How to set a custom login page background image in 5.7.5+

This is a community-contributed tutorial. This tutorial is over a year old and may not apply to your version of Concrete CMS.
Jul 12, 2015

In Concrete CMS 5.7.5+, you can add a custom background to the login page. This custom background image will replace the photo of the day default.

In your application\config folder, open concrete.php. If you don't have a concrete.php file, you will need to create one. The concrete.php file will only contain PHP, so only an opening PHP tag is required. Paste the following code into concrete.php.

<?php
return array(
    'urls' => array(
        'background_url' => 'http://example.com/example_background.jpg',
    ),
    'white_label' => array(
        'background_url' => 'http://example.com/example_background.jpg',
    )
);

If concrete.php exists and already has arrays of configuration settings. Add a comma after the last first level sub-array (not the returned array) and then paste the background image configuration settings after the comma.

Example: existing array

<?php
return array(
    'marketplace' => array(
        'enabled' => false
    ),
    'external' => array(
        'news_overlay' => false,
        'news' => false,
    )
);

-- external in the above example is the last first level sub-array

Example: background image configuration settings

'urls' => array(
    'background_url' => 'http://example.com/example_background.jpg',
),
'white_label' => array(
    'background_url' => 'http://example.com/example_background.jpg',
)

Example: adding to the existing array

<?php
return array(
    'marketplace' => array(
        'enabled' => false
    ),
    'external' => array(
        'news_overlay' => false,
        'news' => false,
    ),
    'urls' => array(
        'background_url' => 'http://example.com/example_background.jpg',
    ),
    'white_label' => array(
        'background_url' => 'http://example.com/example_background.jpg',
    )
);

The background_url key has a string value that is the URL of the background image. To support 5.7.5+ and v8, the same URL is used for both the urls and white_label arrays.

The background image path can be absolute or relative from your site root or the concrete file system.

Example: getting an image url from the concrete5 file system

  • open the file manager - Dashboard > Files > File Manager
  • click on an image to trigger a popup menu
  • select Properties from the menu
  • copy the value of URL to File
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