Hedgehog CMS - Readme

The Hedgehog Content Managing System has been published 2006 under the Gnu Public License The CMS has been written for beginners. It has been translated into English, German and Hungarian (Thanks to Zsolt Kádas).
Sourceforge project website: http://hedgehog-cms.sf.net

1. Requirements

Before you start, make sure that

• You have got a webspace on a server which supports php4 or higher and does not use php safemod
• You got the permission to write, delete and edit files on this server
• All the files of the CMS are posessed by the server-user

2. Getting started

• Getting a webspace
  If you don't have a webspace, yet you should watch out for some. Make sure that the provider does not use PHP-safemod. If you are not sure about the compatibility with the CMS you should first upload the Server-Testscript. Here are links to two free german webhosts which are compatible to the CMS: Pytal and funpic.
• Uploading the CMS
  Now you should unlock the options 'FTP' and 'PHP' if they are not defaultly. Then watch out for a good FTP-Client. (This is a tool which allows you to upload files on your webspace) If you got one you should start it and upload all the files that were in the archive. This will take some minutes.
• Starting
  If you did everything correctly you can visit your page now and login with the password 'admin'.
• Problems
  If you got problems with installing the CMS you may contact me at jehova1@sf.net.

3. First Steps

After you logged in you may continue with your first actions.

• Changing your password
  The first thing you should do is propably changing the administration-password. So click on the button with the blue cross, titled with "more". Here you can find a section called "Password". Click the button "Change", enter the old password, "admin" and the new one you wish to use into the input-fields. Confirm with another click on "Change".
• Changing the general settings
  Now you could change the global settings of the CMS. Click on "Settings" on the left margin and enter the values you wish to use into the fields below.
  
  • The field "Website-title" contains the main title of the homepage. Example: "Felix' Page".
  • Your username doesn't have to be your real name. Example: "Felix"
  • If you don't think publicity should know your email or are afraid of spam you don't have to enter an email-adress.
  • The field "copyright should" should contain the courrent year and your real name or organisation. Example: "2006 Felix Maiwald"
  • If you want to get a preview of the "Theme" or the "Page-Icon", just click the button "show".
  • The safety-protocol documents who does important actions and if you want to sacrify some traffic for information you can activate this feature.
  • Some theme-files have the option to display the version of the Hedgehog-CMS that is used. If you want the audience to see it, activate "view version"
• Creating, editing and removing pages
  If you customized the settings it is time to learn how design a page. The pages can be managed under the section "Contents".
  The first page that should be changed is the main-page, called "index". So click the button "Edit page" and select the page "index". Now you should see a toolbar, a big textarea and some other stuff.
  • The three buttons on top are used to safe and discard the page. The button in the middle opens this manual.
  • If you want to safe the page-value as plain text you may unselect the two checkboxes below.
  • The input-field contains the title of the Page. Don't change its value if you edit an existing page.
  • With the toolbar you can format the text in the textarea.
  • The textarea contains the value of the page. Remove the existing value and write anything in. Now you could for example select what you wrote and format it with the toolbar.
  • If you finished with your welcome-message or whatever you want to write on your main-page just click on the small disc-symbol on top. This will save the page.
• Writing the legal notice
  Every homepage should contain a legal notice. It gives information about the responsablilty for the contents. You should at least explain that you don't issue a guarantee for extern web-pages you published links to. In some countries like Germany websites must have a legal notice. Please make sure that you observe the local rights.

4. Other features

• The sideboxes
  The sideboxes are small pages that are displayed at the side of every page. You can edit, create and remove them under the section "Contents". They are often used for advertising or important anouncements. Some older themes don't support sideboxes but those have been removed in the version 1.19.
• The guestbook
  If you want to activate the guestbook you can select the checkbox under the section "Settings". You can also clear the guestbook or edit the guestbook-entries under the section "Contents". Unfortunately there is still a bug with this function. I'll try to fix it as soon as possible.
• The counter
  Another commun extention is the user-counter. It can also be activated under "Settings". If you want to reset it you got to enter "Contents" and click the button "Reset counter".
• The Menu
  Sometimes you might wish to hide a page from the menu. The menu-entries of the pages can be hidden or shown in the "Menu" under the section "Contents".
• Meta-Settings
  Theese special settings give information about the pages content and help searching-engines or spiders to find your page. The settings can be changed if you enter the section "Settings" and click the button "More".
• The Shell
  This is just an experiment and a useful tool for professional users. It has nothing to do with a real shell and is not much more than a toy. If you don't want to see what happens behind the scene you don't even have to click the button in the section "More". The shell can e.g. give you information about the settings of a variable. Enter the code "var c_js" and it will respond "> $c_sp = true". A professional user will know now that javasrcipt is activated even though that is not displayed on any GUI.
• Searching
  If you handle a bigger project you might want to know whether an expression is mentioned in any page. Enter a word or sentence into the input-field and click the button. The engine will display you hyperlinks to all pages including the expression.
• Updates
  If you want to upload an update-file you can do this under the section "More". Only upload files from trusted sources - they have full administration-rights and can be a big danger for your homepage.

5. Managing files

• Uploading
  If you want to upload a file, enter the section "Files" and select a file form your computer into the textfield at the right side. If you succeeded the uploaded file should be displayed in the table under the headline "Upload-folder".
• Deleting and renaming or a file
  If you don't like your uploaded file, any more you can click the tiny symbol of a broken page beside of its name. If you prefer renaming it, click the small "T".Now you can change its name.
• Trash and recycling
  If you decided to move your file into the backup-folder (AKA trash) you can surely recycle it. Deleted pages also are displayed in the backup-folder. Klick the small symbol at the very right of the table and confirm the dialoque.
• Using pictures
  Surely you can also include your uploaded images into pages. Create a new page and click the button "file" in the toolbar. Now a window should open displaying the content of the upload-folder. All you got to do now is clicking the file you want to insert and saving the file.