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Initial Configuration

The first settings to configure after installing Pubvana.

TL;DR

  1. Go to Admin → Settings → General: set site name, tagline, and front page type.
  2. Go to Admin → Themes: activate the theme you want.
  3. Go to Admin → Settings → SEO: enable the XML sitemap.
  4. Change the default admin password at Admin → Users → Edit Profile.

Details

Change the Default Admin Password

The database seeder creates an admin account at admin@example.com with the password Admin@12345. This is a well-known default — change it immediately before doing anything else. Go to Admin → Users, click the admin user, and update the password.

General Settings

Navigate to Admin → Settings → General to configure the core site identity:

  • Site Name — displayed in the browser title bar, RSS feeds, and the default theme header.
  • Tagline — a short description shown in the header and used as the default meta description.
  • Front Page Type — choose Latest Posts to show the blog index on the home page, or choose Page and select a specific static page (useful for a traditional website home page).
  • Posts Per Page — how many posts to show per page on archive and category pages.
  • Maintenance Mode — toggle to take the site offline for visitors while leaving admin access open.

Theme Activation

Go to Admin → Themes to see installed themes. Click Activate on the theme you want to use. The active theme controls all front-end presentation.

SEO Settings

Navigate to Admin → Settings → SEO:

  • XML Sitemap — enable to generate a sitemap at /sitemap.xml. Submit this URL to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
  • Meta defaults — set default meta title and description patterns used when individual posts do not specify their own.
  • Robots.txt — Pubvana serves a dynamic robots.txt. You can add custom directives here.

Email Settings

Navigate to Admin → Settings → Email to configure outgoing mail for contact form submissions and user notifications:

  • Set the SMTP host, port, username, and password, or leave blank to use PHP's mail() function.
  • Set the From Name and From Address used in outgoing emails.

.env File Settings

Some settings must be configured in the .env file rather than through the admin panel:

  • app.baseURL — must exactly match your domain (including trailing slash). Incorrect values break assets and redirects.
  • CI_ENVIRONMENT — set to production on live servers to disable debug output.
  • Database credentials — database.default.* keys.

Spam Protection (hCaptcha)

Navigate to Admin → Settings → Spam Protection to configure hCaptcha for the comment form and contact form. You will need a free hCaptcha account at hcaptcha.com. Enter your Site Key and Secret Key.