System Preferences
Digest
System Preferences are accessible by Users who have the ability to edit system preferences, and are found under the System Menu. There are 3 types of system preferences:
- General – preferences to the look-and-feel of the application
- Email – email settings to determine how emails are sent from Cascade
- Content – preferences related to how content is handled by the system
The last tab contains User Preferences which are specific to the current user.
Concept
General Options
General options allow you to customize basic system-wide preferences:
- Organization Name - shows up at the very bottom of the window and can be customized to contain your organization's name.
- Default Language - the default language for users. Users can override the default by changing their user preferences.
- System URL - the address that is used when accessing the system. Required for links in email notifications and links in PDF outputs of pages.
- Simple Interface - shows or hides the navigation on the left-hand side by default. Users can override the default by changing their user preferences. The left-hand navigation can be toggled on/off at any time using the arrow button at the top.
- Default Chooser Width - the default width (in pixels) for all chooser windows.
- Default Chooser Height - the default height (in pixels) for all chooser windows.
- Session Timeout - time (in minutes) that user's session can remain inactive before being automatically logged out by the system. Any value less than 0 will be interpreted as 60 minutes. If a user clicks "Log out" it will immediately end their session.
- License Expiration Notification - number of days ahead of licence expiration date that a licence expiration warning message should appear
- Number of search results per type in type-ahead search - the maximum number of search results that should appear for each asset type in the type-ahead search located at the bottom right corner of the screen
- Cache - preference included in Cascade Server 7.0 which allows enabling or disabling the Index block rendering cache
Email Options
Email options allow configuration of an SMTP to send email for system-generated notifications including Workflow, asset expiration and LDAP synchronization.
- SMTP Host - SMTP server host name or IP address
- SMTP Username - username to authenticate against the SMTP server
- SMTP Password - user password to authenticate against the SMTP server
- SMTP From Address - email address server will use to send emails from
- Max Wait Time - maximum time (in seconds) to wait before attempting to send the next batch of emails. Use this to minimize frequency of emails sent to SMTP server
- Max Queued Emails - maximum number of emails to be queued before system will empty the queue. Use this to minimize frequency of emails sent to SMTP server.
- Email test - test the email settings by sending a test message to the address specified
Content Options
Content Options provide more detailed customization for how the system handles various types of content.
- Global Max Upload (KB) - Determines the maximum size for any uploaded files. Particularly relevant for restricting the use of large images, and can be restricted further at the asset factory level for more specific size limitations. File size is also limited by the database, which is based on the maximum BLOB size allowed (packet size for MySQL).
- Max Assets in Index Blocks - Determines the maximum number of assets that may be returned by an index block.
- Max Asset Versions - Determines the maximum number of versions that will be stored for any given asset. Once the maximum number of versions is reached, the oldest version is removed.
- Expiration Warning - Determines how soon in advance of a content expiration date a user will be notified via an internal message.
- Global CSS Classes - Determines which CSS classes will be made available via the WYSIWYG editor. CSS classes will be replaced when specifying classes at the target level; likewise, classes specified by the default group will further replace both global and target level CSS. CSS classes defined here must exist in CSS styles used in the published site(s).
- Global Keywords - Determines keywords that will be used by default in all system assets. Customized keywords can be defined in metadata sets.
- Editable File Extensions - Determines the types of text files that are editable inside the system.
- Plain Text File Extensions - Determines which files will be treated as plain text within the system. For these files, the system will return a MIME type of text/html. Files with the .css extension should not be included due to their MIME type.
- Default Data Checks - Determines whether spell, content accessibility, or link checks are turned on by default. Checks will run any time an asset is created or edited.
- Spell - Reviews all content and metadata for each asset.
- Content Accessibility - Reviews content for objective level 1 508 compliance requirements.
- Link - Reviews both internal and external links referenced in an asset. For external links, verifies whether a connection is available to the server, and that no 404 error is returned.
- HTML Tidy
- Enable HTML Tidy by default - Enables HTML Tidy by default when submitting changes for HTML containing assets.
- Word Processor - Allows users to turn off various WYSIWYG options to retain better control of formatting.
- Font Assignment - Enables the use of font family, font sizes, text color and text background color controls
- Content Formatting - Enables the use of the format dropdown to format text as Paragraph, Address, Preformatted, Headings 1-6.
- Text Formatting - Enables the use of bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, subscript, and superscript controls
- Remove all font tags and style attributes from word processor content - Option to remove all "font" tags and "style" attributes upon submission. Only applies when the user has checked the option to "Tidy HTML" before submitting. This preference automatically disable the Font Assignment preference as it uses inline styles to apply fonts and sizes.
- Disable table controls - Turns off the insert table button on the toolbar. Existing tables may still be edited via right click, and users will still be able to copy and paste tables into the WYSIWYG.
- Microsoft Office - Determines how much, if any, extraneous code and formatting is removed from content copied from Microsoft Office software.
- Optimize HTML content - This strips out any extraneous and non-compliant tags from Microsoft Office content.
- Remove font tags and style attributes - This strips out any font tags and style attributes when content is copied from Microsoft Office.
- Smart Publishing - Turns on smart publishing so that any files that have been modified in the CMS since the last publish to a specific destination will be republished (saves on publishing time). Also, files which have been altered or removed on the remote machine will be republished.
- Folder Gallery - Turn on the image gallery option for all folders. Only image files will appear as thumbnails in the gallery pane.
- Links - Allows for additional quality control regarding link management.
- Relative Links - Determines whether relative links are reported or ignored upon publishing.
- Check External Links - Determines whether external links should be checked as part of the link checking function.
- External Link Check Timeout - Allows users to limit the amount of time the system spends waiting for a response for external links.
- Global CSS File - Allows users to select one CSS file for use as a default in the WYSIWYG. Optional, but valuable for assigning CSS classes to the WYSIWYG.
- Global Starting Page - Allows users to select a default page (typically the site's home page) which will appear under the first tab of the dashboard for each user. This feature is optional.
- Generated Blocks Folder - These are blocks that are automatically created during template conversion. If this folder is not specified, blocks will be placed in the same folder as the template (recommended).
- Asset Tree Display - Determines the asset tree items that are loaded. A more verbose display will consume more system resources.
- Active and parent folders with assets
- Active folder assets only
- FoldersOnly
- Publisher Concurrency - Determines the multi-threadedness of the Publishing process. Only raise if server has adequate resources.
- Light
- Medium
- Heavy
- Publish Job Timeout - The amount of time to allow before the system times out the transmission of a particular asset when publishing.
- XSLT Formats
- Enable Xalan JavaScript - Controls whether Xalan JavaScript extensions can be used when transforming pages with XSLT Formats.
- Enable Xalan Java estensions - Controls whether Xalan Java extensions can be used when transforming pages with XSLT Formats.
In most cases, you will want to disable Java extensions because they allow users to run arbitrary Java code inside the system which poses a large security risk. JavaScript extensions can be used to write utility functions for date formatting and other things that are difficult to do in XSLT alone. EXSLT extensions are not affected by either of these preferences as they are a set of known funtionality that cannot be used in a malicious fashion. If an implementation is not using Xalan extensions, these options should be disabled to minimize the security risk. You can read more about the Security risks of Xalan extensions.
User Preferences
The user preferences determine settings unique to the current user.
- Language - allows users to select their language. If none is selected, the system preference will be used.
- Item List Size - limits the number of items that appear in lists throughout the application. All items over the item list size will be displayed in separate pages.
- After Publishing Assets - option to be automatically forwarded to the publish status screen after inserting a publish job into the publish queue. This preference requires the ability to publish and access to the publish status screen.
- Un-publish on Delete - Determines whether content should be removed from the web server(s) when deleted from the CMS by default.
- Simple Interface - Allows you to turn off the left-hand navigation by default. Users are still able to turn the left asset tree back on by clicking the left-hand navigation toggle button.
- Default Chooser Width - the default width (in pixels) to be used for all chooser windows. Changing the value will override the global preference.
- Default Chooser Height - the default height (in pixels) to be used for all chooser windows. Changing these value will override the global preference.
- Number of search per type in type-ahead search - sets the number of results to display per type in the type-ahead search results window
- Default Site - the default Site to enter upon login
- Change Password - allows users to change their own passwords. Does not appear for users configured to use LDAP or custom authentication.
Cross-Site Relationships
For more information on Cross-Site relationships for System Preferences, check out our Cross-Site relationship rules page.