As the owners of your site, you have complete control over the look and feel of your Stacks site, as well as the users who are accessing it. From a setup standpoint, Stacks is divided into a "front-end" view which would be the blank Homepage you start with, and a "back-end" view called the Dashboard; it's from this dashboard that much of the initial setup takes place.

While most Stacks user roles will provide access to the dashboard in some capacity, only the Administrator role provides the full access that is required to complete the setup tasks described in this article.

There are a few different steps and considerations you'll want to think about as you're setting up your site, these include:

Accessing the Dashboard
Theme
Site Configuration

Accessing the Dashboard

The Dashboard is one of the main administrative areas of your Stacks site. From here, staff users with the appropriate permissions may have the ability to:

Add, edit, and delete content
Configure site settings
Configure search settings
Manage form submissions
Manage events
And more

The core features and functionality that can be managed from the Dashboard are organized into a series of tiles. Clicking on any one tile will open the feature's dashboard which may contain additional sub-tiles and options to create new content, as well as edit or delete existing content, configure settings related to the content and more. Exact permissions will vary depending on the role that has been assigned to the user.

How do I access the Dashboard?

Log into your Stacks site
Click Dashboard at the top left of the screen

User's can customize their dashboard layout by arranging the tiles in an order that works best for them.

Click and hold the arrow icon in a tile
Drag the tile to a new location, then let go the mouse button

Rearranging tiles is on a per-user basis, meaning the changes will only be reflected to the logged-in user's account; other users will see the default layout unless they make their own changes.

Selecting Theme

For new customers, one of the first items you will want to consider and select before going any further, is what theme best suits the look and functionality you want for your Stacks site.

In an effort to simplify the design process, Stacks offers a number of pre-built themes which can be used to implement a unique look and appearance for your site.

Selecting a Theme

To implement a new theme:

From the Dashboard scroll to and click the Theme tile
Hover over the desired theme option and click Set as default

When viewing theme options, the currently selected theme will display Active over the theme image.

Theme Modifications

Additional changes can be made to the theme's appearance from the Style Editor. From here, administrators may change individual elements associated with a theme, this could include the header, menu, colors, and more.

Take caution when changing your theme after going live, if you have enabled CSS overrides through the style editor, changing to a new theme will cause you to lose any branding (your logo and current color selection) and may cause you to lose the CSS changes. It is recommended to copy any CSS overrides prior to changing your theme so it can be re-added afterwards.

Site Configuration

There are a few site configuration settings that can be setup to control some of the behaviours of your site. While, these settings can be configured/changed at any time, it's very worth while to review and configure these settings early.

From the Dashboard, click System Configuration
Click Site Configuration
1. Scroll down and click Site-Wide Settings from the menu tabs on the left
  1. Outbound Links, numerous features and areas of Stacks allow staff users to add links to other internal Stacks pages and external pages or websites
    1. When checked, this setting will open any external pages or websites in a new browser tab, this keeps Stacks open in a separate browser for users/patrons to easily navigate back to if needed
  2. Anchor Links, anchor links are links to specific content on the Stacks site
    1. When checked, an anchor link icon will be displayed beside the header of content on your Stacks site. Users/patrons could then copy this link if they want to share the link to a specific area of your Stacks site with others
  3. Time Format, select the format you would like times to be displayed on your site
  4. Hide locations from the Front Page, when checked, this will hide the locations content from the front page
  5. Enable analytics opt-out tool, when checked, this will disable the analytics tool used with a service like Google Analytics for tracking analytics related to your site
  6. Site-wide Password Protect
    1. Enabled, when this box is checked, users/patrons must log in to browse content and use your site
    2. Staff Login
      1. Redirect to - select the page staff users will be directed to when they log into Stacks
    3. Patron Login
      1. Set as Default, when checked will display the patron form as the default login form, when site-wide password protect has been enabled
      2. Redirect to - select the page patrons will be directed to when they log into Stacks
2. Scroll down and click Site Details from them menu tabs on the left
  1. Click the Site Details on the right to expand the section
    1. Site Name, enter a name for your site (eg: Wilson Public Library)
      1. This will appear in the header of your site
    2. Slogan, if applicable, enter a slogan for your site
      1. This will appear in the header of your site
    3. Site's email address - enter the email address you wish to appear as the "From" email used for email notifications from Stacks (seen with EasyForms, Booking notifications, and Event notifications); this will also appear in the site's footer
  2. Default front page, if you wish to set an alternate Landing Page that you have created as your homepage, enter the associated path to that page
Once finished, click Save Configuration at the bottom of the page