Managing your website in WP Squared

Overview #

The Expanded Website View allows you to configure settings and view important information for your website. Click the Domain Details icon to open the Expanded Website View. You can also View your website, Clone your website, or set your website to Maintenance Mode from this interface. Each tab in the Expanded Website View provides a different set of information and configuration options.

Expanded Website View #

Overview Tab

The Overview tab provides a variety of statistics about your website.

The 7-day Highlights show the number of unique hits on your site, unique visitors, page views, and bandwidth used over the last seven days.

Note: These statistics only reflect communication with this server. They may not be complete if you have caching or a Content Delivery Network enabled.

The Performance section shows how well your website performs for desktop and mobile browsers.
The Website Traffic section shows your site’s recent traffic. Without recent data, these areas may not display accurate information.

WP Squared collects performance information from PageSpeed web performance tools provided by Google. Additional data may be available by clicking the View More button.

Themes Tab

The Themes tab displays the currently active theme and any installed themes. You can install other themes from the WordPress directory by searching for them. Themes are listed in alphabetical order and show whether they are Active or Inactive.

To activate another theme, click the Activate button on the theme and confirm the action.
To install a new theme, click Install New Theme and search for a publicly listed WordPress theme.
To delete a theme, click the trash can icon.

Plugins Tab

The Plugins tab shows the plugins available for use by default.

To activate a plugin, toggle the Active switch on the plugin tile.
To install a new plugin, click Install New Plugin, enter your search terms, and choose a publicly available WordPress plugin. After installation, the plugin must still be activated before use.
To delete a plugin, click the trash can icon. If the plugin is in use on your website, deleting it may cause part of your site to stop working correctly.

Settings Tab

The Settings tab allows you to configure tools and Auto Updates for your WordPress installation, themes, and plugins.

Tools

You can enable or disable several tools for your website, including:

Search engine indexing
Debugging
Password protection
Hotlink protection
Taking over wp-cron.php
NGINX caching

To learn more about each tool, hover over the tooltip icon if available.

WordPress Version Updates

To configure Auto Updates for your WordPress installation, select your preferred option:

None. I will apply updates manually. — No WordPress updates will be installed unless you choose to install them yourself.
Only apply minor version updates. I will apply major version updates manually. — Minor updates will be installed automatically, but major updates must be applied manually.
Apply all updates automatically. This is the most secure option. — All WordPress updates will be installed automatically. This is the recommended option.

Theme Updates

To configure Auto Updates for themes, select your preferred option:

Default. Use the setting defined by the theme for all update types.
Automatically apply security updates. All other update types will follow the default theme setting.
Apply all updates automatically. This will override the default setting. This is the most secure option.

Plugin Updates

To configure Auto Updates for plugins, select your preferred option:

Default. Use the setting defined by the plugin for all update types.
Automatically apply security updates. All other update types will follow the default plugin setting.
Apply all updates automatically. This will override the default setting. This is the most secure option.

You can also choose to have vulnerable plugins automatically deactivated. This option is usually enabled by default.

Advanced Tab

Warning: Proceed with caution. Changes to the settings on this tab can cause your website to stop working correctly.

The Advanced tab provides information about your WP Squared installation and allows you to make changes to advanced features such as the Zone Editor and PHP settings.

Database

The Database section contains your WP Squared database information. This information cannot be changed from this interface. If you need to make database changes, click Open in phpMyAdmin.

Zone Editor

The Zone Editor allows you to create, edit, and delete Domain Name System (DNS) zone records. DNS converts human-readable domain names into IP addresses so visitors can reach your website.

To add a new zone record, click + Add New Record. You can add A, MX, and CNAME records. You can edit existing records using the pencil icon and delete them using the trash can icon.

Note: Your hosting provider may limit which DNS records you can edit. If certain options are unavailable, contact your hosting provider.

PHP Settings

You can manually update your PHP version, although using the Smart PHP Update system is recommended.

Smart PHP Update tests a different PHP version on a cloned copy of your site before applying changes to your live website. It checks whether switching versions may cause problems and allows you to review the results before proceeding.

To update your PHP version, select a version from the drop-down menu. You can then either click Apply to change the version immediately or Use Smart PHP Update to run a compatibility test first.

When you click Apply, you may be able to create a backup before updating. Once you confirm by clicking Update PHP, the version change will run and you will be notified whether it succeeded.
When you click Use Smart PHP Update, the system analyses your website using the selected PHP version. Once the test is complete, you can choose to proceed with the update or cancel the action.

Logs Tab

The Logs tab allows you to review logs generated by your website. Logs can be helpful when troubleshooting problems. Because large amounts of log data can be collected quickly, logs may be discarded after processing. At this time, only Access Logs are available for download.

To view a log, click the download icon next to the log you want to open. To remove a log, click the trash can icon.

Clone Your Website #

To clone your website, click the Clone button in the top menu of the Expanded Website View.

When cloning your website, you can choose to:

Copy the website to a subdomain of the current website
Copy the website to a new domain

After entering the required details, click Create Clone.

Maintenance Mode #

Maintenance Mode allows you to temporarily hide your live website while work is being carried out.

To enable Maintenance Mode, click the Maintenance Mode button in the top menu of the Expanded Website View.

You can customise several parts of the Maintenance Mode screen:

Option	Description
Screen Text	Set the message shown on your website. You can use the default message or customise the page title and text to suit your needs.
Background	Upload your own background image or use the default image.
Countdown Timer	If you know how long the work will take, you can show visitors a countdown timer in days, hours, and/or minutes.
Social Network Links	Add links to your social media pages so visitors can still stay connected while your website is unavailable. Leave these blank if you do not want them shown.

Set Default Social Network Links

You can set default social network links so your company’s social media pages are shown automatically. Users can still customise these links in the Maintenance Mode interface.

To set the default social network links, edit the following file:

/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/wp-toolkit/var/etc/config.ini

Add or update entries similar to the following:

socialNetworksShare = "https://facebook.com/MyAccount"
socialNetworks[instagram] = "https://instagram.com/MyAccount"
socialNetworks = "https://twitter.com/MyAccount"