Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate – Part 3 – Admin Settings

This is part of the osDate 7 part blog series. Scroll down to the bottom of this post for links to the other parts.

Once you’ve logged into admin and have familiarized yourself with the menu options, it’s time to change the Site’s Global Settings (it’s one of the menu items near the end). Again, note that these settings are for version 2.0.8. They should be similar to the newest version though. You don’t have to follow them, but you can get an idea of what I have used before. These are notes that I had recorded a while back, and it doesn’t include every item on the list that is in the site’s global settings. I have starred a few that are considered important. 

Site Information:

• Site-Admin email: no-reply@yoursite.com
• Email address at which admin receive feedback: info@yoursite.com
• Copyright text: Copyright © 2008 [insert site name]. All Rights Reserved.
• Time in minutes after which user will be logged off: 60 (or 90 mins)
• Disable caching mechanism: Y
• Time in minutes after which cached pages will be removed: 6
• Number of last new profiles to be displayed on home page: 30
• Number of featured profiles to be displayed on home page: 15
• Number of new members to be listed: 60
• New members to be listed for last xx days: 90
• Number of latest views and winks to be listed: 30
• Latest views and winks to be listed since xx days: 20
• Bypass user look gender matching in searches?: N ** – if a member is female and is looking for both female and male, search results will only show OTHER members who are looking for both female and male. if you set it to Y, it will show all members, even if they’re not looking for both female and male. 
• Default sort order for search results: logintime
• Use javascript popups for profiles?: N
• Feedback only from logged in user? Y
• Starting value of year in birth date field: -99
• End value in year of birth date field: -18
• Default value for start age range in quick search: 21 – default age range which shows in the search box
• Default value for end age range in quick search: 35
• Number of words to display in short article text: 50
• Number of words to display in short story: 50
• Number of words to display in short news: 50
• Server timezone: -8  - this will be different depending on where you live
• Prefix to be used for cookies (do not include spaces): nameofyoursite
• Number of characters for spam control code: 3  - in the NEWEST version (2.1.x), set it to 0 if you want to remove it entirely. 

User Controls:

• Bypass registration confirmation by the user?: N
• Default country: CA
• Default state: BC
• Default county/district: VAN
• Timezone to be mandatory field?: N
• About me field to be made mandatory?: N
• Accept address line 2? N – unless you want to put something like skype addy for it

Mail Settings:

• Send email when a user is added to banlist by another user?: N - By default it’s on “Y” which is not a good idea. Most people do not want emails knowing that someone else banned them.

Profile Images and thumbnails:

• Images are to be stored in DB?: N - ***important*** Storing it in a directory on your web server will significantly decrease the size of your DB. And also, a lot of people regret storing it in DB, and want to change this setting to N. So set it right in the beginning.
• Maximum width of display of profile image (pixels): 300 – this is just so images will look bigger in the profile. 
• Maximum height of display of profile image (pixels): 350
• Thumbnail image size (pixels): 100
• Maximum size for picture (bytes): 400000
• Number of thumbnail pictures to be displayed in user picture gallery in one row: 10

Now that you’ve modified the admin section, you’re on to changing the “look” of your site. That’s in Part 4. Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate – Part 4 – Layout