Navigating the administration interface from anywhere within the backend of the site is made easy with a global menu bar to guide you through the various areas of the administration. Located at the top left of every screen (which is why we refer to it as global) the links are named according to the areas they lead to. The global menu bar is as shown in the following screenshot:
This contains links to all of the key site settings, which include the following:
Control Panel
User Manager
Media Manager
Global Configuration
Logout
This links to the section where you can organize the management of the menus established on your site. The menu manager link takes you through a list of the menus presented on the frontend of your site, where you can manage them by clicking the links.
All the information presented on the site can be accessed through here, as there are links to the following:
Article Manager
Article Trash
Section Manager
Category Manager
Front Page Manager
We'll cover the details later in this chapter.
Components are a section of your site that provide a specific functional feature, such as the Newsfeed or a Poll. Any components built into your site can be accessed using this link. Components are covered at the end of this chapter and Chapter 8, Menus, Modules, and Components covers some of the more popular ones in detail.
Extensions are extra functional features your site has installed within to customize it. They are referred to as Modules or Plugins. They are also addressed at the end of this chapter and Chapter 8, Menus, Modules, and Components covers some of the more popular ones.
The site template and languages can be managed through here; however, they are for more advanced users and generally best left to your developer to make changes to.
This menu provides access to a number of useful administrative tools. For example, the administration interface provides the capability to leave messages for other users and they can be accessed through here. The specifics of what users can do are addressed in Chapter 5, User Management in detail, but the Tools menu includes links to the following:
Read Messages: Any message sent to you from other users can be accessed.
Mass Mail: The link for a Super Administrator to send a message to a group of users.
Global Check-in: Allows a user to check what content items are locked or checked out by other users (which can make these items inaccessible to others).
Clean Cache: Allows you to clean any cached files from your web server, thereby updating the frontend presentation with any recent changes to your site. The settings are established within the Global Configuration of your site.
Purge Expired Cache: This deletes all of the stored cache files on the web server.
Note
Cache files are generated to assist with the efficiency of presenting your site in the web browser. They are files of HTML, images, or other media elements stored for later reuse, making the site load faster the next time it is accessed. However, if changes are made to a site, clearing the cache in the browser (Ctrl+F5) is required to update the content.