Following up with our post yesterday on the Host Settings Configuration. I thought we should continue walking through our discussion of the next two sections of these settings.  These two next sections are the Host Details and the Appearance of the portal. These tow sections control name of the host portal and the appearance.

The first section we will look at today is the Host Details. This will define 4 attributes of the host:

• Host Portal: this field is a drop down list that contains all of the available portals that are located on the framework.  One of these portals is chosen as the Host portal and becomes the default portal when there are multiple ones created.
• Host Title: This is what the host portal shall be called.
• Host URL: This is the URL that will be defined as the location to go to if there are any issues for example with the portal.  This does not necessarily point back to this portal in any way.
• Host Email: This allows us to define an email address that can be used to reach someone who is responsible for the portal.

This takes care of the first section.  The next section is the Appearance of the Host portal and has the following available fields:

• Show Copyright Credits? This is a checkbox and tells the portal whether to display the copyright notice if it is defined within a skin and to include the version number in the title of the DNN site.
• Use Custom Error Messages? This is a checkbox that will determine whether we will use custom error messages on the framework or the default error messages. The custom error messages can be changed in the language editor which will come in a later post.
• Host Skin: The host skin is the skin that will be displayed for the site if one is not defined in the page or portal settings of the portal.  If no skin is specified here then the site will use the default DNN Blue skin.
• Host Container: The host container is the container that will be used if none is defined at the module, page or portal level of the portal. If no container is defined then it will use the DNN Blue containers.
• Admin Skin: This is the skin that will be used while doing admin functions if none is specified at the portal settings.
• Admin Container: This is the container that will be used for admin functions if none is specified at the portal settings.

Above the drop downs we have two radio buttons  that are Host and Site this tells the dropdowns where to populate the information in the drop downs from whether to use the _default portal root or to use the site roots to get the skins and the containers from.

We have two upload buttons underneath the 4 appearance drop downs that allow us to upload skins and containers to the site.  As we are within the Host Settings section of the portal this will upload the skin and container to the _default portal location within the framework.

I hope as this series continues everyone finds value in the posts.  Feel free to comment on the post and offer any corrections if I have made a mistake.  As I've been using this framework for approximately 5-6 years now and having started with it before it received the name of DotNetNuke it has been amazing to witness the growth and capabilities that have been added to this product.