Now that you have Jamroom installed, and have successfully logged in as the Master Admin account, you may be wondering what to do next. This document will help walk you through some of the first steps of creating a new Artist Account, uploading media file, and managing those media files.

Jamroom is divided into two menu areas:

1. Admin Menu - When you log into Jamroom as the Master Admin, you are automatically logged into the Admin Menu area. This is where you will (likely) spend the majority of your time when logged in as the Master Admin. Only the Master Admin has access to the Admin Menu - all other users can only see the Artist Menu. It is from the Admin Menu that you will configure Jamroom settings, create and modify Jamroom Quotas, Install and enable Artist Themes, use Jamroom Tools, etc. All Administrative type tasks are performed in the Admin Menu area.
2. Artist Menu - The “Artist Menu” is the menu that all other users of Jamroom will see upon logging in to your Jamroom site. It is from this menu that a User Account can manage an Artist Account and upload media files, post blog entries, check statistics, etc. To access the Artist Menu when logged in as the Master Admin, click on the “Artist Menu” link located at the bottom of the Admin Menu. You can return to the Admin Menu by clicking on the “Admin Menu” link at the bottom of the Artist Menu. Only the Master Admin can see the “Admin Menu” link on the Artist Menu.

Note that both menus (the Artist Menu in particular) are dynamically created by Jamroom, and options and choices that are available when you have selected one Artist Account may not be the same as when you have selected another Artist Account. This is because the choices on the menu are controlled by the Jamroom Quota that has been applied to the Artist Account. You can think of a Jamroom Quota as the “plan” that the Artist Account has been assigned. The Jamroom Quota system allows you to define almost 50 different areas of features and functionality that can be turned on or off on a per Jamroom Quota basis.

At this point some clarification is needed about the “types” of accounts in Jamroom. There are four different account types:

1. Master Admin account - this is the account that was created when you first installed Jamroom. It is the “Super User” account for Jamroom, and has the ability to edit all aspects of Jamroom, including all User and Artist Accounts. There can be only 1 Master Admin account (so protect it well with a good, strong password!).
2. Artist Accounts - the Artist Account in Jamroom is the account that holds an actual Artist’s data - this includes all Audio files, Video files, photos, blog entries, statistics etc. When a web surfer comes to your Jamroom site and views an Artist Page, they are in effect looking at the contents of the Artist Account. There is no way to “log in” as an Artist Account - it is internal to Jamroom, but instead is associated with User Accounts which are the accounts your users will use. Note that more than 1 Artist Account can be associated with a single User Account.
3. Admin User Accounts - not to be confused with the Master Admin, you can create a User Account that is an “admin” account. The only difference between an Admin User Account and a regular User Account is that the Admin User Account always has access to all Artist Accounts.
4. User Accounts - User Accounts are how the users of your Jamroom log in to your system. These are the actual “user name and password” type accounts. When a user logs in to your system using a User Account, their User Account is associated with an Artist Account - this allows the user to “work” on the associated Artist Account. Note that more than 1 User Account can be associated with an Artist Account.

Understanding the difference between Artist and User accounts can best be shown through a couple of examples:

1. “Bob” is an artist manager for several groups and wants to create separate Artist Sites for each of his clients. Bob has a User Account created (with login “bob”) and then has three different Artist Accounts created within Jamroom - Artist One, Artist Two and Artist Three. When Bob logs in to Jamroom, he will see that he has the ability (via the ‘Select Artist’ list) to choose between any of the three Artist Accounts he has access to. This allows him to work on any of the three accounts he chooses, uploading music, photos, etc. When he wants to switch to another Artist Account he simply clicks on the “Select Artist” button, and selects the new artist. This makes the selected Artist Account the “active” account. Any new audio, video, photos, etc. that are uploaded will be linked with the selected Artist Account.
2. “Dave” and “Laura” are part of a singing duo that both have User Accounts in your Jamroom. Both of their accounts have access to their associated Artist Account. When either Dave or Laura logs in to your Jamroom, they will not see the “Select Artist” link (the Select Artist link only appears if the user’s account is associated with more than one Artist Account). Instead they will only be able to create and modify the media items that are in their Artist Account.

Since Jamroom allows multiple User Accounts to be linked to a single Artist Account, and multiple Artist Accounts to be linked to a single User Account, it’s very powerful in allowing you to define who has access to your Jamroom.

Now that you have a basic understanding of how Jamroom is laid out, I would highly recommend spending some time adding, modifying and removing the different types of items in Jamroom - i.e. Songs, Blog Entries, Store items, etc. You will soon find that there is a common theme that runs through most of Jamroom - the ability to “Create” a new item, “Delete” an existing item, Modify an existing item, and (in some cases) “Order” the existing items.

In order to work with the various item types in Jamroom, you will need to ensure you are on the Artist Menu and have “selected” an artist to work on. After you have created, modified or deleted an item, Jamroom will automatically update the Artist Site associated with the Artist Account to reflect the new changes. At any time you can click on the “View Your Site” link in the Artist Menu to see what the associated Artist Site looks like.

If you are working with an Artist Account and you are not sure why a certain Item Type is not showing up for the artist, make sure and check the Artist’s Jamroom Quota and ensure it has been configured to allow the Artist Account access to the item.

By now you have probably played around a bit with Jamroom, created some Artist Accounts, uploaded some media files, etc. If you haven’t, and instead jumped straight to this section, then it’s likely your main interest at this time is in customizing Jamroom to your look and feel. I would highly recommend reading the paragraphs above at a later date though, so you are sure to have a good understanding of how Jamroom is laid out and operates.

The output of many parts of Jamroom can be controlled by editing “templates” - these are simply files that contain the HTML, javascript or PHP code that will be parsed and used for displaying to your visitors. There are three types of template files that are currently being used in Jamroom:

1. “Smarty” template files - these template files are utilized by a template engine included with Jamroom called Smarty. Smarty is a very powerful templating system, and contains support for many different options, variables, parameters, etc. All of the Smarty template files are located in the jamroom/templates directory, and are placed in a respective sub directory depending on the script they are used by - i.e. the template files for the Jamroom Ranking System (ranking.php) are located in the jamroom/templates/ranking directory. You’ll want to be sure and use the correct Smarty syntax when editing these files.
2. “Artist Themes” - the Artist Themes are the templates that are used to created the Artist Site. By default, Jamroom ships with three different Artist Themes (Cobalt Blue, Moss Green and InfraRed). This gives the Artist Accounts in your Jamroom the ability to make their site look different, by simply choosing a different Artist Theme for their Artist Site. These template files are located in the jamroom/themes directory, are are then located inside a sub directory based on which Artist Theme they belong to (i.e. jamroom/themes/jm_cobalt contains all the template files for the Cobalt Blue artist theme). These template files are straight PHP files, so you do NOT want to use Smarty syntax in these templates, unless you have opted to build a Smarty based theme (check out the Artist Theme Designer Guide for more details). Note that in the future it is highly likely that all Jamroom Artist Themes will be converted to using Smarty, since one of the future goals of Jamroom development is to standardize on using Smarty for all template files.
3. “Admin Skins” - while not really a “template” in the normal sense of the word, the “Admin Skins” in Jamroom are the CSS sheets that define what the Admin Menu and Artist Menu look like in regards to color, font, etc. These CSS files are located in jamroom/styles (i.e. jamroom/styles/Fangorn.css) and are simply CSS files that you can modify to make the Admin Menu and Artist Menu have a style you like.

Note: At this time the layout of the Artist and Admin Menus is not modifiable. This is something that is being worked on for a future version of Jamroom, as a design goal is to have ALL aspects of Jamroom appearance be modifiable via template files.