Due to the advanced technology NetSpy is using to handle computer logins, administrator has a great deal of control over the client-side user interface look and feel as well as various login options that can be used.

Users see texts and pictures that are specific to the particular business. Login options also can be customized to allow anonymous or registered user logins, system user logins and combinations of those. Configurations page offers that functionality.

There are many items that can be customized, for convenience they are organized in a hierarchical tree-like structure. 

When a tree item is selected "Item Description" field will tell you the purpose of the selected entry. Other controls such as "Text" and "Picture on the button control" will appear if applicable to the selected item.  The screenshot below shows an example of standard configuration with registered user login option selected.

Administrator can go through all the items once to read descriptions and decide whether particular items needs to be customized. This document only gives an overview and some examples of what can be done using this fun and powerful page.

On the right side of the Configurations page one can see following items:

Every configurable item has a short description field that tells the purpose of specified entry. This text is not customizable as it exists for documentation purposes and can only be viewed from here.

This text is what user is going to see in the appropriate control that appears on a client side. This text can be edited to fit business's needs.

A care must be taken when customizing texts to give users clear instructions.

For some items, button becomes visible. Click it to see how the dialog box is going to appear to users. This option is particularly useful when replacing default pictures, because administrator can immediately see the effects of customization.

For example the item shown above can be customized to say this:

Clicking on that item will invoke this window. Notice, that in this particular case there is a <Test Close> button visible. Its there for you to be able to close this window, your users will not see it.

Another example.   Clicking button for "Logon" item will invoke the this dialog. This is what your users are going to see when they attempt to log on. Try using square pictures when replacing default once. Images are stretched to fit onto designated controls and may be noticeably distorted if they are not close to square shape. Window captions also can be configured, see tree panel for all the items.

Customizing Logon Options

Certain items can be enabled or disabled, for example the default sequence of windows that the that User sees is:

1. "Logged Out Welcome" window. It appears immediately after the machine is booted. You can set your company logo here. This window can be resized to correctly fit a logo of arbitrary dimensions, if you resize it, the size that you set it to during configuration will be used to show this window on the client machines.

2. Main "Logon" screen. This screen will actually allow users to choose the login type.  Available options are: Anonymous login (top most picture button), Registered User login and new User Signup. "System Logon" button is there to provide an alternative way (probably only for system administrators) to sign in using windows system credentials. If users choose "Guest" login, they do not have to enter any usernames and passwords, a default user of "GUEST" type will be created and logon request will be made. If user chooses "Registered" or "Sign Up" options, he/she will be taken to one of the dialogs on shown for step 3 Clicking "Cancel" will close this window and go back to screen 1.

Step 3. Registered user login. User must already have been signed up or manually created by the cafe employee on the "Users" page
Step 3. New User Sign Up People can sign up here, choose usernames and passwords for them.

This sequence, however, can be changed. For example if you do not want your logo to appear, and users be automatically taken to the main logon screen, disable "Logged Out Welcome" window as shown below

With this change the Step 1. will be omitted and as soon as machine boots up, the "Logon" screen will appear

On its turn, the "Logon" screen can be customized in many different ways, you can see the "System Logon" button  and "Welcome" text disabled below

In this case the window will appear in a following way and given that we have previously disabled the "Logged Out Welcome" window, it will become a first screen users see. "System Logon" and "Welcome" text are hidden

Another example, lets say you do not want to have guest users.  In that case you disable the "Anonymous" item in from the configuration tree.  Here is what  main Logon screen will look like ("Welcome" text is put back)

More radical example will be to disable "Logon" screen altogether. This may be the case if you for example do not want to even allow users to sign up on their own. To achieve that you could simply disable the "Sign Up New" and "Anonymous" user login options. That would only leave the single "Registered" button on the "Logon" screen. In that case the "Logon" screen seems superfluous, so you should probably have to disable it completely and enable "Logged Out Welcome" as shown on this picture.

Now the logon sequence will become two-step:

1. The "Logged Out Welcome" window will be shown when machine boots up or when no one is logged in.

2. As soon as users press Ctrl-Alt-Del or click the picture, the "Registered User Login" dialog will be shown where user will enter their credentials