Configuration Settings for Portal Applications

Each portal application should have a portal.cfg configuration file in the config directory for the application. The format of the file is the same as the standard Speck application configuration files, i.e. Windows ini file, with a settings section and optionally a database section.

Almost any setting which is allowed in a standard Speck application configuration file is allowed in a portal configuration file (the exceptions being appName and keywords). Some of the settings from standard Speck applications have different defaults for portal applications and there are also a number of additional settings which are exclusive to portal applications.

The standard Speck application settings which have different defaults for portal applications are:

  • labelRoles - spSuper,spEdit=r (empty string in non-portal apps).
  • keywordRoles - spSuper,spEdit=r (empty string in non-portal apps).
  • sesSuffix - .html (empty string in non-portal apps).
  • securityZones - portal (defaults to application name in non-portal apps).
  • sesUrls - yes (no in standard Speck apps).
  • manageKeywords - yes (no in standard Speck apps).

The settings which are exclusive to portal applications are as follows:

Setting
 Required Description
name No Name of web site - used for things like sending welcome emails etc. and may also be used in document titles. Defaults to application name.
template No Default template to use when generating content. Default "". If not set, the Blurb content type is used to generate content in sections where no template has been specified.
layout No Default layout to use when rendering pages. Default "". If not set, no layout is used.
stylesheet No Path to main/screen stylesheet to use when rendering pages. Defaults to either /stylesheets/screen.css or /stylesheets/main.css if not set and one or other exists.
importStyles No Comma-delimited list of paths to additionl stylesheets to include using @import syntax
printStylesheet No Path to print stylesheet. Defaults to /stylesheets/print.css if file exists.
popupStylesheet No Path to stylesheet to use in popup windows. Defaults to /stylesheet/popup.css if exists.
pngfix No Add a hack for IE6 to provide support for transparent backgrounds in png images. Default "no".
prototype No Enable Prototype javascript and ajax API. Default "no".
scriptaculous No Enable scriptaculous library of javascript UI effects. Default "no". Note: this setting also accepts a list of the names of the scriptaculous libraries to include (e.g. builder,effects).
lightbox No Enable lightbox for images. Note: automatically loads prototype and scriptaculous libraries as required. Default "no".
seoIdentifiers No Tells templates to avoid using UUIDs in URLs where possible and use more search engine friendly things like labels as identifiers. Only supported by articles and events at the moment. Default "no".
rewriteEngine No Use rewrite engine style URLs (e.g. /go/news-irish rather than /index.cfm/spKey/news.irish.html). Note that you have to have rewrite on at the web server and have rules set up for the app / virtual host. See the .htaccess and speck_rewrite.common files included with the Speck download for more details. Note: when the rewrite engine is enabled, the sesSuffix (e.g. .html) is only appended to identifiers for content items (see the way the .html is dropped in the example above, that's because the path is to a site section, not a specific content item).
rewritePrefix No Prefix for rewrite URLs. Default go/. Using a prefix makes it a lot easier to set up some URL rewriting rules at the web server, but you can get rid of the prefix if you really, really want to. Have a look at the speck_rewrite.common file included with the Speck download. Note: whatever your prefix is, it should not end with a dash - if Speck finds a dash at the end of the prefix, it assumes an old, ugly, rewrite URL format (it's a long story, you don't wanna hear it, just don't use dash, right!).
passwordEncryption No Function to use to encrypt passwords. By default passwords are stored plain text. If you need encrypted passwords and aren't sure what to set this to, just set it to "hash"
fileManager No Enable the integrated file manager (CFFM speckified, with some additional features hacked into it too). Default yes. Note: even if the file manager is enabled, you need to have spSuper role and access from an allowed IP or be listed file manager user, i.e. it's enabled but locked down by default.
fileManagerIps No List of IP addresses from which to allow access to the file manager. Default 127.0.0.1
fileManagerUsers No List of users who have access to the file manager. Default "". Note: users must also have spSuper role.
trackUserActivity No Track when a user was last active in spUsers database table (use with caution, results in an update statement every 90 seconds or so for each logged on user).