Site configuration and content
Change the logo, top notice, home page content and footer at
/misc_config/; edit the navigation bar, static pages (About) and blog posts; moderate comments; and find the status pages, RSS feeds and sitemap.⏱ ~20 min · 👤 Site admins · 🔑 Superuser (blog, comments and static pages can be delegated to staff with the right permissions)
Before you start
Where each piece of content lives
| To change | Edit at |
|---|---|
| Logo, SEO, analytics, notices, footer, Discord, description template | /misc_config/ |
| Top menu items | /admin/judge/navigationbar/ |
The About page (/about/), static guide pages | /admin/flatpages/flatpage/ |
| News and longer announcements on the home page | Blog post marked global post |
| Hiding bad comments | Trash icon next to the comment, or /admin/judge/comment/ |
The /misc_config/ page
Open it with the gear icon (Settings) on the right of the navigation bar, or go to https://luyencode.net/misc_config/. The page title is Site settings; its labels have no Vietnamese translation yet, so they appear in English in both languages.
- Edit the fields you need (table below).
- Click Update.
- Reload any page to check. Changes apply immediately.
| Group | Field (label) | Key | Where it shows | Format |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Branding | Site logo | site_logo | Logo at the top left of the navigation bar; og:image when links are shared | Image file (upload) |
| Branding | Site favicon | site_favicon | Currently unused (see warning) | Image file (upload) |
| SEO | Meta keywords | meta_keywords | <meta name="keywords"> on every page | Text |
| SEO | Meta description | meta_description | <meta name="description"> on the home page only | Text |
| Content | Home page top | home_page_top | Above the post list on the home page | HTML + Django template syntax |
| Content | Announcement | announcement | #announcement block right below the main content, every page | Raw HTML |
| Content | Footer | footer | Footer, after "proudly powered by VNOJ | Github |" | Raw HTML |
| Notifications | Top notification | top_notification | Top of the content area, every page | HTML + Django template syntax |
| Analytics | Analytics | analytics | Inserted verbatim into <head> on every page | Raw HTML/JS |
| Community | Discord invite link | discord_invite_link | See below | URL |
| Community | Discord Shield.io badge URL | discord_invite_shieldio | See below | Badge image URL |
| Problem editor | Description example | description_example | Pre-filled problem statement when creating a problem on the site | Markdown |
Details:
- Clearing a field and clicking Update deletes that key from the database; the corresponding element disappears from the site.
- Logo/favicon: leaving the file input empty keeps the current image. Uploads are stored under
static-upload/in the media directory with a random name, at a URL like/static-upload/<uuid>.<ext>. - Discord: the badge only shows when both Discord fields are set. It appears in the home/blog sidebar, on login errors (e.g. a banned account), on the 2FA page, and after requesting a password reset.
- Home page top is rendered as a Django template with the variables
request,user_count,problem_count,submission_count,language_countandperms. Example:{{ problem_count }} problems, {{ user_count }} members. Top notification is rendered with no variables. A template syntax error showsError rendering: …instead of the content. - Description example only applies when creating a problem through the site UI; see Managing problems.
Analytics, Announcement and Footer are raw HTML
The content is inserted unfiltered into every site page (except the /admin/ pages), including the login page. A broken or malicious <script> affects every user. Only paste code from trusted sources (Google Analytics…), and test on the dev site first if you can.
Uploaded favicon and logo
- The site's favicon always comes from the static
icons/favicon-*.pngfiles; Site favicon saves a value, but uploading a favicon changes nothing. To change the favicon, replace the files in lcoj-site'sresources/icons/and reruns./scripts/copy_static. - The bundled
dmoj/nginx/conf.d/nginx.confhas nolocation /static-upload; that path falls intolocation /static(served from/assets/), so a freshly uploaded logo may return 404. If that happens, addlocation /static-upload { root /media/; }to nginx and runsdocker compose restart nginx.
How values are stored and applied
- Each field is one
(key, value)row in theMiscConfigtable. The top of the page has a Configure in admin panel for more options link to/admin/judge/miscconfig/(miscellaneous configuration) for direct editing. - The whole table is cached in Redis under the key
misc_configfor up to one day. The cache is cleared automatically whenever a row is saved or deleted (through/misc_config/or the admin), so no restart is needed. - When rendering, LCOJ tries these keys in order and uses the first match:
<domain>:<key>.<language>,<domain>:<key>,<key>.<language>,<key>.<domain>is the Site's domain in/admin/sites/site/;<language>is the viewer's UI language code, e.g.vioren.
This lets you add per-language versions in the admin, for example a top_notification.en key for English-language viewers. Keys are limited to 30 characters.
Navigation bar
The top menu items live at /admin/judge/navigationbar/ (navigation bar). The list is a tree: drag and drop to reorder or to nest an item under another (a dropdown menu).
| Field | Admin label | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
key | identifier | Unique code, max 10 characters; used as the CSS class nav-<key> |
label | label | Displayed text, max 20 characters. It goes through the translation function, so an English label that already has a translation (e.g. Contests) shows in Vietnamese |
path | link path | A site path (/contests/) or a full URL |
order | order | Sort order; drag and drop updates it |
regex | highlight regex | Regular expression matched against the current path to highlight the active item, e.g. ^/contest. Matched with MariaDB's REGEXP BINARY |
parent | parent item | Leave empty for top-level items |
The menu is read from the database on every request, so changes show up as soon as you save.
Adding a Blog item with a command
./scripts/manage.py add_blog_navigationThe command creates an item with key=blog, label Blog, path /blog/, regex ^/blog/, placed at the end of the menu (highest order + 10). If an item with key=blog already exists, it just prints Blog navigation item already exists.
Check the link after running it
The site has no /blog/ page; the blog list pages are /blogs/ and /posts/. After running the command, click the Blog item. If you get a 404, change the item's path (and regex) in the admin, or add a redirect from /blog/ to /blogs/ at /admin/redirects/redirect/ (Redirects).
Static pages (flatpages)
Static pages are fixed content pages such as About (/about/) or Custom checkers (/custom_checkers/). They are managed at /admin/flatpages/flatpage/.
- Open the page to edit, or click Add to create a new one.
- Fill in URL (with leading and trailing
/, e.g./terms/), title and content (Markdown, with preview). - Under Sites, select the LCOJ site. Without this the page returns 404.
- Save, then open the URL to check.
The Advanced options section:
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Registration required | Only logged-in users can view it |
| Template name | Empty means flatpages/default.html (cached, with math support). You can set flatpages/markdown.html (no cache) |
| Enable comments | Has no effect in LCOJ |
Things to know:
- A static page is only served when no other route matches the URL (Django's
FlatpageFallbackMiddleware). - Content rendered with the default template is cached for one day; the cache is cleared when you save the page.
- Users allowed to edit static pages see an [Edit] link next to the page title.
- Static page content allows raw, unfiltered HTML, so you can use
<h2 id="...">to create anchors. - The About page is in the menu (item
about) and in the sitemap. These docs and many other pages link tohttps://luyencode.net/about/#lien-he; when editing the About page, keep an element withid="lien-he", e.g.<h2 id="lien-he">Liên hệ</h2>. - For a Terms page, create a
/terms/flatpage. TheTERMS_OF_SERVICE_URLsetting (defaultNone) is only used on the password sign-up form, which is hidden when the site only allows OAuth sign-up (OAUTH_ONLY = True).
Blog posts and home page announcements
The home page shows a list of blog posts. A post appears on the home page only when all four conditions hold:
| Field | Label | Condition |
|---|---|---|
visible | public visibility | Checked |
publish_on | publish after | That time has passed |
organization | organization | Empty (organization posts only show on the organization's page) |
global_post | global post | Checked ("Display this blog post at the homepage.") |
Order: sticky posts first, then newest publish time. Viewers can switch to all non-organization posts with /?show_all_blogs=true (remembered in their session).
Posting from the admin
- Open
/admin/judge/blogpost/→ Add. - Fill in post title (the slug is generated), authors, content (Markdown), and optionally a post summary (if set, the home page and RSS show the summary instead of the full post) and an OpenGraph image.
- Set publish after. A future time schedules the post.
- Check public visibility, global post, and sticky to pin it to the top.
- Save.
Posting from the site
Go to /posts/new. Non-superusers must have solved at least 10 problems (VNOJ_BLOG_MIN_PROBLEM_COUNT). The global post checkbox only appears for users with judge.mark_global_post, and sticky for judge.pin_post. Posts created on the site always get the current time as the publish time. See Permissions.
Short notice or long announcement?
A short notice that must appear on every page (maintenance, judging issues): use Top notification in /misc_config/. A longer piece of news that should allow comments and stay archived: publish a blog post with global post and sticky. For a running contest, use contest announcements, see Contest setup.
Comment moderation
Comments have a score from votes. Comments with score ≤ DMOJ_COMMENT_VOTE_HIDE_THRESHOLD (default -5) are collapsed in the UI but can still be expanded. To hide a comment completely, use one of the following.
| Method | Who can use it | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Trash icon next to the comment | Users with judge.change_comment | Hides the comment and all its replies, recalculates the author's contribution points |
Edit the comment at /admin/judge/comment/ and check hidden | Same | Hides the comment and its replies on save |
| Hide comments / Unhide comments actions on the admin list | Same | Several comments at once (see warning) |
./scripts/moderate_comments | Operators with SSH | Every visible comment with score ≤ −5 |
The /admin/judge/comment/ list can be searched by author username, page and body, and filtered by hidden.
The bulk admin actions show a server error
The Hide comments / Unhide comments actions currently end with a server error page. The comments are usually updated anyway; reload the list to check. These actions also do not hide replies. Prefer the trash icon.
The moderate_comments script
./scripts/moderate_comments --dry-run # show the count and the 5 newest comments that would be hidden
./scripts/moderate_comments # actually hide themThe script runs SQL directly against MariaDB (credentials are read from environment/mysql.env) and sets hidden = 1 on every comment matching hidden = 0 AND score <= -5. The -5 threshold is hard-coded in the script.
Script limitations
Because it updates rows directly with SQL, the script does not hide replies to hidden comments, does not recalculate contribution points and records no history. Always run --dry-run first.
Locking comments on a page
Add a row at /admin/judge/commentlock/ with a page code such as p:<problem-code> (problem), c:<contest-key> (contest), b:<blog-post-id> (blog) or s:<problem-code> (editorial). Only users with judge.override_comment_lock can still comment on that page.
To take away one person's ability to comment: see Managing users.
Newsletter
LCOJ includes hooks for django-newsletter (the /newsletter/ route and a subscribe checkbox on the profile edit page, driven by DMOJ_NEWSLETTER_ID_ON_REGISTER), but the default configuration does not install the package and does not add newsletter to INSTALLED_APPS. So /newsletter/ does not exist and DMOJ_NEWSLETTER_ID_ON_REGISTER (default None) has no effect.
Status and statistics pages
| Path | Content | Who can see it |
|---|---|---|
/status/ | Status of judges and runtime versions | Everyone sees online judges; staff/superusers also see offline ones |
/runtimes/ | Supported languages (Runtimes) | Everyone |
/runtimes/matrix/ | Language version matrix across online judges | Everyone |
/status/oj/ | OJ Status: charts of submissions per day, by language, by result, judging queue time, organization activity | Superusers only (others get "You must be admin to view this content.") |
/stats/data/all/ | JSON API feeding /status/oj/ (POST only) | Superusers only |
Judge setup: see Setting up judges.
RSS, Atom and sitemap
| Path | Content |
|---|---|
/feed/problems/rss/, /feed/problems/atom/ | 25 newest public problems |
/feed/comment/rss/, /feed/comment/atom/ | 25 newest comments visible to anonymous visitors |
/feed/blog/rss/, /feed/blog/atom/ | 25 visible blog posts whose publish time has passed (sticky first) |
/sitemap.xml | Home page, /about/, public problems, public editorials, blog posts, public contests, organizations, user pages |
The blog feed includes organization posts
The blog feed filters on "visible" and "publish time passed" but does not exclude organization posts, so the summary (or the content, if there is no summary) of a visible private-organization post can appear in the feed. For sensitive organization content, uncheck public visibility.
Absolute links in the sitemap use the Site's domain (/admin/sites/site/, Domain name), which should be the site's real domain (luyencode.net on luyencode.net). If links show the wrong domain, fix that Site record.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
/misc_config/ returns 404 | Not a superuser | Log in with a superuser account |
Edited /misc_config/ but the site still shows old content | A language/domain-specific key (e.g. top_notification.vi) takes precedence | Check /admin/judge/miscconfig/ and edit or delete that key |
| New logo shows as a broken image | nginx does not serve /static-upload/ | See the "Uploaded favicon and logo" warning |
| Uploaded a favicon but nothing changed | Templates do not use site_favicon | Replace the static icon files and run ./scripts/copy_static |
Error rendering: … at the top of pages | Django template syntax error in Top notification / Home page top | Fix the {{ }} / {% %} syntax |
| Blank pages or JS errors after editing Analytics/Footer | Broken pasted HTML/JS | Clear that field in /misc_config/ or /admin/judge/miscconfig/ |
| Menu item not highlighted on its own page | regex does not match the path | Fix the regex, e.g. ^/contest |
| New flatpage returns 404 | No Site selected, URL missing a leading/trailing /, or URL clashes with an existing route | Check Sites and the URL |
/about/#lien-he does not scroll to the Contact section | The id="lien-he" element was lost while editing | Add back <h2 id="lien-he">Liên hệ</h2> |
| Blog post not on the home page | global post unchecked, public visibility unchecked, future publish time, or an organization is set | Check the four conditions above |
| Server error when using Hide comments in the admin | The action errors after it has already updated | Reload the list to check; use the trash icon |
Next steps
- Managing users: bans, comment mutes, staff access.
- Permissions: permissions for blog, comments and static pages.
- URL shortener: short links for announcements and posters.
- Helper scripts:
copy_static,moderate_commentsand other scripts. - Operating LCOJ: restarting services, reading logs.
- Settings reference: settings mentioned on this page, such as
DMOJ_COMMENT_VOTE_HIDE_THRESHOLDandVNOJ_BLOG_MIN_PROBLEM_COUNT.