Admin Features
FAQ

The admin bar is a dark strip that appears at the top of every page when you are logged in as an admin. It shows your username, your role, quick navigation links, and status badges for anything requiring attention. It is only visible to you — public visitors never see it.

• Moderation badge — number of posts awaiting approval in the moderation queue.
• Messages badge — number of unread contact messages sent via the message form.

Badges disappear when their count reaches zero. Click the linked item to go directly to the relevant section.

If install.php or update.php are still present on your server after use, the admin bar shows a red warning. Delete those files immediately — they allow anyone with the URL to reconfigure your site. The warning clears itself as soon as the files are gone.

When a newer version of autonomies is available, a blue bar appears beneath the admin bar showing the version number and a link to the changelog. It checks autonomies.net/version.json once per day. It only appears for admins — public visitors never see it. Follow the update steps in the Installation FAQ when you're ready to upgrade.

Anyone — with or without an account — can submit a post via the Publish page. Submissions from anonymous users and Commenter-role accounts go into the moderation queue. Group and Admin users' posts are published immediately without needing approval.

Go to Moderation in the admin bar. Each pending post shows the title, author, topic, submission date, and a preview of the body. Your options are:

• Approve — makes the post live on the site immediately.
• Reject — removes the post from the queue permanently.
• Edit — opens the post in the edit screen so you can make changes before approving.

Yes. Go to Moderation, find the post under the Approved section, and click Edit. You can update the title, body, topic, image, event details, or location. Changes go live immediately on save.

Post bodies support a safe subset of HTML. Allowed tags are:

<a> <b> <strong> <i> <em> <u> <s>
<p> <br> <ul> <ol> <li>
<blockquote> <pre> <code>
<h2> <h3> <h4> <hr> <small>

Script tags, iframes, event handlers, and inline styles are stripped automatically. All links get rel="noopener noreferrer" and open in a new tab. The index page preview strips all HTML and shows plain text only.

Go to Featured in the admin bar. The currently featured post (if any) is shown at the top. Use the picker to search approved posts and select one. The featured post appears in a highlighted block at the top of the homepage above the regular newswire. Only one post can be featured at a time.

Go to Moderation → Comments. All comments on published posts are listed here. You can delete any comment. Comments are published immediately when submitted — there is no comment approval queue. Anonymous comment spam can be handled by deleting comments from the moderation panel.

• Admin Full access — moderation, site settings, user management, edit mode, featured post, and all admin tools.
• Group Can submit posts that publish immediately without moderation. Cannot access admin settings or moderation tools.
• Commenter — can register and leave comments on published posts. Post submissions go through the moderation queue.

Go to Moderation → Users. You can view all registered accounts, change their role, approve pending Group/Admin accounts, or delete accounts. Users can also self-register via the Register page — their account type depends on which option they select during registration.

When someone registers as a Group user or requests Admin access, their account is created in an inactive state and shows in the Moderation → Users panel for you to approve. Commenter accounts are activated immediately. This gives you control over who can publish without moderation.

Go to Site Settings → Change Password. Enter your current password, then your new password twice. The new password must be at least 10 characters. You remain logged in after changing. Your current password is required — this protects against someone changing your password from an unattended session.

Edit Mode lets you update site content — page text, labels, sidebar blocks — directly on the page by clicking on editable areas. It is off by default even when you are logged in, to prevent accidental edits. Click ✎ Edit Site in the admin bar to toggle it on. Click ✎ Editing ON to turn it off again.

• Site logo name and tagline in the header
• About page — all text sections
• Contact page — all text sections
• Custom sidebar blocks — title and body text
• Links sidebar — add, edit, and remove links
• Submit page sidebar — guidelines, topics, and questions text
• Footer — site name, tagline, and copyright text
• Publish bar — the call-to-action text above the submission form link

Each editable area has its own Save button that appears when Edit Mode is active. Click Save on the specific block you've edited. Changes are saved to the database immediately and reflected on the live site. You do not need to turn Edit Mode off to save — each block saves independently.

Go to Site Settings → Site Identity. The Site Logo / Name field controls what appears in the header. It displays in white bold text. This value is also used as the brand name throughout the site in page titles and metadata.

They are the same field. The Site Logo / Name value serves as both the visual logo in the header and the brand name referenced in page titles, admin labels, and email-style references. Set it once and it propagates everywhere.

Go to Site Settings → Page Titles. You can set individual <title> tags for the homepage, About, Contact, Calendar, and Publish pages. These appear in browser tabs and search engine results. If left blank, defaults based on your brand name are used.

Go to Site Settings → Favicon. Upload any square image (PNG recommended). The platform automatically resizes it to 32×32 pixels and saves it as favicon.ico in your site root. Browsers pick it up automatically — no code changes needed. For best results upload at least a 256×256 source image so the downscale is clean.

Go to Site Settings → Header Background. Upload an image, set the overlay opacity (darker overlay makes the logo text more readable), and set the header height in pixels. Toggle the background on or off without deleting the image. Wide landscape images work best — aim for at least 1400px wide.

Go to Site Settings → Background Mode. Select Dark and click Save. Dark mode applies a full dark colour palette — near-black page background, dark grey article surfaces, off-white text, and lightened link colours. Individual colour overrides in the Colour Scheme card take precedence over the dark mode palette.

Go to Site Settings → Colour Scheme. Each colour has a colour picker and a hex input field. You can customise the primary accent colour, background, surface, text, links, topbar, footer, header, sidebar title bar, and more. Changes layer on top of whatever background mode is active. Click Reset to Defaults to clear all overrides and return to the base palette.

Go to Site Settings → Analytics. Paste your Google Analytics measurement ID (format: G-XXXXXXXXXX) into the field and save. The tracking script is injected into every page automatically. Leave the field blank to disable tracking.

The homepage right sidebar contains these blocks in order:

1. Calendar — mini monthly calendar highlighting event dates
2. Events — upcoming events from the current month
3. Newswire — the 10 most recent post titles as quick links
4. Links — editable list of external links
5. Recent Comments — last 5 comments with snippets
6. Network — active sites in the autonomies network (fetched from autonomies.net)
7. World Events Wire — upcoming events from across network sites (network installs only)
8. Custom blocks — any custom sidebar blocks you've created

Go to Site Settings → Custom Sidebar Blocks. You can create up to several blocks, each with a title and body text. Toggle each block active or inactive independently. Blocks appear at the bottom of the sidebar in the order they were created. Edit their content at any time via Edit Mode on the homepage.

Enable Edit Mode via the admin bar, then click the Edit button on the Links block in the sidebar. Add a title and URL for each link. Use the remove button to delete links. Changes save immediately without leaving the page.

Go to Site Settings → World Events Wire. The toggle checkbox controls whether the block appears on your homepage. This setting only appears on network-hosted sites where the feature is available. The Refresh Network Cache button forces an immediate update of the network sites list without waiting 24 hours.

Submit a post via the Publish page and select Event as the topic. Additional fields appear — event date, event time, and location. Fill these in and submit. Once approved, the event automatically appears on the calendar page and in the Events sidebar block on the homepage. The calendar mini-view highlights the event date.

By design. Unapproved posts — including events — are not visible anywhere on the public site. The calendar date highlight and the Events sidebar block both filter for approved posts only. Approve the post in Moderation for it to appear.

The calendar page shows events across a rolling three-month window. Use the Previous and Next navigation to move between windows. The homepage Events sidebar block shows upcoming events from the current month only.

Via the contact form at message.html — linked from the main navigation as Contact and from the About page. Visitors enter their name, a contact email or handle, and a message. Submissions save directly to your database. No email is involved.

Go to Site Settings → Messages. Unread messages have a red left border and a NEW badge. Each message shows the sender's name, contact details, date, and full message text. The admin bar shows a badge count when there are unread messages — clicking Messages in the nav bar jumps directly to this section.

Click ✓ Mark Read on an unread message to mark it read and record the timestamp. Click delete to permanently remove the message from the database. Deleted messages cannot be recovered.

All public forms — post submissions, comments, registration, contact messages, and site requests — use two layers of spam protection:

• Honeypot field — a hidden field invisible to humans. Bots that fill in all fields automatically trigger it and are silently discarded.
• Timing check — forms submitted in under 3 seconds are rejected. Bots typically submit instantly; humans take longer.

All passwords are hashed using bcrypt before being stored in the database. Plain text passwords are never saved anywhere. Even with direct database access, passwords cannot be reversed from the stored hash.

Change your password immediately via Site Settings → Change Password. Log out all other sessions by clearing your session data in phpMyAdmin if needed. Review recent posts and comments in Moderation for anything suspicious. If your server credentials may also be compromised, contact your host immediately.

• World Events Wire — upcoming events pulled from all active network sites
• Network Sites block — list of all active sites on the network, fetched from autonomies.net and cached daily
• Provision tool — admin tool to create new network sites (main autonomies.net site only)
• Network Admin — manage network-wide settings, donate URL, and the public network sites list (main site only)
• Site Request form — public form for people to request a hosted site (main site only)

The Network block shows a list of active autonomies sites pulled from autonomies.net/network.json. It updates automatically once per day. Use the ↻ Refresh Network Cache button in Site Settings → World Events Wire to force an immediate update without waiting 24 hours.

The donate URL is set by the network operator via Network Admin. Individual sites can show or hide the button via Site Settings → Donation Button. When shown, a gold Donate button appears in the topbar on every page. The URL is synced automatically from autonomies.net/version.json during the daily update check.

Click Site Settings in the admin bar. The page is divided into cards, each controlling a different aspect of your site:

• Site Identity — logo name, tagline, meta description
• Header Background — background image, opacity, height
• Background Mode — light or dark mode
• Colour Scheme — individual colour overrides with colour pickers
• Page Titles — custom browser tab titles per page
• Custom Sidebar Blocks — create and toggle custom sidebar content
• World Events Wire — show/hide toggle and cache refresh (network only)
• Donation Button — show/hide the donate button in the topbar
• Analytics — Google Analytics measurement ID
• Favicon — upload and set the browser tab icon
• Messages — read and manage contact form submissions
• Change Password — update your admin account password

Yes. All settings are saved to the database and applied on the next page load. There is no cache to clear and no server restart required. Changes to colours, dark mode, and the logo appear immediately after saving and reloading any page.

Yes — click Reset to Defaults in the Colour Scheme card. This clears all individual colour overrides and returns to the base palette for whichever background mode (light or dark) is currently active. It does not affect dark mode selection, logo, or any other settings.