How to Configure an eZ Publish Site

After installation, our eZ Publish site looks like this:

Default ezwebin site package skin

The first step is to apply a skin to make the visual elements of the site unique to our organization.

Applying a skin

In the article How to Skin an eZ Publish Now Site, Bertrand Maugain explained how to create a skin for an eZ Publish site. We will use the skin from that tutorial for our eZ Tennis site. To install the skin, follow these steps:

1. Download the skin package from the How to Skin an eZ Publish Now Site article.

2. Log in to the default Administration Interface siteaccess (in our case http://tennisdemo.ezsystems.ca/index.php/ezwebin_site_admin/) using the username and password that you specified during installation (in our case “admin” / “publish”)

3. Access the Setup tab, then click on the Packages link, then click on the Import new package button. Import the site package file downloaded in the first step via the web form.

4. Activate the skin through the Administration Interface by clicking on the Design tab, then clicking on the Look and Feel link, then clicking on the Edit button. Scroll down to the Sitestyle section and select “empower_enterprise”, then click the Send for publishing button at the bottom of the page. (Alternatively, log in to the Website Interface via the front-end of your site, then click on the Site settings link in the top right. Then, follow the same instructions as for the Administration Interface.)

The site should now look like this:

Site with a new skin

Site settings during development

During development, it is useful to enable the debug output feature. This is done in the [DebugSettings] section in an INI file, as explained below. Debug output is a built-in mechanism in eZ Publish that provides detailed information for troubleshooting. Debug output provides valuable information about response time, SQL queries, template processing and more. (When developing designs, it is recommended that you disable debug output.)

During development, it is also useful to disable the template caching and view caching features of eZ Publish (which improve performance on live sites by storing and reusing template code and XHTML output). This is done in the [TemplateSettings] and [ContentSettings] sections in an INI file, as explained below. During development, it is preferable to force complete page regeneration in order to instantly see the effects of site changes. Otherwise, you must manually clear the caches whenever you make a change during the development process. To manually clear the caches, either use the Clear cache window on the right side of the Administration Interface or purge the var/cache and /var/example/cache directories (where "example" is the name of a siteaccess).

Site settings are stored in INI files located in the settings/ folder of eZ Publish. When you change a setting in an INI file, you should use an override file and leave the original INI file intact. Override files work on two levels – global overrides (in the settings/override/ folder) and siteaccess overrides (in the settings/siteaccess/[name_of_siteaccess] folder). Both types of overrides have the file name of the original INI file with “.append.php” appended to the file name.

eZ Publish reads basic settings from the original INI files, which are overriden by any settings in the specific siteaccess overrides, which are overridden by settings in the global override files. The illustration below shows the override order for the main site settings INI file:

Site settings override order

In our case, we want to override settings for all siteaccesses, so we will edit settings/override/site.ini.append.php.

Open settings/override/site.ini.append.php in a text editor and add the following code above the last line of the file:

[DebugSettings]
DebugOutput=enabled

[TemplateSettings]
TemplateCache=disabled
[ContentSettings]
ViewCaching=disabled

Remember to disable the debug output and re-enable the template caching and view caching when your site goes live.