GameDB2 User Manual - System Configuration
Description
Many aspects of how GameDB operates, where it stores it files, and other things are
controlled by the GameDB system configuration options. These options are split into
three different types:
Configuration file
The global configuration file gamedb.cfg controls some configuration options
which are meant to be set only once, at the time that GameDB is originally installed.
Once these settings are set, they usually do not need to be changed.
As these settings are only editable by the system administrator, they are not
described here, and there is no facility in GameDB itself that allows these
options to be changed.
Per User Configuration
There are some GameDB configuration options which remain private to the user that
set them, such as display preferences. Every user in the system has a unique set of
such configuration options, allowing all users to configure some aspects of the system
to their own personal tastes.
System-wide Configuration
The remainder of the GameDB configuration options fall into this category. These are
options that directly control what GameDB will do (or not do), where files will be
stored, and so on.
As the name implies, these options affect all users of the system at once.
Per-user Configuration
Every
user in GameDB has access to Per-User configuration options.
These options are accessible by clicking "Configuration" in the GameDB main menu. These options control
how some aspects of GameDB will behave for this particular user. Changing your user
settings does not affect any other user in the system.
The currently available options are:
Color scheme
Each user may select their own color scheme from the drop down box. Along with a particular
color scheme, other properties such as margins, borders, font sizes, and anything else
that is controllable via CSS may come into effect when a new scheme is selected.
GameDB ships with a few color schemes, but your system administrator may add in
others.
The default value for this setting is "Classic GDB Color Scheme", which is the
color scheme from GameDB version 1, using varying shades of blue.
Default Page
This option specifies what page GameDB should display whenever you log in, or when
it's not specifically told what page it should be displaying.
The drop down box allows you to select any of the sections of GameDB which are
accessible via the menu, as well as some other sub-pages not directly accessible
from the menu, such as the Session Report Calendar.
The default value for this setting is "Users Page", which lists all of the current
users in the system.
System Configuration
Along with the Per User configuration options, there are also several configuration options which
control various aspects of GameDB's operation for all users. Changing these settings will affect
everyone other user in the system.
The system configuration options are split out into logical groups:
System configuration properties
This section provides some basic system configuration settings which control what
information is presented to you by GameDB, and how that information is displayed.
Group Name
This option specifies the name of the game group or organization that is using this installation
of GameDB. This is used in the titles of all pages and is displayed in the login form.
Login Timeout
This option specifies how long someone can remain logged in (in minutes) before they are automatically
logged out due to inactivity.
In general, small values such as 15 or 30 are good if GameDB will be accessed often from some public
location, such as an Internet cafe or library. Larger values are good when GameDB will usually only be
accessed from "secure" locations.
During the time between a user's last action and this time interval, anyone who has access to the
web browser may perform any actions allowed by the logged in user from that terminal.
Extended Fields
This option specifies if GameDB uses Extended Game Fields
throughout the system or not.
The extended game fields allow for the addition of price information, stock and sold quantity,
and other options. Primarily these are only useful when GameDB is being used as the back end for
a store website.
Internally, GameDB always stores extended information for games. Turning this option on or off
only turns on or off features which allow you to view and manipulate that information, so that
disabling this option will not erase any extended information that might already exist.
Collection Controls
This option specifies if controls that allow users to query and modify their collection of
games and other associated information are displayed or not.
Like the extended game fields, GameDB always stored collection information for
users and games. Turning this option
on or off thus only enables or disables the features of GameDB that allow you to view the information
or modify it.
BGG Game URL
This sets the base URL used to generate a link to a game specific page on
BoardGameGeek. The BGG GameID
for a game is appended onto the provided URL to generate the link.
This URL is used both internally by GameDB to generate links on the fly, as well as when
pages are automatically generated.
You shouldn't need to change this value unless the admins on BGG change their URL structure.
Paths for internal GameDB files
This section provides information about where some of the static files that GameDB needs to
run are installed. These are files which cannot be installed into the same location as the actual
GameDB installation due to web server requirements.
CSS File URL
This option specifies the URL where GameDB's CSS files are installed. The CSS files provide
the different user color schemes.
Usually, this value is set during installation, and then left alone. However, it is possible
to have multiple sets of CSS files installed, and switch between them by modifying this
setting (for example, when modifying the provided CSS files).
Static Image URL
This option specifies the URL where the static images that come with GameDB are installed.
These are images that ship with GameDB, and include the icons that indicate if a user is logged
in or not, among other things.
Like the CSS File URL setting, this option is normally set once at install time and then left
alone, but it is possible to have different image sets installed and swap between them using
this setting.
Automatic page generation
This section provides some default configuration options for the
Automatic Page Generation
system in GameDB. This allows you to configure GameDB to generate pages for most of the
information available to the system.
When configured, these pages are automatically generated from
Template files
that you provide, which give the pages their layout and structure.
The options provided here set the default options. Each of these options may be overridden on
a template by template basis.
Main Site Path
This sets the location where the page generation code writes all generated pages to by
default. Each of the templates that generates a file is allowed to provide their own
path setting that overrides this one, or adds to it.
Main Site URL
This is the URL that corresponds to the path set in Main Site Path, which is used in the
creation of links to automatically generated files. Like that setting, templates may
override this setting or add to it.
Default Extension
This is the extension that is used by default when pages are automatically generated. Each
template may override this value with some other value, so that templates can generate different
types of files (for example, regular HTML files, or RSS feeds).
This value is appended directly to the end of each filename or URL. As such, you usually want
it to be prefixed with a '.' character. It is possible to include a part of the filename first, such
as '_complete.html', to modify the resulting generated filenames.
Uploaded game image configuration
This section provides some configuration options which specify where GameDB should
store images for games when they are uploaded. This is used by GameDB to not only
store the files, but also generate URL's for the images whenever it wants to display
an image, or when generating pages with the automatic page generator.
Game Image Path
This option specifies the local path where uploaded game image files should be
stored.
As they are uploaded, game images are stored in this path using a filename that is the
image's internal identifying ID number. Along with the uploaded file, smaller thumbnails
versions are also created on the fly and stored in this location.
Game Image URL
This option specified the URL that corresponds to the path set in Game Image Path, and is used
to generate URL's to uploaded image files for use throughout GameDB and in automatically
generated files.
External helper programs
This section provides the locations to some external programs that GameDB needs in order to operate
properly.
In general, all of the fields here should be a complete path to the executable in question,
unless that location is currently set in the system's executable path. Normally it is best to
not rely on this behavior, as most web servers keep the path very restrictive for security reasons.
Mogrify Path
This option specifies the complete path (including executable) to the mogrify program that is
used to modify images as they are uploaded.
Mogrify is a part of Image Magick, a
freely available image manipulation program.
In fact, any program or script file may be used instead of mogrify, as long as it operates in the
same general manner. The only command line option that GameDB uses is resize. See the Image
Magick documentation for more information.
Extended Game Fields
GameDB supports some extended information for
games, including price
and stock information. Though these fields are always stored and maintained, configuration options
are presented to turn on and off the controls that allow you to view and modify the associated data.
Usually, this information is only of interest when GameDB is being used as the back end of a
commercial game website, and it allows you to track costs for games, items sold and other such
information. However, this information could also be used for other purposes by individuals or
game groups.
The following is a list of all of the extended fields that are currently supported, along with
some possible uses for these fields. At the moment, the only operations allowed on the fields is
to display the information, change it, and use it when generating pages with the
automatic page generation system.
The list mentions several possible uses to help spark ideas for what you could use this information
for, or for new functions/data fields to include.
Stock
This field can be used to track the number of copies of this game that are currently in stock.
In combination with the Price field, this could be used to indicate how much the complete stock
of this game costs.
Sold
This field can be used to track the number of copies of this game that have been sold over some
period of time. This could be used to track what games are selling the least or the most. In combination
with the Price or Sale Price fields, this could be used to indicate how much has been made on sales of
this game.
Price
This can be used to track the price for this game. This could be the selling price for a game, or it
could be used to track how much a copy of this game costs to obtain from the distributor. In combination
with the price fields, this could be used to determine how much money is tied up in the stock of a game,
or how much money you could expect to make off of it.
Sale Price
This can be used to track the sale price for this game. This could be a discounted price, or this could
be used to indicate the price that the game actually sells at (if the Price field is used as the cost price).
In combination with the Stock and Sold fields, this could be used to track how much profit was made/can be
expected for this game.
Sale Flag
This is a simple boolean flag that tracks whether this game is currently on sale for some discounted
price or not. It could also be used to flag whether a game is currently available for sale at
all (for example, if a game is out of print or not).
New Flag
This is a simple boolean flag that tracks whether this game is a new addition to GameDB or not. This could
be used to indicate a new arrival, or to track when stock is new versus used.