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In this #Tiki Express tutorial I give the maximum tips I can about #Tiki Administration. Those tips will be helpful for Tiki beginners but may also reveal some nice tricks to advanced users.

In this video I’ll show you;
How to set and use the quick Admin module
What you can find in the Admin Bar menu
How to turn on Advanced setting (and saves them)
How to use the Admin search preferences
How to check permissions for different users and adjust them
What to do when things are not working as expected
And a super quick view about Tiki-check and phpinfo

Visit my website or my youtube channel to see more Tiki express tutorial and Subscribe to my youtube channel.

As the weather is just fine here for the season I though it would be nice to let the "sunshine in" through your screen by doing this video outside today.
I hope people in need for some warm sun will virtually enjoy.

I know, I know, I know… I kept a lot of people hanging and waiting since my previous video.
It was only technical. I was waiting for spotlights I ordered to improve the quality but as it happen sometimes with Ebay it is taking more time than predicted… And I’m still waiting for them.

So thank you for all the support and the encouraging messages to keep on publishing video tutorials about Tiki,
Don’t worry I will, at last till next summer.
That’s the plan for now.

So, In this Tiki Express tutorial I'll give you the maximum tips I can about Tiki Administration.
Those tips will be helpful for Tiki beginners but may also reveal some nice tricks to advanced users.
Some you will use on regular basis and some when things are not working as expected.

In this video I’ll show you;
How to set and use the quick Admin module
What you can find in the Admin Bar menu
How to turn on Advanced setting (and saves them)
How to use the Admin search preferences
How to check permissions for different users and adjust them
What to do when things are not working as expected
And a super quick view about Tiki-check and phpinfo

I said that a dozens of times, but in Tiki they are several ways to do the same thing and this is also true when time comes to Administrate your Tiki.
There is no right way and bad way there is just the way that you feel good with and help you to set up things right and quickly.
If yourself have a Tiki Trick (yeah!) about it, that I didn’t show here, please share with all of us in this video comments.

On my screen you can see a fresh Tiki just installed from scratch where everything has been set by default and of course I’m already logged as Admin.
In the menu, select "Settings" and the item "Control Panels".
And here we are on the main admin page.
You can find here all the available control panels and get to many preference pages.
The General panel, the Features panel the File-gallery panel we already reviewed in previous tutorials and many other panels available as you enable the corresponding feature.
So far so good.

How to use the quick Admin module
Now the first thing I want to show you is the quick Admin module that is very useful and used by many Tiki pros. Note that it is possible that depending the version of your Tiki you don’t have this panel enable by default and that’s why I want to show you how to assign it in case you don’t see it on the top of the header.

It is already installed in my Tiki so I will just un-assign it and re-assign quickly for you to see.
Under the wrench on the actions menu Un-assigning.

To assign it back from the module page.
Add Module, I select the Quick Admin module, I click on Module Options.
On the groups field I select Admin so only Admin can see.
And to keep it tiny on the appearance tab I set the "NoBox" setting to Y.
That’s it.

Rewind a bit and back to the homepage. At the top of the header you can see those two icons, a clock and a chevron. They will be available now on every page.

The chevron reveal the quick administration menu where you can find links to the most used features like the Users Administration page or action like clearing caches.

Under the clock icon you’ll find the last preferences that were changed.
It will keep populate and will record automatically the preferences and options that are changed on this Tiki.

How to use the Admin Bar

Back to the Admin main page you can see at the top the Admin Bar where you can find a lot of useful commands, access to pages, panels and preferences access.

On the left side of the Admin Bar you’ll find a switch that will toggle between the Basic mode and the Advanced mode. The basic will show you the minimum and essential preferences for beginners and the second mode will give you access to the advanced preferences of your Tiki.

Once you switch to the Advanced it reveals a Preferences Filters where you can see more than the Basic and Advanced mode.
Select what is relevant for you and click on the "Set as my default" button so your choice will be saved.

On the Admin Bar you’ll find also a fast access menu divided into; Access, Content, System and Tools. Just a quick fly-over but this is really something for you to discover what item here can help you to perform quickly and properly.



Admin search preferences
On the left side the Admin Search preference form, my favourite. Always here to help me to find my way through the thousands of options and preferences in Tiki. Let ’s do an easy search on…"time zone".

From the result panel you can set preferences directly or navigate to the page or the panel where the preference you searched for is set. Here I go to to the general panel where I can see the setting I was looking for plus other related settings that I may need to set at the same time.



Having a way to get to the main panel for the terms you searched for is very useful when you are looking for something more generic like…"Title"…
Of course there are a lot of results in many area for this word but with the Panel name link I can go to the specific preference I’m looking for.


Please note that by default the mysql engine of your server (if you use this engine) is limited to look for strings longer than 3 characters only. So don’t look for "url" for example it won’t work.

By the way if you have the feeling the results of the search are incomplete "Rebuild Admin Index" using the menu item on the filter preferences menu.
That’s it for that part.

How to check permissions for different users and adjust them
Another thing that is a regular matter of concern for a Tiki admin is about what different users can see or can’t see. As Admin you will always see everything but you have users and you may want them to see different sections or different content.

An easy win is to use two different browsers with two different users.
Let me show you that one.
Here on this Firefox window I’m logged as Admin and I will edit the HomePage.
I delete everything and using the Wiki Help system for plugin I set a group plugin where the members of the Admins group will see this one content while anonymous will see a different content.

Saving my edit. So on Firefox where I’m logged as Admin I see the right content for Admins.
To check what anonymous users will see now I switch to my second browser and refresh the page.

Of course this is not limited to Admins and Anonymous and you can simulate with any users members of a group or another.

Using that simple method you will be able to see, test and compare differences between groups and users.

What to do when things are not working as expected.
Sometimes your Tiki doesn’t act as expected. You may change something is the preferences and still not be able to see a result that reflect the changes. If something like this happen a good reflex is to clear the Tiki caches. Available from many places of course as this is very used.

A lot of the content you see in Tiki as well as the search results depend on the Unified Index of your Tiki. You should refresh and recreate it from time to time to assure for your Tiki to shows an up to date content.

Visit the Tiki documentation for more information but keep in mind that it is healthy to re-index your content regularly.
You can find the command to refresh the index in the Quick Admin menu or the search panel.

Tiki-check and phpinfo
Other PHP tools were added to Tiki to help admins and to check your server health.

Server check is a standalone script to produce diagnostics and report on your server environment or variables.
It can be used on an existing Tiki installation or before installing a Tiki. It is very useful for any PHP app and checks over 50 different things and provides contextual feedback.

phpInfo is also available from the Settings menu.
It display and review information about the current state of your PHP.

Thanks for watching this #TikiExpressTutorial and again I hope you learn something that will help you using and setting TikiWiki.

If you find that video useful please like, share and subscribe to my youtube channel.
Your comments are very important as they help me to improve and to find topics for futur videos.
Dear Dale I didn’t forget your wish for a Tiki banner tutorial as well as several requests for videos about trackers and the plugin list… those are coming soon ! (with the new spotlight I’m waiting for…)

Some other interesting links:
https://doc.tiki.org/Admin-Home
https://doc.tiki.org/Tiki-Administrator-Guide
https://doc.tiki.org/General-Admin
https://doc.tiki.org/Unified-Index
https://dev.tiki.org/Unified-Index
https://doc.tiki.org/Server-Check
https://doc.tiki.org/Phpinfo

That's it for now, thank you for watching and may the power of Tiki be with you !