Setting up your Stacks site

As the owners of your site, you have complete control over the look and feel of your Stacks site, as well as how individuals can access the site or it's content. 

As discussed in the previous article, Stacks is divided into a "front-end" and a "back-end;" some of the tasks you'll want to start with for setting up your site will be in the Dashboard (back-end), and the Style Editor (front-end).  

This article will focus on some of the key areas of the basic setup of your site, these include:

• Accessing the dashboard
• Site setup
  • Setting a default language
  • Basic site configuration
• Appearance and branding

Accessing the dashboard

The Dashboard is a key administrative area of your Stacks site; understanding how to access the dashboard and what you can do from here will be key to start building your site. 

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 that feature's dashboard which may contain additional sub-tiles, as well as options to create new content, edit or delete existing content, configure settings related to the content, and more.

How do I access the dashboard?

1. Log into your Stacks site
2. 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.

1. Click and hold the arrow icon in a tile
2. 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.

Site setup

When building your site, many of the initial settings can be enabled, disabled, or changed at any time, but the following are a few of the settings that are worth while to configure or at least think about before getting too far in to setting up your site. 

Default Language

Stacks does support multiple languages, as was discussed in the previous article in this section, and setting the default language before doing anything else can be a crucial step, as it is not recommended to change the default language, especially after you have started creating content.

If you are unsure about changing the default language from English, consider what will be the language in which you will originally author most content, and what should be the language you want site visitors to see when they first access your site.

To set the default language other than English:

1. From the Dashboard, scroll to and click the System Configuration tile
2. Click the Languages tile
3. If needed, click +Add Language to browse to and select another language to install
   1. Installing other languages will be required for manually creating content in other languages
4. Once installed, under the Default column, click the radio button beside the language you wish to set as the default language
5. Click Save Configuration when done

Basic site configuration

The next set of settings will control some of the behaviours of your site, as well as potentially locking down your site to force patrons/users to log in to access your site and it's content.

1. From the Dashboard, scroll to and click the System Configuration tile
2. Click the Site Configuration tile

There are many options available from the tabbed menu on the left side of the screen, most of which are related to content that you add to your site; however, there are a few settings towards the bottom of this list which we will review now, the Site-Wide Settings and Site Details. 

Site-wide settings

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 you to add links to other internal Stacks pages or external pages and websites
      1. When checked, this setting will open any external pages or websites in a new browser tab. Your Stacks site will remain open in a separate browser tab for easy access for your users/patrons to navigate back to it
   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 checked, users/patrons must log in to access your site and it's content
      2. Staff Login, this allows you to set the page staff users will be directed to upon logging in
         1. Redirect to, select from
            1. Dashboard, Homepage, Path (you will be prompted to enter the desired URL), Referrer URL (returns the user to the URL/page they were on prior to being brought to the login screen)
      3. Patron Login, this allows you to set the page patrons will be directed to upon logging in
         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 from
            1. Dashboard, Homepage, Path (you will be prompted to enter the desired URL), Referrer URL (returns the user to the URL/page they were on prior to being brought to the login screen)
   7. Once finished, click Save Configuration at the bottom of the page

Site details

1. Scroll down and click Site Details from them menu tabs on the left
   1. Scroll back up and expand the section by clicking Site Details header in the space on the right
      1. Site Name, enter a name for your site (eg: My Public Library)
         1. This can be displayed in the header of your site
      2. Slogan, if applicable, enter a slogan for your site
         1. This can be displayed in the header of your site
      3. Site's email address - this default email address can be selected as a part of EasyForm email configuration to identify where form notifications are sent to and/from. This can also appear in the site's footer
   2. Default front page, by default this will be set to the 'Homepage' landing page that already exists in your Stacks site; there is no need to change this setting this early. However, instructions for changing this front page setting is discussed in more detail in the user guide article Editing Landing Pages; generally, the default front page setting is only changed when:
      1. You wish to designate another (already created) landing page as you default front page
      2. You are designating a default front page for sub-domains

Appearance and branding

Before digging into content creation, another important set of settings to review will be those associated with the appearance and branding of your site. These settings will help to ensure your Stacks site is visually consistent with your organization's brand.

Most appearance configuration is performed via the Style Editor, but Stacks does offer a number of pre-built themes which can be used to implement a unique look and appearance for your site. Selecting a theme is a good starting point, however, keep in mind that if these themes are close but don't quite fit the bill for the look and style you want, the style editor can be used to make changes to individual elements.  

How to select a theme

To implement a new theme:

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

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

Style editor

As just mentioned, the style editor is where you will find the most settings to configure the overall appearance of your site and its content. There are numerous settings that can be accesses from the style editor and these are discussed in more detail in separate user guide articles. Here, we will focus on the most common settings that apply to the appearance and branding of your site. 

Accessing the style editor

Once logged into your Stacks site, the style editor can be accessed by clicking the paint brush icon in the bottom right corner. 

When clicked, a window will open on the right displaying the various options available for adjusting the layout and appearance of your site and it's content. 

Important settings for branding and appearance

The following setting areas listed below are by no means the only style editor settings that you may need to review and configure to achieve the desired look and appearance you want for your site, but they are some of the most common areas for configuration. 

Under the Style Editor > Sitewide Layout section

• Branding - this section allows you to configure settings to show or hide elements like your site name, slogan, logo, as well as the font colors associated with them, and the ability to add a favicon
• Header - the header section is where you can select from different header layout options, as well as choose or upload a background image if desired
• Main Navigation - here you can choose colors associated with the menu links, drop-down links, and the drop-down background for your main menu
• Top Header - similar to the main navigation section, here you can choose the colors associated with the links in your top header (if applicable)
• Footer - like the header section, you can select the desired layout, as well as the colors associated with any links added to the footer

Under the Style Editor > Global Settings section

• Fonts and Colors - here you can select the desired font style for your site, as well as the weight and font colors. If applicable you can also configure the body background here as well
• Global Button - this section allows you to configure the appearance of various button options throughout Stacks