Plugin: White Label CMS

This plugin allows for customisation of the standard WordPress dashboard. Its major use on the MGF site is to create the Member Area dashboard which is displayed when members login and, further, to control what they see. To access the plugin’s settings, in the dashboard sidebar click Settings -> White Label CMS.

NOTE: Some of the settings may have been overridden by options in the MGF theme itself.

There are five menu items displayed across the top of the screen: Branding, Login, Dashboard, Menus and Settings. Branding is displayed initially, click one of the others to see its options. Most of the options are self-explanatory.

Branding

Only one setting is used under this menu item:

• Hide WordPress Logo and Links: set ON to suppress standard WordPress icons and links.

Login

Only one setting is used under this menu item:

• Login Logo: the standard WordPress logo is replaced by a custom MGF one.

NOTE: Normally, the user will login using the ‘MEMBERS’ option in the principal menu. Occasionally, the standard WordPress login will be displayed and it is there that the MGF logo is displayed.

Dashboard

This option formats the dashboard and is used to create the Member Area menus. It has three sections: Default Panels, Custom Welcome Dashboard Panel and RSS Dashboard Panel (not used by MGF).

Default Panels settings are as follows:

• Dashboard Icon: displays the MGF logo.
• Dashboard Title: the text to be shown at the top of the dashboard.
• Select the Roles the Dashboard Panels Will Be Hidden To: unless customised, the dashboard will display service messages from WordPress itself or from plugins. These must be suppressed. This option (combined with the next one) hides them from the WordPress roles specified. Although MGF only uses administrator, contributor and subscriber (see here), all WordPress roles are specified here in case other roles are used in the future.
• Hide All Dashboard Panels: Set ON to hide all non-MGF created panels.

Custom Welcome Dashboard Panel allows for the creation of up to two welcome panels to be displayed, one below the other. For MGF, the top panel is used to display the Member App functions available to all members. The bottom panel is for administrative functions. Settings as follows:

• Add Your Own Welcome Panel: set ON to allow display of the top panel.
• Select the Roles the Welcome Panel Will Be Visible To: this panel will be visible to all members so all WordPress roles are specified.
• Template Type: Basic HTML – defines how the panel is to be constructed.
• Title of Welcome Panel: text to be shown at the head of the panel.
• Welcome Panel Description HTML: the HTML for the upper panel; any valid HTML is allowed.
• Make full-width: ensures that the panel fills the whole area available.
• Dismissible: set OFF to ensure that the user cannot close the panel.
• Add Second Panel: set ON to allow creation of the second panel.
• Select the Roles the Welcome Panel Will Be Visible To: this panel is only to be visible to the MGF management team and so only administrators and contributors are selected.
• Template: Basic HTML – defines how the panel is to be constructed.
• Title of Second Panel: text to be shown at the head of the second panel.
• Second Panel Description (HTML): the HTML for the lower panel; any valid HTML is allowed.
• Make full-width: ensures that the panel fills the whole area available.
• Dismissible: set OFF to ensure that the user cannot close the panel.

Menus

This option allows an adminstrator to hide dashboard and admin bar items from different classes of user. It has three sections:

• White Label CMS Admin: controls which WordPress administrators are also allowed to alter the plugin’s own settings.
• Menus: controls which dashboard items will be visible to administrators.
• Admin Bar Menus: controls which admin bar menu items will be visible to administrators.

White Label CMS Admin settings as follows:

• Want to hide menus for your client?: set ON, otherwise none of the other options will be displayed.
• Other Admins: lists the other adminstrators for the site with a toggle as to whether they are allowed to alter the plugin’s own settings.

The settings for Menus consist of toggle switches for each of the items which appear in the dashboard sidebar. All are set to ON except Users which must be OFF as all maintenance of users must be performed via the Member App.

The settings for the Admin Bar Menu consist of toggle switches for each of the items which appear in the admin bar menu at the top of the dashboard area. All are set to ON.

Settings

This has five sections:

• Admin Bar: a toggle switch (Hide Front-end Admin Bar) to hide the admin bar from users of the public website (set ON).
• Admin Settings: two toggle switches. The first (set ON) hides the WordPress help feature which is not relevant to MGF users. The second hides the Screen Options box at the top of the dashboard area. This is occasionally useful and so the switch is set OFF.
• Nag Messages: a toggle switch to hide unwanted messages in the dashboard from plugin suppliers; set ON.
• Custom CSS for Admin: CSS for the dashboard area itself.
• Custom Editor Stylesheet: names a CSS style sheet to be used as an alternative to the previous item. Not used by MGF.

Plugin: Popup Builder

Popup Builder is a commercial plugin (MGF uses the free version) that creates popups on web pages. The plugin has many features but MGF just uses it to provide help features for the Member App. Popups are created using the plugin’s own editing features (see below) and the content is stored in wp_mgf_posts with a post type of ‘popupbuilder’. The post id is used to identify the popup when being placed on a page. For example, the help feature for the Member Directory page has a post id of 17343 and is called in the page template as follows:

<span class="sg-popup-id-17343" type="button">Help / Aide</span>

As popups have an assigned class they can be styled by CSS:

.sg-popup-id-17343 {
    background: #cedac0;
    position: absolute;
    top: 85px;
    left: 755px;
    padding:10px;
    border-radius: 10px;
    border-style: solid;
    border-width: 1px;
}
.sg-popup-id-17343:hover {
  color: blue;
}

Clicking ‘Popup Builder’ in the dashboard sidebar will open a dashboard with a list of all current popups and a sidebard with seven options. Of these, only four are used:

• All Popups: displays the list of all current popups
• Add New: to create a new popup
• Settings: a few overall settings
• Support: opens the plugin support page on wordpress.org

Adding a new popup

In the Popup Builder dashboard, click the ‘Add New’ button (top left). In the resulting page, click the desired extension; normally this will be ‘HTML’. This will open the editing page.

The top half of this page is for the text of the popup and uses the standard WordPress block editor. After entering the text, if it is not already open, click open the Main Options box. Here there are a number of options, only five of which are essential:

• Display Rules: defines where the popup is to be displayed
• Event: defines the event which will trigger the display of the popup
• Design: some design settings – normally will not need to be changed
• Closing: defines how the popup is to be closed
• Dimensions: defines the size of the popup
• Advanced: defines some additional actions to be taken when opening or closing the popup

The following sections describe how each of these options are used by MGF.

Display Rules

Three boxes to be filled. As each popup is only used on a single page, the selection is:

‘Selected pages’ – ‘Is’ – [leave blank as the call to the popup will be in the appropriate template]

Event

Three boxes to be filled. The selection is:

‘On Click’ – ‘Default’ – [class of the popup – e.g. ‘sg-popup-id-17343’ – see above]

Design

All default settings except:

• the padding around the popup text (7 px)
• the z-index (9999 – to ensure that the popup is visible over the normal page content)
• background colour (#cedac0 – standard MGF background colour)

Closing

All default settings

Dimensions

Responsive mode set to 70% so that the popup does not completely fill the screen when opened.

Advanced

All default settings except:

• ‘Action on popup content click’ set on with the option ‘Close Popup’
• ‘Popup location’ set on with location set as centered vertically and horizontally

Editing an existing popup

In the popup dashboard, for the required popup, click the pen icon under ‘Actions’ (at right). Editing actions as described above for a new popup.

Plugin: Folders Pro

Folders Pro is a paid-for plugin for managing the pages, posts and media libraries. For documentation on its features and use, see the Folders knowledge base of the plugin supplier’s website.

Plugin: Wordfence

Wordfence is a paid-for plugin that manages the security of the site. MGF has the Premium version which provides immediate updates and support. Its most important function is as a firewall but it also carries out scans for malware and sends notifications of security-related events such as logins by administrators. Scans are currently set to take place daily at midnight.

In normal circumstances, Wordfence does not require any routine intervention by an administrator.

Wordfence configuration options and statistics can be called by clicking ‘Wordfence ’ in the dashboard sidebar. This is a dropdown menu with 8 options.

Wordfence sends notifications when certain routine functions are executed (e.g. results of the daily scan) and when security-related events occur (e.g. login by someone with administrator privileges). Notifications to be sent are selected in the ‘All Options’ option (‘Dashboard Notification Options’, ‘Email Alert Preferences’, ‘Activity Report’) and are sent to the email address (or addresses) specified in ‘All Options’ -> ‘General Wordfence Options’ (currently intmedgard@gmail.com).

Details of all the options is beyond the scope of this documentation. For more information, select the ‘Help’ option.

The scripts Folder

The scripts folder contains additional code which is called by other modules. In most cases, this is because the code is used in more than one place. Where the code is only used in one place, putting it in a separate file is to make the code in the calling location easier to read.