Author: admin

General Settings: Title and Tagline

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Now that you have your WordPress installed and running, it’s time to look at some basic settings for your site.

  1. The place that you will access the settings for your site is called the Dashboard, and it provides the starting point for accessing all of your sites dials and knobs.Screenshot of WordPress dashboard
  2. The setting we will look at here is your blog “title” and “tagline”. It is located in Settings > General. Once you’re on the General Settings page, you can give your blog any title you want. You can also give your blog a tagline, which can be a short description of the blog.

When you change the Blog title and tagline, they will show up at the top of your site. Depending on what theme you use, the title and taglines will show up in various places. In the case of some themes, they might not show up at all depending on whether they allow custom configurations. We won’t worry about that for now.

There are more settings on the General Settings page, such as setting the administrative email account, time zone, date format, etc. Change those to whatever is appropriate for your site and geographical location.

Installing Scalar

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  1. To get started you’ll need to login to your control panel (https://sunycreate.cloud/dashboard) using your SUNY username and password.
  2. Navigate to the Application section and select Scalar. You can also use the search function as well.scalar installer icon
  3. When you click on the Scalar icon, you will be taken to the Scalar information page. Click install this application.install Scalar
  4. On the next page, fill in the different fields accordingly:
    -Select the domain or sub-domain where you’d like your Scalar site to live. You can create a sub-domain by following directions in the section Setting up Subdomain. The directory is optional. If you are using a sub-domain, you may not need to use a sub-directory. You can learn more by reading Subdomains vs Subdirectories.

    -Under version, select the version that is most recent.
    -By default the installer will automatically backup your website and update it anytime a new version comes out. While we recommend you keep this option, it is possible to only do minor updates, or turn them off completely.
    -The installer will also create a database for you automatically, but if you’ve already created one for this website you can choose Let me manage the database settings and enter the details.

    -Finally, in Settings, you’ll need to create a username and password for the Scalar install. A password can be generated for you, but you should try to create your own.
  5. Click Install.
  6. Once the installer is finished loading, you will be taken to the My Apps section of the dashboard. Here you’ll find links to login to your scalar installation.
  7. Log into your new Scalar instance with the credentials you set during the install process.

Understanding Accounts & Passwords

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One aspect of sunycreate.cloud that users may find a bit complicated at first is understanding the different accounts (and associated passwords) that you can manage as part of your participation in the project. This article outlines the types of accounts that you are likely to have, what they are for, and how you go about resetting passwords on each of them.

Your cPanel Account

When you first sign-up for your domain and hosting, a cPanel account will be generated that provides you with access to your slice of the sunycreate.cloud web server. Your cPanel account is automatically associated with your SUNY Create username. Therefore, your SUNY Create username will grant you access to your cPanel account.

Your Application Administrator Accounts

Every time you install a new application in cPanel, an Administrator Account for that application will be created. You will likely use these accounts very often – every time you need to login to your application to manage the associated website, you will use this account.

For example, if you install WordPress to manage your Web site, every time you need to add content to WordPress, change your theme, approve comments, etc. you will use this account to login.

Usually, you will be given the opportunity to choose the username and password for that account. We recommend choosing something that you are likely to remember but that is strong and secure.

Upon installation, you will likely receive an email confirming the user-id/password combination you chose. It will also have information about how to access the login page for that application. You may wish to make sure you don’t delete this message.

Depending on the application you’re working with, managing and resetting the password for this account will vary. If you’ve used Installatron (in cPanel) to install the application, however, you can always review the account credentials:

  • Login to cPanel through https://sunycreate.cloud/dashboard/
  • Click the Installatron icon in the Software/Services section.
  • Find the application you installed under My Applications.
  • Click the Edit button (this looks like a blue wrench).
  • Scroll down to find the Administrator Username and Password.

In addition, most applications should have some kind of password reset link on the login page. For more information on resetting your application password through Installatron, click here.

Other Types of Accounts

In addition to the account types outlined above, there are a few other kinds of accounts you may have as part of sunycreate.cloud:

  • When you sign up for subdomain/top-level domain on Stateu.org, cPanel will automatically create an FTP account for you by default. You’ll also have the option of manually creating your own FTP account. You can learn about their differences here.
  • Application User Accounts: In addition to the Administrator Account that you set up when installing an application, most applications will also let you set up user profile accounts within each application.

Setting Up Subdomains

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A subdomain is one way of organizing and separating content on your site. To create a subdomain, use the following steps:

  1. Log into sunycreate.cloud with your SUNY username and password to access your cPanel.
  2. Once logged in, you’ll be at the homepage of your cPanel. The easiest way to navigate your cPanel is using the search feature in the top right panel. Click the Search box and type “subdomains” (without the quotes). When you press enter, you will automatically be taken to the Subdomains page. Or, you can scroll down and click the Subdomains icon under the Domains section of cPanel.
    screen shot of subdomains application
  3. Choose a name for your subdomain and type it into the Subdomain box. Just like top-level domains, subdomains can only contain numbers, letters, and hyphens, and the best subdomains are simple, short, and descriptive.
  4. Once you’ve typed in a name, cPanel will automatically populate the Document root field for you. This will create a folder to contain your subdomain’s files. You’ll usually want this folder to match the name of your subdomain, so it’s easy to identify where different files live in your account. You might want to change the document root if you already have a folder in your account that has the same name as the subdomain you are trying to create, although this should be rare. Once you’re done, click Create.
  5. Once you’re done, click Create. If everything went well, you should see a message that your subdomain was created successfully.

Your subdomain will now be available as an option for automatic installation of various software (WordPress, MediaWiki, etc). If you prefer to install web applications manually, you can do so in the document root (folder) you created in step 5.

Subdomains vs. Subdirectories

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When you’re first getting started with a new space on a new Web host, you might think of yourself as owning a small “territory” of the Web. Everything you place in your public folder on the server becomes available for anyone on the Web to see (assuming they know the address of your site and the files you’ve placed there).

If you’re just putting up a handful of static, HTML pages which you want to make available to colleagues, friends, or family by sending them links, then working with this large, unorganized space may work. But as soon as you get to the point where you want to organize your site, you’re going to need a new strategy.

Consider this scenario: you want to have a personal blog on your new Web space, where you share pictures and short written pieces with family, friends, and colleagues. In addition, you’re working on a large research project that requires you to build a Web-based repository of digital images related to your discipline. You want to use one application (say, WordPress) to manage your personal blog. For your research project, you’ve settled on another open-source application (Say, Omeka). Both of these are applications that need to be installed on your Web host, but you can’t just put them both at your main domain name – if you did, both sites would quickly experience conflicts and errors. You need to cordon off separate spaces for your different Web “properties.”

There are two primary strategies for parceling up your Web space. You can create subdomains or subdirectories. But before you can understand the difference, you need to first understand what we mean when we talk about your root domain.

Root Domain

Let’s say you’ve registered a new domain for sunycreate.cloud called blog.sunycreate.cloud. Anything that is stored at this core URL is considered to be at the root of your domain. Nothing comes before the address or after the address. You can certainly decide that you simply want to have a single site on your Web host (say a blog running WordPress), and you can set that blog up at your domain’s root. To get to your site in this scenario, users would simply go to blog.sunycreate.cloud.

Subdomains

When you want to do more than just have a single site at the root of your site, you need to decide now to organize your space. One way to do so is by setting up subdomains.

You’re may already be familiar with the concept of subdomains, even if you don’t know it. Consider Google’s website at https://google.com. As you browse features of that site, you’ll notice that the domain changes. When you’re looking at your Gmail account, for example, the domain changes to https://mail.google.com. Now the root of the url is mail.google.com, indicating that you’re on the part of the site that is dedicated to Google’s mail services.

In this instance, mail.google.com is a subdomain that provides a different utility than google.com. The domains serve two purposes: they help to organize the site from a technical perspective, but they also serve as indications to the users that they are in a new/different space.

As you work on your site, you’re welcome to create as many subdomains as you like, and in each subdomain you can actually create a distinct, individual Web site.

Subdirectories

The alternative for organizing your space is to simply set up subdirectories. These function much like file folders on your computer. Instead of creating a blog at blog.yourdomain.com you would place it in a subdirectory called “blog” making the address yourdomain.com/blog. Setting up subdirectory is really easy. You can create folders on the fly when installing applications (like WordPress), and you can also manually create them in your file browser.

There is one particular issue you need to be aware of: Let’s say you’ve installed WordPress to be your primary blog at yourdomain.com. Later, you decide you want to install WordPress again for a separate image gallery site, and you want to place it at yourdomain.com/gallery. But, if for some reason you’ve already created a page on your WordPress site called “Gallery” then the url yourdomain.com/gallery will already be taken. If you try to create a subdirectory of the same name, you’ll get a conflict and errors.

Tips & Review

  • Subdomains are generally a cleaner, more elegant solution to organizing your site. You’re less likely to get conflicts or errors. However, when using subdomains the process is slightly more complicated: You must create subdomains first before you can install anything in them.
  • Subdirectories don’t create as pretty URLs as subdomains, but they’re easier to set up. They can, however, result in conflicts with existing Web pages.
  • As soon as you create subdomains or subdirectories to organize your site, you need to consider how people are going to find them. If you’ve created a new primary blog at blog.yourdomain.com, and someone goes to just yourdomain.com, they won’t see that new site. It is possible to set up redirects to avoid this issue. You can also always create links from pages on one subdomain of your site to another.
  • If you really just need one site, sometimes installing at the root of your domain is the easiest thing to do, at least as you’re getting started. You can always add more pieces to your territory later with either subdomains or subdirectories.

Tutorials

What is DNS?

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Remember back before everyone had computers that fit in their pocket, how companies would ship a book full of phone numbers to your doorstep? We might have known who we were looking for, but we needed to look up phone numbers unless they were your crazy relatives that you learned to memorize. When you get your own domain name, by default it’s nothing more than a shortcut, an address, or (to fit this very imperfect analogy) a phone number. When you type a domain name into the address bar of your browser, someone has to identify it and tell it what to display. That’s where a name server comes in.

A name server is a computer, running as a server, that keeps a record of all the domain names that are associated with it and keeps track of where those domains should go. In the case of sunycreate.cloud, the nameserver is the same computer that runs the hosting. You can peek under the hood and see this in action by going to the Websites and Domains tab of your cPanel account and clicking on DNS Settings. DNS stands for Domain Name System and the name server on sunycreate.cloud gives control to it to identify what should be displayed when someone types in your domain. Consider the fact that you might have one or more subdomains in your account. The name server and DNS are able to identify those subdomains and let the world wide web know that they exist and point to some files/folders on a computer somewhere.

When you signed up for a domain through the sunycreate.cloud system your nameservers were chosen for you. So when people type in your address, the server responds with information about your account. When you migrate an account away from one hosting platform like sunycreate.cloud and onto a new service, it will require you to change the nameservers so that your domain name points to a new server with its own files and structure. It’s also possible to have subdomains that point to entirely different servers than sunycreate.cloud. For example, you could have a subdomain that looks to Tumblr for files.

What is Domain Mapping?

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Domain mapping, simply put, is deciding where visitors should be directed when they visit various pieces of your website. Domains and subdomains can be mapped directly to folders located within your webhosting account, where you may have installed WordPress, Omeka, MediaWiki, or other web applications. Domains and subdomains can also be mapped to some third-party providers.

Map Your Domain to Tumblr

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Mapping your domain is an important part of sunycreate.cloud; it reinforces the idea that you don’t necessarily need to host all your own applications. You should, however, be mindful of making your web presences part of a domain you control. If you would like to map a subdomain and have not yet created it, use this tutorial on creating subdomains before proceeding. To map your domain, or a subdomain, to Tumblr, use these steps:

  1. Log in and navigate to your cPanel. Click the Search box at the top, right-hand corner and type “DNS” (without the quotes). As you type, the cPanel page will begin to narrow down results.
  2. Find and click on Zone Editor to continue.
  3. Find the domain, or subdomain, you want to map to Tumblr in the list of Zone File Records. Click Manage next to the proper domain.
  4. Leave the Name, and TTL fields set to their defaults. Update the Type drop-down menu to CNAME, and the Address field to domains.tumblr.com. Click Edit Record when you are done.
  5. Visit the Tumblr website, and login with your Tumblr username and password.
  6. After logging in, click the Tumblr Settings icon.
  7. For the Tumblog you’d like to use under the Username click the pencil icon to edit these settings.
  8. Check the Use a custom domain checkbox. Type the name of the domain or subdomain you want to map to Tumblr into the box, then click Test your domain.
  9. If your domain mapping was successful, you’ll see a message that your domain is now pointing to Tumblr. Click the Save button before leaving the page. Keep in mind that it may take up to 72 hours for your domain or subdomain to correctly point all visitors to the correct location.

Map Your Domain to Blogger

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Mapping your domain is an important part of sunycreate.cloud; it reinforces the idea that you don’t necessarily need to host all your own applications. You should, however, be mindful of making your web presences part of a domain you control. If you would like to map a subdomain and have not yet created it, use this tutorial on creating subdomains before proceeding. To map your domain, or a subdomain, to Blogger, use these steps:

  1. Log in and navigate to your cPanel. Click the Search box at the top, right-hand corner and type “DNS” (without the quotes).
  2. Click on the Zone Editor icon.
  3. Find the domain (or subdomain) you want to map to Blogger in the list and click Manage.
  4. Create a new CNAME record by clicking Add Record. To save, click Add Record.Keep this window open; you will need it in later steps.
  5. In a new window, go to the Blogger website, and login with your Blogger/Google username and password.
  6. From your Blogger Dashboard, find the blog you’d like to use, expand the More Options menu, and click Settings.
  7. On the “Basic Settings” page, find the Publishing section, and click the Setup a 3rd party URL for your blog link.
  8. Under Advanced Settings, type the full subdomain or domain you are mapping into the box, leave the Use missing files host? option set to No, then click Save.
  9. You will be presented with a message that your domain cannot be verified, along with information about your existing DNS entry, and an additional DNS entry that needs to be made. This is normal. Copy the second entry under the Name, Label, or Host entry to your clipboard.
  10. Go back to the window or tab containing the Zone Editor in your SUNY Create cPanel. Create another records by clicking Add a Record. Paste the text you just copied into the Name field. This information will be different for each domain. Set the TTL field to 14400, and the Type drop-down menu to CNAME. 
  1. Go back to the window or tab containing the Blogger Advanced settings panel, and copy the second entry under the Destination, Target, or Points to column to your clipboard.
  2. Go back to the window or tab containing the Advanced DNS Zone Editor in your sunycreate.cloud cPanel. In the Zone File Records section, find the domain you were editing Action for and paste the text you just copied into the CNAME field. This information will be different for each domain. Click Add record when you are done.
  3. Return to the window or tab containing the Blogger Advanced settings panel, and click Save.
  4. If everything was successful, your domain will now appear as the Blog Address. Keep in mind that it may take up to 72 hours for your domain or subdomain to correctly point all visitors to the correct location.

For further instructions, click here.