---
layout: page
title: Configuring the Playground
---

Vanity will work out of the box on a default configuration.  Assuming you're using Redis on localhost, post 6379, there's nothing special to do.

Database connection information is loaded from @config/vanity.yml@, based on the current environment (@RACK_ENV@ or @RAILS_ENV@). Example:

<pre>
development:
  adapter: redis
  connection: redis://localhost:6379/0
test:
  collecting: false
production:
  adapter: mongodb
  database: analytics
</pre>

If there's no configuration file and the application does not create a connection explicitly, Vanity will default to the Redis instance running on @localhost@ at port 6379.

The available database adapters are:

* +redis+ -- This adapter is used by default. Available options are connection and password. host, port, database (defaults to 0) options are available, but deprecated.
* +mongodb+ -- Available options are host, port, database (defaults to "vanity"), username and password.
* +active_record+ -- Uses existing ActiveRecord configuration, by you can over-ride by supplying different options. To pick different underlying adapter, set +active_record_adapter+.

h4. Configuration Options

Available configuration options are:

|_. name                     |_. Is all about ...                    |_. Default      |
| add_participant_route      | URL to use to add participants via JS | /vanity/add_participant |
| collecting                 | False if you won't want data collected| true           |
| config_file                | File name to use to configure vanity  | vanity.yml     |
| config_path                | Path to the config_file               | ./config/      |
| environment                | What environment use for configuration| development    |
| experiments_path           | Directory containing experiment files | ./experiments  |
| failover_on_datastore_error| Whether to pass errors to on_datastore_error | false   |
| locales_path               | Path to locales for translations      | in the gem     |
| logger                     | This should be obvious                | default/Rails  |
| on_datastore_error         | A proc that handles datastore errors  | logs to logger |
| request_filter             | A proc that returns whether to to ignore the request for the add JS participant route | Ignore requests with a HTTP_USER_AGENT that contain a URL |
| templates_path             | Path to templates for Vanity admin | the templates in the gem |
| use_js                     | Whether to use JS to add particpants, useful to ignore bots | false |
| experiments_start_enabled  | Whether new experiments start in the enabled or disabled state | true |
| cookie_name                | The name of the anonymous tracking cookie | @vanity_id@ |
| cookie_expires             | The duration of the cookie                | 20 years |
| cookie_domain              | The domain for the cookie. Rails.application.config.session_options[:domain] will be substituted if @nil@. | @nil@ |
| cookie_path                | The path of the cookie | @nil@ |
| cookie_secure              | The secure (ssl-only) parameter of the cookie. | @false@ |
| cookie_httponly            | The httponly parameter of the cookie | @false@ |
| on_assignment              | A proc that called when a new assignment is made for the experiment | @nil@ |

When "running under Rails":rails.html, Vanity defaults to using the Rails logger, locates the load_path relative to Rails root, uses the @config/vanity.yml@ configuration file (if present) and turns collection on only in production mode.

Use the playground object to configure Vanity. For example:

<pre>
Vanity.configure do |config|
  config.use_js = true
  config.experiments_path = 'config/ab_tests'
  config.add_participant_route = '/vanity/participant/new'
  # ...
end
</pre>


h4. Using metrics from Google Analytics

If you want to use Vanity with metrics from Google Analytics, you must require the @garb@ gem, and login for a new session.  You'll want to do that for production, not for development if you like developing offline. For example in Rails, in the config/:

<pre>
config.after_initialize do
  require "garb"
  Garb::Session.login('..ga email..', '..ga pwd..', account_type: "GOOGLE")
end
</pre>