Varient - News & Magazine Script v2.2

by Codingest

Getting Started

Thank you for purchasing our script. If you have any questions that are beyond the scope of this help file, please feel free to contact us via our help desk. This is an online help desk for Varient. You can create your free account and use the system. Thanks so much!

Introduction

Varient is a multi-purpose news & magazine script. It has clean, responsive and user-friendly design. You can manage almost everything in your site with its powerful Admin panel. It is multi-author system and all authors have their own panel to manage their posts, videos and audios. It is secured, SEO optimized, fast and easy to use.

The technologies used:

• PHP CodeIgniter 4 Web Framework
• HTML 5
• CSS (Bootstrap)
• JQUERY
• AJAX

Key Features:

• Clean and Responsive Design
• Built Using Bootstrap
• Totally Secure System
• Multilingual System (New Language Can be Added Easily)
• RTL Support
• SEO Optimized
• SEO-Friendly URLs
• Layout Options (Light and Dark Mode)
• Unlimited Layout Colors
• Editable & Sortable Navigation (With Mega Menu)
• External Link & Dropdown Options for Navigation
• Responsive & Sortable Slider
• Responsive Ad Spaces for Any Kind of Ad Codes (Including Google AdSense)
• Create Ad Codes
• Author Reward System
• Progressive Web App (PWA) Support
• AWS S3 Integration
• Structured Data (JSON-LD)
• Adding Unlimited Fully Editable Pages
• Show & Hide Options for Page, Page Title, Page Breadcrumb, Page Right Column
• Gallery Page (Enable & Disable Option)
• Gallery Albums and Categories
• Add, Delete Photos
• Contact Page (With Google Map)
• Search in Site
• Reading List Page (Add & Remove from List)
• Featured Posts
• News Ticker
• Emoji Reactions
• Add, Delete, Update Posts
• Bulk Post Upload System
• Article, Gallery, Ordered List, Trivia Quiz, Personality Quiz, Video and Audio Post Formats
• Scheduled Posts
• Pending Posts
• Drafts
• Downloadable Files (DOC, ZIP, PDF..) for Posts
• Add Multiple Images to a Post
• GIF Support
• Add, Delete, Update Categories
• Newsletter (Send Html Email to All Registered Emails)
• Manage Subscribers
• Lazy Image Loading
• Dynamic Tag System
• Voting Poll (Add, Delete Unlimited Poll)
• Social Login (Facebook, Google and VKontakte)
• Social Sharing
• Social Media Links
• Sidebar Widgets (Add, Delete, Update Widgets)
• Widget: Popular Posts
• Widget: Recommended Posts
• Widget: Random Posts Slider
• Widget: Tags
• Widget: Voting Poll
• Page view Counts (Enable & Disable Option)
• Ajax Comment System
• Facebook Comments
• Comment Approval System
• Manage Comments
• Manage Contact Messages
• Advanced Post Options
• Database Cache System
• Roles & Permissions System
• Follow & Unfollow Users
• Email Verification
• Sitemap.xml Generator
• RSS Aggregator System (Auto Update with Cron Job) (Doesn't support full-text RSS)
• RSS Feeds (With Different Channels)
• Font Settings (New Google Fonts Can be Added Easily)
• Route Settings (Static Routes can be Edited)
• Maintenance Mode
• Rich Text Editor (Image and Video Can Be Added)
• Membership System with 4 Roles (Admin, Moderator, Author, User)
• Manage Registered Users
• Ban User Accounts
• Change User Role
• Admin & Author Profile Page
• Enable & Disable Membership System
• Enable & Disable Comment System
• Secure Authentication
• Password Reset
• Google Analytics
• Advanced Settings Options
• Visual Settings
• Change Logo, Favicon, Site Title, Site Description, etc. from Admin Panel
• Easy Installation Using Installation Wizard
• Detailed Documentation
• Runs on PHP 7.4 and Higher Versions

Security:
Varient is a secure system. There are various mechanisms to secure application. These mechanisms are:

• Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) Prevention
• Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Prevention
• Password Hashing
• Avoiding SQL Injection

Requirements:
There are some requirements for Varient to work on your server. These requirements are:

• PHP >= 7.4+
• cURL PHP Extension
• Fileinfo PHP Extension
• Exif PHP Extension
• Mbstring PHP Extension

Files

a) CSS Files

• AdminLTE.min.css and _all-skins.min.css: Contains general css codes for admin panel.
• bootstrap-toggle.min.css: Contains bootstrap toggle css codes.
• custom.css: Contains css fixes for admin panel.
• style.css: Contains main css codes.
• responsive.css: Contains reponsive css fixes.
• colors css files: Contains color options.
• Style.css file is separated into sections using:
  
  /* ============ 1. General layout CSS styles ============ */
  code
  /* ============ 2. Header ============ */
  code
  /* ============ 3. Slider ============ */
  code
  etc, etc.
  

b) JavaScript Files

• jquery-1.12.4.min.js: Javascript library
• app.min.js: This file contains general dashboard script codes.
• bootstrap-toggle.min.js: Contains bootstrap toggle javascript codes.
• custom.js: Contains custom script codes. There are custom functions and ajax post functions
• jquery.cookie.js: JavaScript library for handling cookies
• script.js: Contains javascript functions for front-end.
  
  Js files are separated into sections using:
  //ajax post delete image
  code
  //datatable function
  code
  etc, etc.
  

c) Plugins Plugins used in application:

• jQuery
  jQuery is a Javascript library that greatly reduces the amount of code that you must write.
• jQueryUI
  jQuery UI is a curated set of user interface interactions, effects, widgets, and themes built on top of the jQuery JavaScript Library.
• TinyMCE
  TinyMCE is a browser-based WYSIWYG content editor.
• Datatables
  DataTables is a plug-in for the jQuery Javascript library. It is a highly flexible tool, based upon the foundations of progressive enhancement, and will add
  advanced interaction controls to any HTML table.
• ICheck
  Highly customizable checkboxes and radio buttons.
• Pace
  Automatic page load progress bar.
• Tagsinput
  jQuery plugin providing a Twitter Bootstrap user interface for managing tags
• News Ticker
  Jquery news ticker plugin
• Magnific Popup
  Jquery Gallery plugin
• Owl-Carousel
  Responsive jquery slider plugin
• Jquery-confirm
  Jquery-confirm plugin
• Masonry-filter
  Jquery gallery plugin

Installation

License Code

You need a license code to install the script. You can create this license code with your domain name and Envato purchase code. Go to our help desk ( https://codingest.net/) and create your account on this system. Then generate your license code from the Licenses section (https://codingest.net/licenses).
If you want to change your domain name in the future, you can change it with the "Change Domain" option.

You can install the script by watching this video.

Or you can follow these steps to install the script:

1. Create a new Database with user that has all permissions.

• Go to cPanel and Click MySQL® Databases
  
  



• Create New Database
  
  



• Add New User
  
  



• Add User To Database
  
  



• Set User Permissions
  
  

2. Upload script files to your hosting (FTP).

1. Open your cPanel and go to File Manager section.
   
   
   
   
2. Go to main directory of your site. Most of the time this folder will be "public_html".
   
   
   
   
3. Open this folder and upload codecanyon-varient-news-magazine-script.zip file to this folder.
   
   
   
   
4. Rigth click the .zip file and select Extract option.
   
   
   
   
5. Move all files that in the "varient-v.." folder to main directory.
   
   
   
   
6. Delete unnecessary files/folders: "documentation", "varient-v.." and "codecanyon-varient-news-magazine-script.zip".
   
   
   
   

   Make sure that the .htaccess file exists in this directory. If you cannot see it, click Settings button at the top right corner and select Show Hidden Files (dotfiles) option. Also, cPanel can automatically change the content of this file. Please open this file and make sure the content of this file is like .htaccess below.

   If you are using NGINX server, .htaccess will not work on your server. In this case, you need to make these settings on your server: NGINX configuration for CodeIgniter

3. You will see this page after uploading all files to your FTP. Click "Install" to proceed. If you cannot see this page, you can access install page by entering this link to your browser address bar: http://yourdomain.com/install



4. Click "Go to Help Desk" button and generate your license code if you don't have a license code. Enter your license code and then click Next.



5. Check system requirements. If one of these extensions is not enabled, you must enable it from your server settings. If all requirements are provided, click Next.



6. Check folder permissions. If all folders are writable, click Next.



7. Enter your database credentials. Click next.



8. Enter your site URL, admin credentials and your Timezone and click finish. Site URL is your complete site address.
Some examples:
Installing to Main directory: https://abc.com
Installing to subdomain: https://test.abc.com
Installing to folder: https://abc.com/test

You need to enter "http" if you don't have SSL on your site. (Example: http://abc.com)



9. Delete the install folder.

.env Configuration File

This file contains some general settings for your site.

CI_ENVIRONMENT: Default value of this variable is "production". This option will not display if there is an error on your site. Instead, you will see the "An error occurred!" message. To see the errors, you need to change the value of this variable to "development".

Example:
CI_ENVIRONMENT = development

app.baseURL: This is your site base URL. It is very important to add your correct site URL to this field. If you add a wrong site URL, your site will not work.

Examples:
Installing to Main directory:
app.baseURL = https://domain.com
Installing to subdomain:
app.baseURL = https://demo.domain.com
Installing to folder:
app.baseURL = https://domain.com/new

PURCHASE_CODE: You need to enter your purchase code to this field.

LICENSE_KEY: You need to enter your license key to this field.

cookie.prefix: This value is used for cookies to avoid collisions. Default value is "vr", but you can change this value and add a unique value for your site. You must not add a special character to this field.

File Upload Settings

If you want to upload large files, you may need to make some settings on your server. Also, Varient performs image optimization while uploading images. This optimization uses memory.

If you try to upload large files without doing some settings on your server, you can get an error.

If you can't upload large files, you need to set these PHP values. These are recommended minimum values.

php_value upload_max_filesize 32M
php_value post_max_size 32M
php_value memory_limit 256M

To set these values follow the steps:

1. Go to your cPanel and click "Select PHP Version"
   
   

   

   
   
   
2. Then click "Switch to PHP Options"
   
   

   

   
   
   
3. Then set the values "upload_max_filesize", "post_max_size" and "memory_limit" as you see in the picture.
   
   

   

   
   
   

Quick Start

✓  Accessing Admin Panel: After installation, you will be redirected to home page. Login with your Admin email and password. After login, you will see your username in the navigation, click your username and click "Control Panel" link on the dropdown menu.

✓  Updating Profile Information: Click your username that in the top menu and then click "Settings" link. In this page you can edit your Email Address, Username, Slug and you can add some text about yourself.

✓  Changing Admin Password: Click your username that in the top menu and then click "Settings" link. Click "Change Password" tab. Fill out the form and change you password.

✓  Updating Contact Information: Click your username that in the top menu and then click "Settings" link. Click "Contact Informations" tab. Fill out the form and update your location information.

✓  Adding Social Links to Your Profile: Click your username that in the top menu and then click "Settings" link. Click "Social Media" tab. Fill out the form and update your social links.

✓  Adding Category: Go to "Categories" section from navigation and click Categories. Then fill out the Add Category form and click Add Category button. To add subcategory, Go to "Categories" section and click Subcategories. Then fill out the Add Subcategory form and click Add Subcategory button.

✓  Adding Post: To add a post you should first add a category. After adding a category, go to "Add Post" section. Select you post format and add your post.

✓  Adding Page: Go to "Pages" section from navigation and click Add Page. Then fill out the form and click Add Page button. If you want to manage existing pages: Go to "Pages" section from navigation and click Pages. Then you will see all pages in your site. You can make any change by selecting edit option for each page.

✓  Adding Widget: Go to "Widgets" section from navigation and click Add Widget. Then fill out the form and click Add Widget button. If you want to manage existing widgets: Go to "Widgets" section from navigation and click Widgets. Then you will see all widgets in your site. You can make any change by selecting edit option for each widget.

✓  Adding Poll: Go to "Polls" section from navigation and click Add Poll. Then fill out the form and click Add Poll button.

✓  Adding Images to Gallery: To add images to gallery, first you should add some albums for images. Go to "Gallery" section from navigation and click "Albums". Then fill out the Add Category form and click Add Category button. After adding some albums, go to "Gallery" section and click Images. Then fill out the Add Image form and click Add Image button.

✓  Sending Email to Subscribers (Newsletter): To use newsletter feature, you should first make your email settings. Go to "Settings" section from navigation and click Email Settings link. Enter your mail server informations and click Save Changes button. Then go to "Newsletter" section from navigation and fill out the Send Email to Registered Emails form and click the Send Mail button.

✓  Running Ads: If you want to add your ad codes to your website, this is very easy in the Varient. Go to "Ad Spaces" section and add your ad codes then click Save Changes button.

✓  Managing Users: Go to "Users" section from navigation. You will see all users registered. You can select Change User Role, Delete User and Ban User options for each user.

✓  Adding Author: Varient is a multi-author system, so authors can add posts. To add an author to the system first user should register from register page. Then Admin should go to "Users" section from navigation and should set user role as Author. After this process user will became an Author and he can reach his own Panel to manage his posts.

Admin Panel

There are some counters in the Admin panel's home page. These counters:

1. Posts: Shows Posts count
2. Pending Posts: Shows Pending Posts count (Hidden post count)
3. Drafts: Shows Drafts count
4. Scheduled Posts: Shows Scheduled Posts count

In addition to these, there are also sections which the last five comments, last contact messages and last registered users are shown in the index page.

Navigation

You can manage your navigation from this section. You can easily sort your menu links with the drag and drop option. Also, you can change parent link of each item with drag and drop option.

Add Menu Link: You can add a new link to the navigation from this form. Also you can add a dropdown link to the navigation by selecting "Parent Link".
Menu Limit: You can set the number of items that will be displayed on the main navigation with this option. For example, if you set this to 9, you will see 9 links on your main navigation. If you have more than 9 links, these links will be displayed under a "More" menu.

Themes

You can select a layout option from this section.

Pages

You can add, update or delete your pages from this section.

Add Page: Go to "Pages" section from navigation and click Add Page. Then fill out the form.

• Title: Your page title.
• Slug: Slug for SEO friendly url. If your page title consists of special characters your title slug will not be generated. In this case you should add custom slug.
• Description: You can add Description (Meta Tag) for page.
• Keywords: You can add Keywords (Meta Tag) for page.
• Parent Link: You can select parent link.
• Menu Order: Your pages will order according to this value.
• Location: You can select your page link location.
• Visibility: You can hide or show your page.
• Show Only to Registered Users: If you want to show page only to registered users you should select yes.
• Show Title: You can hide or show your page title.
• Show Breadcrumb: You can hide or show your page breadcrumb.
• Show Right Column: You can hide or show sidebar on your page.
• Content: Your page content. You can add image and video with text editor.

Update Page: Go to "Pages" section from navigation and click Pages. You will see page list and you can make changes on pages by selecting "Edit" option for each pages.

Delete Page: On the same list you can delete pages by selecting "Delete" option for each pages.

Add Post

You can add posts from this section. After clicking "Add Post" link from the navigation, you will see post format options. You need to select one of these options to add your post.

• Title: Post title.
• Slug: Slug for SEO friendly URL. If you leave this field empty, the system automatically generate your title slug.
• Summary: You can add short description about post.
• Keywords: You can add Keywords (Meta Tag) for post.
• Visibility: You can hide or show your post.
• Category: You should select a category for post.
• Subcategory: You can select a subcategory for post.
• Show Right Column: You can hide or show right column. If you hide it, your post will be displayed full page.
• Add to Featured: You can add your post to the featured posts.
• Add to Breaking: You can add your post to the breaking news (newsticker).
• Add to Slider: You can add your post to the index slider.
• Add to Recommended: You can add your post to the recommended posts.
• Show Only to Registered Users: If you want to show post only to the registered users you can select this option.
• Scheduled Post: You can select a future date for your posts. Your posts will be automatically published when the date you select is reached.
• Tags: Tags for post.
• Optional Url: If you enter a url here there will be a button in your post page to access this url.
• Show Only to Registered Users: If you want to show post only to the registered users you can select this option.
• Main Image: Image for post.
• Content: Post content. You can add image and video with text editor.

Additional Images: If you want to add more than one main image to your post, you can select more images from this section. If you select an image from here, the slider will be active (There will be a slider in post details page).

Files: If you want to add downloadable files to your posts (PDF, ZIP, DOC .. etc), you can add them from this section.

Adding Video Post

You can upload or embed your video to add a video post. If you want to upload your video, you can upload it via file manager and then select it for your post. If you want to embed a video from Youtube, Vimeo, Dailymotion or Facebook, you can enter your video URL to "Video URL" field. After adding your link to this field, you need to click "Get Video" button. When you click this button, your video will be added to your post.
If you want to add a video from sites other than these sites, you can add your video embed code to the "Video Embed Code" field.

Bulk Post Upload

You can upload your posts with a CSV file from this section. There is a CSV file template on the "Bulk Post Upload" section. You can download this file and add your posts to this file.
You need to add your posts to this file according to these rules:

Field	Description
lang_id	Data Type: Integer Required Id of the language of the post Example: 1
title	Data Type: String Title of the post Required Example: Test post title
title_slug	Data Type: String Slug of the post. You need enter a valid slug if you want to fill this field. If you do not add the slug, the system will generate the slug automatically. Optional Example: test-post-title
keywords	Data Type: String Keywords of the post Optional Example: test, post, title
summary	Data Type: String Summary of the post Optional Example: This post summary
content	Data Type: String Content of the post Optional Example: This post content
category_id	Data Type: Integer Category id of the post Required Example: 2
post_type	Data Type: String Type of the post (article or video) Required Example: article
video_embed_code	Data Type: String Video embed code of the post Optional Example: https://www.youtube.com/embed/V9ypxcc0TpI
status	Data Type: Boolean Status of the post (1 or 0). If you want to add posts as draft, you need to write 0. Required Example: 1
image_url	Data Type: String Image URL of the post. If you add an image URL, the script will download the image and save it in your server by resizing. Optional Example: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Labrador-sea-paamiut.jpg
image_description	Data Type: String Description of the post image Optional Example: Labrador sea
tags	Data Type: String Tags of the post Optional Example: test, post, title

Posts

You can add, update or delete posts from this section.

Post Options

You can access post options by clickling "Select an option" button in the posts page.

• Edit: You can edit posts with this option.
• Add to Slider: This option will add the post to the slider.
• Add to Featured: This option will add the post to the featured section (the four boxes at the right side of the slider).
• Add to Breaking: This option will add the post to the breaking news (newsticker).
• Add to Recommended: This option will add the post to the recommended posts (the posts in the sidebar of the site).
• Delete: You can delete posts with this option.

Pending Posts

You can see the posts that have not been approved yet from this section. Admin can select "Approve" option for these posts to approve them. Also, if you select "Hide" for "Visibility" option for posts, these posts will be added to Pending Posts.

Scheduled Posts

You can see your scheduled posts from this section. Your post will be automatically published when the date you select is reached. If you want to publish immediately, you can click "Publish" option.

You need to create a cron job function to automatically publish your posts. Read this section to see how you can add a cron job function in your server: Cron Job

This is the URL that you need to run with your cron job function: http://domain.com/cron/check-scheduled-posts
**Do not forget to change "domain.com" with your domain name.

Drafts

You can see drafts (the posts not yet added) from this section.

RSS Feeds

You can add, update or delete RSS Feeds from this section.

Import RSS Feed

Go to "RSS Feeds" section from navigation and click Import RSS Feed. Then fill out the form.

• Feed Name: Feed name.
• Feed URL: You should enter a valid RSS Feed URL to this field.
• Number of Posts to Import: You can define posts count that you want to add your site.
• Category: Posts will be added to category that you selected.
• Subcategory: Posts will be added to subcategory that you selected.
• Images: If you want to download the images to your server, you need to select "Download Images to My Server" option. If you don't want to download the images, you need to select "Show Images from Original Source" option
• Auto Update: You can select this option if you want to update with Cron Job.
• Generate Keywords from Title: If you select "Yes" for this option, the system will create keywords from the title during adding posts.
• Show Read More Button: You can hide or show Read More button with this option.
• Add Posts as Draft: You can add your posts as draft by selecting this option.
• Read More Button Text: You can add a text for the Read More button.

Update Feed

Go to "RSS Feeds" section from navigation and click RSS Feeds. You will see RSS feeds list and you can make changes on RSS feed by selecting "Edit" option for each RSS feeds.

Delete Feed

On the same list you can delete RSS feeds by selecting "Delete" option for each RSS feeds.

Cron Job

You need to create a cron job function to automatically add posts from your RSS feed. Read this section to see how you can add a cron job function in your server: Cron Job

This is the URL that you need to run with your cron job function: http://domain.com/cron/update-feeds
**Do not forget to change "domain.com" with your domain name.

Categories

You can add, update or delete categories from this section.

Add Category

Go to "Categories" section from navigation and click Categories. Then fill out the Add Category form.

• Category Name: Category name.
• Category Slug : Slug for SEO friendly url. If your category name consists of special characters your slug will not be generated. In this case you should add custom slug.
• Category Description: You can add Description (Meta Tag) for category.
• Category Keywords: You can add Keywords (Meta Tag) for category.
• Category Color: You should select a color for category. This color will be used for your category block color and category label color.
• Menu Order: Your categories will be listed according to this order.
• Show on Menu: You can show or hide your categories on the menu.
• Show at Homepage: You can show or hide your categories at Homepage.
• Category Block Style: You should select a block style for category.
• Parent Category: You should select a top (parent) category.

Update Category

Go to "Categories" section from navigation and click Categories. On the category list you can make changes on categories by selecting "Edit" option for each categories.

Delete Category

On the same list you can delete categories by selecting "Delete" option for each categories.

Widgets

You can add, delete or update sidebar widgets from this section.

Add Widget

Go to "Widgets" section from navigation and click Add Widget. Then fill out the form.

• Widget Title: Widget title.
• Widget Order: Widgets will be listed according to this order.
• Widget Visibility: You can hide or show a widget.
• Content: Widget content.
• Where To Display: Widgets are connected to the categories (except the classic theme). When you add a category, it will be displayed in full width on the homepage (without a sidebar). If you select a category with this option, the widget will appear as the sidebar of the category you selected.

Update Widget

Go to "Widgets" section from navigation and click Widgets. On the widget list you can make changes on widgets by selecting "Edit" option for each widgets.

Delete Widget

On the same list you can delete widgets by selecting "Delete" option for each widgets.

Polls

Varient has poll feature. You can add unlimited polls and you can manage these polls from this section.

Add Poll: Go to "Polls" section from navigation and click Add Poll. Then fill out the form.

• Question: Poll question.
• Options: Options for your question.
• Status: You can enabled or disabled a poll.

Update Poll: Go to "Polls" section from navigation and click Polls. On the poll list you can make changes on polls by selecting "Edit" option for each polls.

Delete Poll: On the same list you can delete poll by selecting "Delete" option for each polls.

Gallery

You can manage the gallery from this section.
Before adding new images you have to add albums for gallery.
To add a new image, select your image from "Add New Image" form and then click "Add Image" button.
If you want to delete an image from gallery, click the Select an option button and click delete.

Contact Messages

You can see the messages that users sent from the contact form on the site from this section.
If you want to delete a message from list, click the Select an option button and click delete.

Comments

Varient has comment approval system. Only approved comments will be published in the site. If you want to disable this system and publish directly all the comments, you can disable this system from "Preferences" section in the Admin panel.

Pending Comments

You can see and approve the pending comments from this section.

Approved Comments

You can see and delete the approved comments from this section.

Newsletter

The Newsletter allows you to share some updates and interesting things with the users.

Users: All registered users are listed on this list. You can select the registered users that you want to send email and click the "Send Email" button.
Subscribers: All subscribers are listed on this list. You can select the subscribers that you want to send email and click the "Send Email" button.

Settings:

• Status: You can enable or disable the newsletter system with this option.
• Newsletter Popup: Varient has a newsletter popup. New visitors will see this popup when they open the site. You can enable or disable this popup with this option.

Reward System

Reward system allows authors to earn money by the number of page views of their posts. If you enable this system, you agree to pay authors based on page views.

How it works?
Admin need to add a reward amount for per 1000 page views. After adding this amount and selecting "Enable" for status, the system will start to count of every unique page views for authors and the earnings will be calculted automatically by the system. The earnings collected in the authors' accounts will be sent to the authors manually by the site management. Site management can make these payments through "IBAN", "SWIFT" or "PayPal". After the payment is made manually, a "Payout" record need to be created for this payment in the "Reward System / Payouts" section. The generated payout amount will be automatically deducted from the author's balance and the payment will be completed. Authors can see these payments in the "Payouts" section of their profile.

How does the script count unique page views?
Our script uses Cookies, IP Address and User-Agent information to count unique page views. While counting these page views, it also checks whether the request is sent by a robot, browser or a mobile device. It does not count the requests that coming from the robots.

Settings

• Status: You can enable or disable this system with this option.
• Reward Amount for 1000 Pageviews: The reward amount. Earnings per page view will be calculated by dividing by 1000.

Currency

You need to enter your curreny details from this section.

Payout Methods

These are the payment methods that you can send money to authors. You can disable unwanted methods from this section.

Earnings

You can see the balance of the authors from this section. Authors can select different payout methods to receive their earnings. You can see the default payout account details of the authors by clicking the "Payout Method" button.

Payouts

You can see the payments made to the authors in this section.

Add Payout

After paying authors manually, you need to add a payout from this section. The payout amount will be deducted from the author's current balance.

Pageviews

You can see the page views in the last 30 days from this section.

Ad Spaces

Varient has a mobile-friendly advertising system.
There are 2 different ad code fields for each ad space (Desktop Banner and Mobile Banner) and thanks to these options, your site will not have any design problems on mobile devices.
The Desktop Banner will be displayed on screens larger than 992px and the Mobile Banner will be displayed on screens smaller than 992px. So when adding an ad you have to fill both fields.

Ad Size: You can add an ad of any size by paying attention to the placement of the ad spaces. You need to enter the dimensions of the ad with this option.
Ad Code: You will paste your ad code into this field.

AdSense Activation Code

You can add your Google Adsense code from this section. This code will be added to footer of the site and it will be enabled for all pages. After adding this code, you can add your ad codes to ad spaces.

Users

You can manage registered users from this section. Go to "Users" section from navigation.

Options

• Change User Role: If you want to change user role you can use "Change User Role" option.
• Confirm User Email: You can verify a user email with this option.
• Enable Reward System: You can enable author reward system with this option.
• Ban User: If you want to ban a user you can use "Ban User" option.
• Edit: You can edit a user by selecting edit option.
• Delete: You can delete a user by selecting delete option.

There are 4 roles in the system and you can manage permissions for these roles from "Roles & Permissions" section.

Add User

You can add a new user from this section.

Administrators

You can see administrators from this section.

Password Reset

To use the Password Reset section, you need to make your Email Settings. The system will send a password reset link, so it is necessary to enter a working email server credentials to use email system. You can read more about email settings from here.

If you have not set up your email settings yet and have forgotten your password, you can reset your password from your database.
To do this, open your database via phpMyAdmin. Click on the users table and find your account in this table. Paste the following code to your password column. Make sure there is no space at the beginning or the ending of the code.

$2a$08$drmgGpMVGzdyiv7q5LUt3eUne8xh05XKrJPgMKaR3RgRwCQKXZpdu

After adding this code to your password column, you can login with "1234" password.

Roles & Permissions

Varient is a multi-author system, so there are different roles in the system. These roles are: Admin, Moderator, Author and User.

You can set permissions for these roles from this section.

SEO Tools

You can manege your site title, site keywords, site description etc. from this section.

• Site Title: You site title.
• Home Title: Your homepage title.
• Site Description: Your site description.
• Keywords: Your site keywords.
• Google Analytics: You can add your Google Analytics code from here.

Sitemap

You can generate a sitemap.xml file from this section.

Generate Sitemap: This option will create a sitemap.xml file on your main directory. You can access this file with "http://domain.com/sitemap.xml" URL.

If your site has more than 50,000 links, the sitemap.xml file will be created in parts. Each of these sitemaps will have 49,000 links.

If you want to update your sitemap.xml automatically with a time interval, you need to create a cron job function on your server. Read this section to see how you can add a cron job function in your server: Cron Job

This is the URL that you need to run with your cron job function: http://domain.com/cron/update-sitemap
**Do not forget to change "domain.com" with your domain name.

Social Login Settings

You can make your social login settings from this section.

Storage

You can select your storage option from this section. If you select the "Local Storage" option, uploaded files will be stored in your server. If you select the "AWS S3 Storage" option, uploaded files will be stored in your AWS S3 account. To use AWS S3, you need to follow these steps:

AWS S3 Integration:

1. Go to https://aws.amazon.com/s3/ URL and create your account.
   
   
2. Click the "AWS Management Console" link.
   
   

   
   
   

3. Click the "Services" link from the top menu and then click the "S3" link under the "Storage" section.
   
   

   

   
   
   
4. Click the "Create bucket" button.
   
   

   

   
   
   
5. Enter your "bucket name" and select your region. "us-east-1" will be your region code and you need to enter this value from the Admin panel. Your region code can be different according to your location.
   
   

   

   
   Select the "ACLs enabled" option.
   
   

   

   
   
   Unselect the "Block all public" option and select "I acknowledge that the..." option.
   
   

   

   
   Select these options and Click the "Create bucket" button.
   
   

   

   
   
   

6. Click the Security Credentials option.
   
   

   

   
   
   
7. Go to the Access keys section and click the Create Access Key button. and create your access keys.
   
   

   

   
   
   
8. Select the option and click the Create Access Key button.
   
   

   

   
   
   
9. Copy your keys and add them from the "Storage / AWS S3 Storage" section in the Admin panel.
   
   

   

   
   
   

Adding Created API Keys from the Admin Panel:

After creating your bucket and your API keys (access key and secret key), you need to go to the Storage section in your Admin panel and add the credentials from the AWS S3 Storage form.

AWS Access Key: Enter the access key that you created.
AWS Secret Key: Enter the secret key that you created.
Bucket Name: Enter your bucket name. (Example: my-bucket)
Region Code: Enter your region code. (Example: us-east-1)

Cache System

You can enable or disable cache system from this section.

• Refresh Cache Files When Database Changes: If you select yes, the cache files will be refreshed, if there is a change in the database.
• Cache Refresh Time (Minute) : Cache files will automatically refresh after this time.

Google News

Google News is a news aggregator service developed by Google. It presents a continuous flow of links to articles organized from thousands of publishers and magazines. With this option, you can send the publications of your own website to Google News and increase the number of visitors to your site.

How It Works?

To use Google News, there must be an RSS link for your site's latest feeds. You can generate this feed from the "Generate Feed URL" section. In this section, you can select different options (language, category etc.) to generate your feed. After selecting the options, you can click on the "Generate Feed URL" button and get the feed URL. After generating your feed URL, you can submit this to Google News.
To submit your site to Google News, please read the Google documentation: Show up in Google News

**This RSS feed uses cache system and it will be reset every 15 minutes. So an article you add will be added to this feed after the cache is reset.

Cron Job

A cron job is a Linux command for scheduling a task to be executed sometime in the future. You can set a cron job to update your sitemap, scheduled posts or RSS feeds periodically.

Follow these steps to set up cron job:

1. Go to your cPanel and click cron jobs.
   
   
   
   
2. Select the time interval that the cron job will run and your command and create the cron job.
   
   
   
   

   Commands

   Update Sitemap:
   

   wget -O /dev/null http://domain.com/cron/update-sitemap

   Check Scheduled Posts:
   

   wget -O /dev/null http://domain.com/cron/check-scheduled-posts

   Update RSS Feeds:
   

   wget -O /dev/null http://domain.com/cron/update-feeds

   You need to paste these commads to "Command" field and you need to create a different cron job for each task.
   **Do not forget to change "domain.com" with your domain name.

Preferences

You can manage your site settings from this section.

General

• Multilingual System: You can enable or disable multilingual system in your site.
• Registration System: You can enable or disable registration system in your site.
• RSS: You can enable or disable RSS in your site.
• RSS Content: By default, the contents of the posts will not be added to the RSS feeds created on your site. Only the descriptions of the posts will be added. If you want to add the content of the posts to the RSS feeds, you can select the "Distribute Post Content" option.
• File Manager: Varient is a multi-author system. If you select "Show all Files" for this option, all authors can see all uploaded files. If you select "Show Only Users Own Files", authors will only see their uploaded files. They cannot see files uploaded by other authors.
• Audio Download Button: If you want to enabled download option for the audios that you uploaded, you can enable this option.
• Show User's Email on Profile: You can hide users email on their profile with this option.
• Progressive Web App (PWA): You can enable Progressive Web App (PWA) support with this option.

Homepage

• Show Featured Section: You can show or hide featured (slider and the four boxes at the right of the slider) section in your site.
• Show Latest Posts on Homepage: You can show or hide latest posts on your homepage.
• Show News Ticker: You can show or hide news ticker.
• Show Latest Posts on Slider: You can show the last added posts on the slider with this option.
• Show Latest Posts on Featured Posts: You can show the last added posts on the featured posts section with this option.
• Sort Slider Posts: You can sort slider posts with by date or slider order with this option.
• Sort Featured Posts: You can sort featured posts with by date or featured order with this option.

Posts

• Comment System: You can enable or disable comment system in your site.
• Comment Approval System: You can enable or disable comment approval system with this option. If you disable this system, the comments will be directly displayed in your site.
• Facebook Comments: You can enable or disable Facebook comments in your site.
• Emoji Reactions: You can enable or disable emoji reactions in your site.
• Show Post Author: You can show or hide post author.
• Show Post Date: You can show or hide post date.
• Show Post View Count: You can show or hide post page view count (number of pageviews for posts).
• Approve Added User Posts: If you enable this option, new added users posts will require approval.
• Approve Updated User Posts: If you enable this option, updated users posts will require approval.
• Redirect RSS Posts to the Original Site: This option allows you to directly redirect to the source site when the links are clicked for the posts added to your site with an RSS feed. So if you enable this option, the visitors will be redirected to the original site when they click to read a post.
• Number of Posts Per Page (Pagination): You can set post count in each page from this field.

Post Formats

You can enable or disable post formats from this section.

Auto Post Deletion

This system allows you to delete your old posts automatically. For example, if you enable this system and set the "Number of Days" value to 30, the system will delete the articles added before 30 days.

If you want to delete only the RSS posts, you can select the "Delete only RSS Posts" option.

File Upload

• Image File Format: Uploaded images will be converted to the selected image format. You can choose the format you want with this option.
• Allowed File Extensions: Hackers often hack websites by uploading some files. To prevent such security issues, the system allows only allowed file types to be uploaded. You can add the extensions of the file types you want to be uploaded to your site from this field.

  We do not recommend you to add files extensions that can create security problems. Example, PHP, PY, ASP, JSP, SH, JS etc.

Progressive Web Apps (PWA)

A Progressive Web Application (PWA) is a type of application delivered through the web, built using common web technologies including HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It is intended to work on any platform that uses a standards-compliant browser. If you enable PWA support for your site, you can add your site to your home screen of your mobile device. You will see your application icon of your site on your mobile devices and it will work like a mobile application when you open it.

Enabling PWA for Your Site

1. Make sure SSL is active on your site.
2. Go to Preferences section from Admin panel and select "Enable" for "Progressive Web App (PWA)" option.
3. Download pwa.zip file from this URL: https://codingest.net/download-pwa
4. Open this .zip file and upload "manifest.json" and "pwa-sw.js" to root directory of your site.
   
   
   
   
5. Open "manifest.json" file and edit this file for your site. Change the texts in this file (name, description, short_name) for your site and replace "https://domain.com" with your domain. Example: https://codingest.com
   Also, you can change "ltr" to "rtl" if your language is "right to left".
   
   

   If you want to change your application icon, you can change the images in the "assets/img/pwa" folder.

Adding Application Icon to the Home Screen of the Mobile Device

After enabling PWA, you will see an "+Add to Home Screen" option when you open your site with an Adroid device. If you open your site with iPhone (Safari), you can see this option in the options menu of the browser.

Route Settings

You can change static routes in your site from this section.

Email Settings

To send emails, you must create a mail account on your server and you must enter your email account credentials to these fields:

• Mail Service: Varient has Swift Mailer and PHP Mailer email libraries. It also has Mailjet API option. You can select one of them to send emails.
• Mail Protocol: SMTP or Mail. Default: SMTP. But some mail servers use Mail protocol. In this case you should use Mail protocol.
• Encryption: TLS or SSL. Default: TLS. If your server does not support sending with SSL, you should choose TLS.
• Mail Host: Your mail server (E.g: mail.example.com)
• Mail Port: Your mail port. Default: 587
• Mail Username: Your username (E.g: mail@example.com)
• Mail Password: Your password
• Mail Title: Your email title
• Reply-To: If recipients reply to your e-mail, the reply will go to this e-mail address.

Mailjet Email Service

Mailjet is an Email service that gives 200 free emails per day. You can easily use this system by creating a free account on the Mailjet site.

You can follow these steps to use this service:

• Go to this URL and create your account: https://app.mailjet.com/signup
  
• After creating your account, go to this page and get your API keys: https://app.mailjet.com/account/apikeys
  
• Go to "Email Settings" section in the Admin panel and select the "Mailjet" as the "Mail Service" option. Then add your API Key, Secret Key and Mailjet Email Address.

**In the Mailjet Email Address field, you must enter the email address you registered with the Mailjet site.

Mail Protocol

Mail protocol allows you to use the default PHP mail function and allows you to send email without any extra settings. But this function is disabled on most servers for security reasons. If this function is active on your server, you can select the Mail protocol and use it without making any other settings.

Example:

Mail Protocol: Mail
Mail Title: Varient
Reply-To: noreply@domain.com

SMTP Protocol

If the Mail protocol is not working on your server, you need to use the SMTP protocol. You need a mail server for using SMTP protocol. You can use your own server or Amazon SES as your mail server.

1. Using Your Own Server

If you want to use the mail service of your own server, you can create a mail account on your server and make the necessary settings with this account. To do this, you need to create a mail account on your server and know which protocol and port values your server uses. If you can't see these values from your server's management panel, you can ask help from your server provider.

Example:

Mail Protocol: SMTP
Mail Library: Swift Mailer or PHP Mailer
Encryption: TLS
Mail Host: smtp.domain.com
Mail Port: 587
Mail Username: info@domain.com
Mail Password: 1234
Mail Title: Varient
Reply-To: noreply@domain.com

2. Using Amazon Simple E-mail Service (SES)

Amazon SES is a cloud-based email sending service. You can create your Amazon SES account and send emails with this service. This is not a free service, check this page for pricing: https://aws.amazon.com/ses/pricing/

If you want to use this service, follow these steps to make your email settings:

• Go to https://aws.amazon.com/ses/ and create your account.
  
  
• Click AWS Management Console
  
  
  
  
  
• Click the "Simple Email Service" link under the Services menu
  
  
  
  
  
• Click the "SMTP Settings" link from left menu.
  
  
  
  
  
• Click the "Create My SMTP Credentials" button.
  
  
  
  
  
• Click the "Create" button.
  
  
  
  
  
• Your credentials will be created after these steps.
  
  
  
  
• After creating your credentials, you can add these credentials from Email Settings in the Admin panel.
  
  Example:

  Mail Protocol: SMTP
  Mail Library: Swift Mailer or PHP Mailer
  Encryption: TLS
  Mail Host: email-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com
  Mail Port: 587
  Mail Username: AKIAVIAANDJBBXXXXXXX
  Mail Password: BPj7ailKjbITgyGF6brROnVIflfdfdydbdklsdsds
  Reply-To: noreply@domain.com

  
  
  

Email Verification: You can enable or disable email verification from this section.

Contact Messages : If you want to send contact messages to your email address, you can select "Yes" for "Send Contact Messages to Email Address" option by adding your email address.

Font Settings

You can change your site fonts from this section.

Add Font

If you want to add new fonts to your site, you can add them from this section. Follow these steps to add a new font:

1. Go to Google Fonts: https://fonts.google.com
2. Click the red plus icon for the font that you want to add.
3. You will see "Family Selected" box at the right bottom of the page. Click on this box.
4. Copy the font URL and enter it to "URL" field.
   E.g: <link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">
5. Copy the CSS rule and enter it to "Font Family" field.
   E.g: font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif;

Language Settings

You can manage your languages from this section.

• Set As Default: You can set your default language with this option.
• Edit Translations: After adding a language, you can click this button and translate all texts in the script in to your language.
• Export: This option allows you to download your language. It will downloaded in JSON format and you can import it to your another website. Or you can use it as a backup of your language.

Add Language

You can add your new language from this section.

Import Language

If you have a JSON language file, you can import it from this section.

Genaral Settings

Genaral Settings

• Timezone: You can set your timezone from this field.
• Cookie Prefix: This a prefix that will be added to every cookie variable on your site and it will prevent collisions.
• Application Name: Your site name.
• Footer About Section: About your site. This will be shown in the footer.
• Post Optional Url Button Name: You can set a new name for your optional button.
• Copyright: You can update copyright section from here.

Contact Settings

• Address: Your address
• Email: Your email address
• Phone: Your phone number
• Contact Text: You can add some text about contact.

Social Media Settings

You can add your social links from this section.

Facebook Comments

If you want to use Facebook comment plugin you have to add your plugin code to this section.

How to Get This Code:

1. Go to https://developers.facebook.com and click Add a new app.
2. Click Settings and then click +Add platform.
3. Select website and enter your site url and click save changes.
4. Then go to https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/comments/ URL. Enter your site URL to "URL to comment on" field. Enter 750 to "Width" field and click Get Code button.
5. Then copy the code in the "STEP 1" and paste to Facebook Comments field.
   
   

Cookies Warning

You can show a warning for using cookies from this section.

Custom Header Codes

You can add your custom codes (E.g. CSS) to this field. These codes will be added in the <head> tags of your site.

You need to add your CSS codes between <style></style> tags.
Example:

<style>

body {

    background-color: #00a65a;

}

</style>

Custom Footer Codes

You can add your custom codes (E.g. JavaScript) to this field. These codes will be added to footer of your site.

You need to add your JavaScript codes between <script></script> tags.
Example:

<script>

alert('Hello!');
</script>

Google reCAPTCHA

Varient uses Google reCAPTCHA to protect website from spam and abuse. To enable this feature:

1. Go to this link: https://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/v3beta.html
2. Click the "v3 Admin Console" link.
3. Click "+" button at the top menu.
4. Select "reCAPTCHA s2" and "I'm not a robot Checkbox" options and generate your API keys.

Maintenance Mode

If you want to prepere your site before going live or if you want to close your site to visitors, you can enable this mode. If you enable it, only Admin can access the site. Other visitors will see a "Coming Soon!" text.

Update Guide

You can find all instructions to update your site in this section. If you don't know your current version, you can check it from the version.txt file in the main directory of your site.

Example Update Video: