Web site overview

Customizing the default web site

When you create a BOINC project using make_project, a web site is created for you. This consists of a front page (html/user/index.php), which links to pages where users can log in, edit preferences, create profiles, and so on.

Before your project goes public, you'll want to change this web site by adding content specific to your project, and by giving the web site a graphical identity specific to your project. Make sure you do a good job; your web site has a large impact on your project's ability to recruit and retain participants.

Some of this customization can be done by editing the main page (index.php) and the stylesheet (white.css) files. Other aspects are changed using a configuration file, described below.

Web configuration file

The file html/project/project.inc serves as a configuration file for your web site. It exists in a separate directory (html/project) so that you can put all project-specific web files there (create symbolic links from html/inc and html/user). You can also put this directory under your own CVS to manage version control.

The file project.inc is generated by make_project with default values. When you set up your project you need to edit this file to customize the constants and functions it contains.

To properly configure your project you need to set values for these constants:

PROJECT

The name of your project

MASTER_URL

Your project's master URL

URL_BASE

Base URL for web pages (usually same as master URL)

STYLESHEET

Name of stylesheet file (such as white.css)

COPYRIGHT_HOLDER

Name of copyright holder

SYS_ADMIN_EMAIL

Users are directed here if they have complaints about message-board moderation. Also, messages about user-of-the-day running low are sent here.

FORUM_MODERATION_EMAIL_USER_ID

Moderation-related emails (such as user complaints) are sent here.

INVITE_CODES

Regular expression used for controlling account creation.

EMAIL_FROM

'from' address for emails

EMAIL_FROM_NAME

'from' name for emails

You also need to customize these functions:

project_banner()

Prints page header

project_footer()

Prints page footer

show_profile_heading1(), show_profile_heading2()

Text on user profile page

show_profile_question1(), show_profile_question2()

Text on user profile page

project_workunit()

Prints project-specific text on workunit page

project_user_summary()

Prints project-specific text on user page

project_user_page_private()

Prints project-specific text on private user page

If you want to use PHPMailer to send e-mail to project participants then you should set the following constants to appropriate values.

USE_PHPMAILER

Set to true if you use ​PHPMailer. In this case you must download PHPMailer and put it (i.e. the directory 'phpmailer') in your html/inc directory.

PHPMAILER_HOST

The Host argument to PHPMailer; typically a semicolon-separated list of SMTP servers.

PHPMAIL_MAILER

The Mailer argument to PHPMailer; typically 'sendmail', 'mail', or 'smtp'.

If you do not set USE_PHPMAILER then e-mail to participants can still be sent, but it will use PHP's simpler mail() function.