How to Configure an eZ Publish Site

This article is the first in a tutorial series that explains how to build a feature-rich eZ Publish site from scratch. It is targeted at people who have little previous experience with configuring eZ Publish sites, but have some general knowledge about web technologies. See the articles about eZ Publish basic concepts and the layout of the eZ Publish Administration Interface for an introduction to eZ Publish. Readers who have worked with eZ Publish but never configured or used the advanced features will also find the series useful. The series demonstrates how eZ Publish can be used to build a dynamic community website, and focuses on practical examples that can be implemented for many different scenarios.

This series is a collaboration between the eZ Publications team and eZ Partners. Peter Keung from eZ Systems wrote the first article in the series. eZ Partners will write articles that build on the site developed in the first article, adding advanced functionality and explaining eZ Publish concepts and features.

Prerequisites

To follow this tutorial, you should have:

• A newly installed version of eZ Publish 3.9.2 with the following settings:
  
  • Primary language: English (American); secondary language: French (France)
  • Site template: ezwebin (Website Interface)
  • Site access configuration: URL
• Access to the (eZ Publish) files on the file system.
• Basic knowledge about HTML and CSS.

Installation documentation is available on the eZ Publish documentation site.

Keep in mind that the buttons and interfaces (and the resulting screenshots and procedures) will vary from those found in this article if you use a version other than eZ Publish 3.9.2 and the Website Interface 1.2. In most cases these variations will be minor and we encourage you to work with the latest version.

Scenario

Let's assume that you are in charge of creating a website for a tennis club appropriately called “eZ Tennis Club”. This is a community tennis club that wants to use its website to distinguish itself from other competing clubs. The site must serve the needs of local members but also include features that attract an international audience. The website must provide club information, worldwide tennis news, a webshop to sell tennis equipment and clothing and features that encourage community interaction.

The articles in this tutorial series will cover topics like basic setup and design tweaks; installing and using extensions; using RSS and workflows, and so on.