Site Settings
Following options can be set in the admin panel's "Global Site Settings" tool for use with osDate. Special thanks goes to Jason Hopwood for providing these details.
System-wide controls
Site Name - This refers to what you would like the site to be called, this appears on the main banner of the site.
Site Title - Title of your website, which appears as the default browser page title.
Name of Site Administrator - The name that you would like the admin called. For example, "Site Administrator" or some specific name if you'd like a more personal touch.
Site Administrator's E-Mail - email address used for administration. This email address should be recognized by the mail server you use with osDate. Otherwise, mails may not be sent. When a member receives a site-generated email, it will appear to be "from" the admin email address.
Email address at which admin will receive feedback emails - i.e., the email address used for support. Please ensure this is a valid email address.
Copyright text - This is the text that appears in the bottom of your website, typically containing copyright info, as well as the "Powered by..." info.
Forcibly display, but disable, menu items even if there are no rights to use. - Means the menu items will be displayed even though the user doesn't have sufficient rights to use the item. If Admin wants the user to see the available options, but wants to limit access, set this to Y. A Gold membership may have access to php121, and the php121 link will be fully active. A free or silver member, however, will see the menu item, but if they click on it, it will ask them if they want to upgrade their membership. This is very useful to show all available options to all members to lure them into upgrading their membership.
Add display of the banner advertisement in email? - This option permits the banner advertisement to be displayed in the emails sent out to members. If on, a banner ad is appended to the bottom of every HTML email that is sent.
Time in minutes after which the user will be logged off, if the user has closed browser window without logging off. - How long, if the user doesn't touch the site, before they get logged off (in minutes)
Disable caching mechanism? – osDate v2 comes with page and mysql caching enabled. In some servers, this may create an issue as the number of files may be more than allowed limits. Caching will improve your site's performance considerably, and it is recommended that you leave this option on. However, this file number limitation can be an issue. To avoid this and allow osDate v2 to work normally, you can disable this caching mechanism.
Time in minutes after which cached pages will be invalidated. - How long in minutes before a cache page expires and is automatically removed from system. The page will be re-created on demand, however, at which point the time to expiration for the page will be reset.
Site theme / skin (requires page refresh) - Selecting the theme you would like to use for your website. "Theme" and "skin" are used interchangeably in osDate.
Number of last new profiles to be displayed on home page - How many new profiles to display on the main page.
Number of featured profiles to be displayed on home page - Number of featured profiles to display on main page.
Number of new members to be listed - Number of new profiles to display on main page. A new profile is one that has been recently registered.
New members to be listed for last xx days – When selecting new members to display on the main page, how many days old would a profile be considered as new? For example, any user registered during the last 15 days can be regarded as "new".
Number of latest views and winks to be listed - How many views or winks should be listed for a particular user (after a user logs in, they can see their most recent xx views and winks).
Latest views and winks to be listed since xx days. – Views and winks to be listed for last how many days? This should be an integer, like 15 (15 days).
Bypass user look gender matching in searches? - This forces osDate to bypass the "look gender" criteria of searched profiles. Meaning, if I search for men, I will see all male profiles, regardless of whether the man is looking for a male or female or couple/group.
Enabled forum – After you have installed the forum of your choice, let osDate know which one has been installed by selecting from the recognized forum list.
Forum path (relative to osDate root e.g. forum/phpBB2) - Location of the forum on the server. This should be relative to the osDate root. Thus, if osDate is installed in /domain.com/path/to/osdate/, you do not need to include that - the forum path would still be /forum/phpBB2 in this case. You should omit leading and trailing slashes.
Use Javascript popups for profiles – This will allow a separate profile window to be opened. Otherwise, the profile will be displayed in the main window. Default is N.
Feedback only from logged in user - Forces people who aren't members to register if they want to leave feedback. Useful feature to prevent unwanted emails, especially from spambots. Default is N.
Enable php121 instant messenger? - Allows php121 Instant Messenger to be used by members. Default is N. php121 is highly server-intensive, and is not recommended unless you are on a dedicated server and fully understand the limits of your database server.
Enable Shoutbox? – Allows shoutbox to be used by everyone. Disabling this would reduce site and data traffic to some extent. Default is N. It's recommended that you leave this off to reduce your server load.
Shoutbox refresh interval (in minutes) - Refresh interval for Shoutbox.
No. of shoutbox messages to be displayed - How many messages to be displayed in the box at any one time.
Maximum No. of shoutbox messages to be kept in system - How many messages to be kept in the system's database in all.
Show how many latest messages to the user - Shows the x latest messages sent by default when the user opens the user-to-user messaging system.
Keep how many IM messages received by one user in the system - Self explanatory. IM = Instant Messenger.
Interval for refreshing of IM messages (in seconds) - How long to refresh the instant messenger client.
Maximum length of one message for IM - Define how many characters a person can type in one sentence for the IM. Characters beyond this limit will be truncated.
Manage countries/states/cities - Option to add/remove/edit countries, states, and cities. This is useful if your dating system is fairly local to a small area, and you're able to list all possible cities or states for your area (e.g. small countries, or state-specific sites).
Use question extended search heading in place of question in search - This is the heading to be given on the Advanced Search page. In fact, the actual heading may be a lengthy one, but on the search page, the heading should be short. This is particularly useful for Profile Questions. For example, if there is a question like "What is the complexion of your skin?" This is the full question which is displayed in Profile Questions. But for search purposes, this can be reduced to just "complexion". When the question is created this text is given there. In global settings we specify if this shorter caption to be used for Search Pages.
Starting value of year in birth date field - Default is 90 - Ending age for your site. If you're running a website for the elderly, you may wish to raise this value.
End value in year of birth date field - Default is 16 - Starting age for your site. You may wish to raise this to 18 to disallow users under 18 from registering.
Default value for start age range in quick search - Forces the search to start at a certain age - default is 18. This is just in reference to the quick seach combo list - the user can specify a different value easily.
Default value for end age range in quick search - Forces the search to end at a certain age - default is 50. This is just in reference to the quick seach combo list - the user can specify a different value easily.
Number of words to display in short article text - How many words to display from an article in the home page articles panel.
Number of words to display in short story - How many words to display from a story in the home page stories panel.
Number of news items to display - Number if news to be listed on main page.
Number of words to display in short news - How many words that can be displayed in the short news.
Price per affiliate referral - Price in dollars/cents how much do you want to give the user each time they offer a referral.
Default status of new affiliate to be active? - Whether or not they are active when they first register. In other words, should affiliates be automatically activated upon registration, or should they require admin approval?
Server Time Zone - Time Zone for your country. View yours here: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock
Description in Meta Tag - Your website description, as search engines see it in your site's meta tag.
Keywords in Meta Tag - The keywords that search engines see to help classify your site.
Prefix to be used for cookies (do not include spaces) - The cookie prefix added to all cookies generated by osDate. Cookies are stored on the computers of your users. You can use any word without spaces. The default is "osDate", but this can be anything you like.
Path to aspell program used to spell check Blogs. - Path to software that checks for spelling mistakes in your Blogs. Recommended that you leave at the default settings.
Number of characters for spam control code - When a user registers, they have to type in some numbers or letters before pressing submit, if you chose 6, then the user has to type in 6 numbers/letters. Default is 6, has been tested up to 30 letters and numbers. If you believe that a spam bot has figured out how to guess the 6 auto-generated characters, you might wish to raise this value.
Send an email to Admin - When a new user signs up - Sends an email to the admin when a user signs up on the website, so that the new user's profile can be immediately reviewed for possible approval or rejection.