1. Server Settings

There are a number of settings that can be configured from the Server Settings page in the Server Admin area. As a server administrator you can access the Server Admin area by selecting it in the 'Your Links' dropdown at the top of the navigation bar.

1.1. General

Server Name - this is the name of your Interact installation. This name will appear by default in the header banner, and also in your browser title bar.

1.2. Language

Here you can set the default language for your server. This can be over-ridden by each user in their user settings.

1.3. Email

This section allows you to set the email settings specific to your server:

  • Email Send method - there are two options, sendmail and smtp. Which option you choose will depend on your server setup. Unless you know how to properly configure sendmail you are probably best to go with the smtp option and route all your mail through an existing smtp server.

  • Sendmail settings - if you have chosen sendmail as your send method you need to put the path to sendmail on your server and any extra sendmail parameters you need to set.

  • SMTP settings - if you have chosen SMTP as your send method then you need to set the address and port of your smtp server, and if authentication is required you also need to set a username and password for your smtp server.

  • Default addresses - you need to enter a default 'No reply' email address. This is the address that will appear as the from address when Interact sends out system generated emails. You also need to specify an email address to send any system generated error messages to.

1.4. Security

There are several security options available:

  • Require Login - If set to 'Yes' then users are required to login by default before they will see an content in your server. If set to 'No' then they will be able to access the content in your server without logging in. This setting is overridden by the 'Access' settings for each space within your server, so you can some spaces that require a login and others that don't.

  • Secure account creation - If set to 'Yes' users will have to enter an account creation password before being allowed to create an account on the server. If set to 'No' then any user can create an account.

  • Account creation password - this is only needed if you have set 'Secure account creation' to 'Yes'. It is the password that users will be required to enter before being allowed to create a new account.

1.5. Dates

You can specify both a long and a short default date format.

1.6. Skins

Interact uses CCS to customise the look of the system. These different 'looks' are known as Skins. The skins are created using a combination of a template css file and a database entry. You are not able to alter the 'Default' skin. If you want to customise the look of your server you need to choose the 'Add/Modify' option next to the Default Skin drop down, then select 'Add new skin'.

There are a number of default css templates that come with Interact on which to base your skins. You can also create your own templates if you are familiar with CSS. The template files are found in the local/skins directory. Do not modify the files in the local/skins/default folder. To create your own skin add a folder in the local/skins folder and in here create a new css file called interactstyle.css - the default/interactstyle.css is always loaded by the system, so you only need to add css settings to your file that you want to change, you do not need to duplicate everything from the default/interactstyle.css in your new template file.

You can also specify if space administrators and users are able to override the default server skin with their own skins.

1.7. User Accounts

The server admin is able to specify a number of things in relation to user accounts:

  • Days to keep stale accounts - A stale account is one that has not been used for a given number of days. After the number of days set here the accounts will be automatically deleted. The default is 365 days, so if a user does not log in for 365 days their account will be deleted.

  • Show email addresses - if this is set to 'Yes' then the users email addresses will display in the space members list. if set to 'No' then only an email link will be shown which provides a form for sending email to the user. To prevent spam attacks on your users it is suggested you leave this set to 'No' unless your spaces are restriced to members only.

  • Allow admins to create accounts - setting this to 'Yes' will mean that space admins can create new user accounts from within the space admin area. Accounts that they create from here will automatically be added as members of their space.

  • Allow users to delete own account - if set to 'Yes' then users will see a 'Delete' option when they modify their account details.

  • Only allow one account per email address - If set to 'Yes' then only one account can be created for a given email address. If a user tries to create another account with the same email address they will be emailed details of the existing account. This is useful to prevent users creating multiple accounts just because they have forgotten their original login details.

  • Allow users to select own user groups - if set to 'Yes', then during the account creation process, or when modifying their account, users will be able to make themselves members of any user groups that you have set up.

1.8. Misc

  • Number of days to keep trash - when a user deletes a component it is put in the trash. They can recover it from trash via the space admin pages, but after the number of days set here it will be permanently removed from the system.

  • Maximum file upload size - this is the maximum file size allowed when users are uploading files to the server. This setting is overridden by the default php.ini settings, so you can't make this setting higher than what your default php setup will allow.

  • Allow user tags - if set to 'Yes' then users will see the 'Tag this page' icon which allows them to add bookmarks to pages for themselves and other users.

  • Allow global gradebook - if you are setting up course spaces that have gradebooks, then allowing the global gradebook option allows users to see all the gradebook entries from all the spaces they are a member of in one place.

  • Always display latest items - if set to 'Yes' the latest news items, forum postings, etc. will always display on the server homepage. If set to 'No' then only items added since a users last login will display.

  • Default space - this is the space that will display as the starting point for your server.

  • Allow short urls - if set to yes then you can access modules, spaces, etc. using short urls, eg. http://yourserver.com/direct/space/spacecode. The installation scripts would have determined if your webserver was set up to allow this type of access. If you change your webserver settings at a later date you can come back and manually override this setting. In order for this option to work your web server needs to accept the setting in the interact/.htacess file to treat the file 'direct' as a php file even though it has no .php extension. If your webserver is not able to do this, you can still use shorter urls but they will be of the format http://yourserver.com/interact/direct.php?m=/space/spacecode.

    To access the short url for any component just click on the edit pencil for the component and you will see a link to 'url' just above the optional settings.