By default servers will look for (in order) a file by the name of index.html, index.cgi, index.php, index.htm, default.htm or home.htm in a given directory and will load the first file it finds as the directory's (or site's) index or "home" page. If you wish to use an alternate file name as a default index page this can be done by adding the following directive to a .htaccess file stored either in your public_html directory (if you wish the directive to be in effect for your your entire site) or in a specific folder:
DirectoryIndex filename.ext
For example if you wish the default index page in a given directory to be "default.php" you would place a .htaccess file in that folder containing the following line:
DirectoryIndex default.php
Things to Note
You can specify multiple file names and the server will look for them in the order you specify and set the first valid file name found as the directory's index page. If you intend on setting a non-standard index page as your site's main index page you'll likely want to include more standard index file names along with your custom name so that you will be able to use standard index files such as index.html or index.php in subdirectories without having to add separate .htaccess files.
With the directive above in place the server will first look for a file named "page1.html" and if found will load it as the directory index. If no file by that name exists in a given directory it will look for (in order) files named index.html, index.php and index.htm and load the first file it finds as the index page.
In the main public_html of your website, add you index.html or index.php file (your welcome page) and anything else like it's styles, about pages, etc. Then add another folder, for example named 'oxwall' or 'home' where Oxwall will be installed. You now have your own custom welcome page, plus Oxwall.
With some code modifications, you could even manage to load the sign-in / sign-up options of Oxwall onto your welcome page.
~Jake
When i add that line it just loops the html page.RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/$
RewriteRule (.*) index.html [L]
you need to paste it one line above our default conditions
if you software is in the subfolder:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/subfoler/$
RewriteRule (.*) index.html [L]
Can you show a working example to allow a .html load first
I add this line
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/$
RewriteRule (.*) index.html [L]
above
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/index\.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/ow_updates/index\.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/ow_updates/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/ow_cron/run\.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/e500\.php
so looks like this
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/$
RewriteRule (.*) index.html [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/index\.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/ow_updates/index\.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/ow_updates/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/ow_cron/run\.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/e500\.php
The solution above lets you to load index.html file if you go to www.yoursite.com/index.html
However, if you want to do something like splash screen, it is not possible to do via .htaccess file, as it uses session to remember whether a user already saw it or not
There's a solution to load index.html file instead of index.php but it will load it everytime a user goes to index page.
You will need to create a plugin in order to achieve what you want.