As a free, open source content management system under the MIT license, concrete5 is a natural choice for those who want to offer proven, powerful content management to clients while rebranding it under their own company name.
Version 5.5 of concrete5 introduces a lot of new ways to white label concrete5, and control everything from marketplace integration, custom sample content, global layout and design options, and even the dashboard background image.
Runtime Settings
The following items can be added to config/site.php to control the way concrete5 behaves. These are all added in this format
define('OPTION_NAME', false);
or
define('OPTION_NAME', true);
Note: There are many more runtime settings than these, but these are those that might be of special interest to those white labelling concrete5.
ENABLE_MARKETPLACE_SUPPORT
Defaults to true. Setting this to false will disable concrete5 marketplace integration. This will remove any portions of the interface that link to the marketplace, disable marketplace results in intelligent search, and no longer attempt to connect to the community.
ENABLE_INTELLIGENT_SEARCH_HELP
Defaults to true. Setting this to false will no longer include concrete5.org help searches in the intelligent search.
ENABLE_INTELLIGENT_SEARCH_MARKETPLACE
Defaults to true. This setting controls whether marketplace add-ons appear in intelligent search results. (Note, setting ENABLE_MARKETPLACE_SUPPORT to false will also set this to false.)
ENABLE_NEWSFLOW_OVERLAY
Defaults to true. This setting controls whether Newsflow 1 (which is populated by Dashboard home content) appears on the front-end of the site for administrators, if they haven't seen it in a 24 hour period.
WHITE_LABEL_LOGO_SRC
Defaults to the concrete5 logo. To include your own image instead, set this as a path to the image. This can also be a full URL. This file should be 49x49 pixels.
WHITE_LABEL_APP_NAME
Defaults to concrete5. Currently this is just used in the alt text for the logo, but it may be used elsewhere in the future.
ENABLE_AREA_LAYOUTS
Defaults to true. If false, Layouts are not available.
ENABLE_CUSTOM_DESIGN
Defaults to true. If false
ENABLE_CUSTOM_DESIGN
Defaults to true. If false, custom design is not available for blocks or areas.
ENABLE_APP_NEWS
Defaults to true. If false, Newsflow will never attempt to connect to concrete5.org to retrieve latest updates. Note: if this is the case, you should probably reorganize Newsflow 1 to include different blocks than the Dashboard Newsflow Latest blocks (see Dashboard Customization below.)
WHITE_LABEL_DASHBOARD_BACKGROUND_SRC
Defaults to false. If this is set to a valid image (either local or a remote URL), this image will be used as the background on every dashboard page. (5.5.1: If set to "none" no image will be shown.)
WHITE_LABEL_DASHBOARD_BACKGROUND_FEED
Defaults to false. If this is set to a valid web address, an image for today's date will be requested. e.g. If you set this:
define('WHITE_LABEL_DASHBOARD_BACKGROUND_FEED', 'http://www.yourapp.com/backgrounds/');
Then, on January 18th, 2012, the following image will be requested:
http://www.yourapp.com/backgrounds/20120118.jpg
DASHBOARD_BACKGROUND_INFO
This URL requests credits for the image of the day. If you're including your own image, you should set this to false (instead of an offsite URL.)
Dashboard Customization
The runtime options can customize the dashboard background and certain behaviors, but it's also easier than ever to customize the Dashboard home screen (which is now referred to as Newsflow 1, as its not always just seen on the /dashboard page.)
To get started, type "Customize" into the Intelligent Search. You'll see an option for Dashboard Home > Customize. Choose this option. At this point, you should see Newsflow 1 with an Edit button across the top. Put the page in edit mode, and you can modify Newsflow 1 just like it was a page, and use any concrete5 blocks (including your own.) This page also has access to Dashboard blocks, which are internal blocks that don't appear when using the regular Add Block interface on the front-end of your website.
If you'd like to remove the concrete5 news items from the three areas on the right of Newsflow 1, just edit the page, delete those three blocks, and add your own.
Note: If you remove the Newsflow Latest blocks from your Newsflow 1 page, you'll no longer have the ability to read concrete5 news and information from your website.
Sample Content and Starting Points
Version 5.5 of concrete5 includes a completely new way of handling sample content. Create sample content packages – known as "Starting Points" and you'll be able to completely customize every aspect of concrete5, including what gets installed, what config options are set, even down to the sample content that creates a site. This is accomplished through the use of the concrete5 Content Interchange Format. This is a basic XML declaration of a concrete5 site that can be reimported and hand-edited with ease. A full how-to on generating this content and these starting points is still forthcoming, but you can start experimenting with what's possible by downloading the Sample Content Generator package and generating sample content from your website. Both the blank and standard sample content starting points are generated in this way.
Going beyond this, the new 5.5 installation routine can be run from basic PHP files, and doesn't even need to be accessed through the POST at all. White labelers can take advantage of this and script out installs that happen automatically in the background, without leaving the comforts of PHP.
With 5.5, concrete5 gets even better for those who want to rebrand concrete5 and offer it to their clients.