is of course possible that the installer has input the correct timezone but confirm it if you can. If you don't know much about timezones, keep the default value for now.

###### Default timezone

This is the default timezone for user registration. If your site is for New Yorkers, set this to 'Eastern Time'. The user's timezone can be changed by each user so this is not a must. If you don't know much about timezones, keep the default value or the same value as the server timezone for now.

###### Debug mode

XOOPS Cube Legacy has three debug modes to help site owners solve problems quickly. The installer set 'PHP Debug' as the default. You should keep the debug mode to 'PHP Debug' while you are building your site but change it to 'Off' once the site goes public.

###### Turn your site off?

If you want to hide your site while you're building it, then select 'Yes'. The site will then be closed and impossible to access except for those who are in privileged groups. In other words, all users will be greeted by the site closed message and a login. Anonymous users will have no access at all to your site. In Step Four of this Help file we will be looking at User administration and so for now, select "No" here.

###### Submit!

OK? Click on the 'Submit' button to confirm the site settings.

##### First steps for your site (2) --- User Preferences

Because XOOPS Cube Legacy aims to be a portal site, your site will be open to receive new user registrations right from the beginning. So, while you are setting things up, just in case, it is a good idea to stop user registration. To do so, you simply go to the preferences in the User module. In the left column, in the control menus, click the [+] icon by User Module, and click Preferences.

Once again, you will see a lot of items to be configured. Most modules have configurable items and this is how you will set them to suit your needs.

###### Allow new user registration?

Choose 'No' to stop new user registration then click on the 'Submit' button.

##### First steps for your site (3) --- Change your site's theme

Click the homepage link in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, below the Action Search field. Note the look & feel of your site is the same as that of xoopscube.org. In XOOPS Cube the look & feel of a site is decided by themes. You can change your site to another different look & feel simply by changing themes. All you will need is a new theme and an FTP client to upload the theme.

###### Get new themes

In XOOPS Cube Legacy, you can use XOOPS2 themes. A lot of designers publish cool themes on their sites that you can download. Visit XOOPS Cube Project and Wiki to get their URLs, and download your favorite themes. You may need decompression tools, because most themes are compressed in the same way that the XOOPS Cube Legacy package was. If you use WindowsXP or Mac OS X, it's easy to unzip theme archive files. So, now you should have a decompressed theme directory on your computer. This directory should include theme.html or package.ini.php.

###### Upload themes to your site

Upload the decompressed theme directory to the /themes directory under the root directory of your XOOPS Cube Legacy. Keep in mind the following directory tree.

Attention! A very common error is to upload an extra directory as the following shows. Note that in a clean installation, there are two theme directories already there; default and cube_default. Your new theme directory should be at the same level as these two.

###### Select your main theme

Click 'Theme Management' in the control menu of the Legacy System module.

Choose the look & feel of your site by clicking the 'select' button next to your favourite theme.

##### Summary

You've just finished the first steps for your site. Your site has a name and an appropriate look & feel. That's all good preparation for the next step. Plus, now you know how, you can change these settings anytime.

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