Edit Preferences¶

Full Channel Name¶

The “full channel name” is the descriptive name for the channel. This is the name of your channel that you will show to visitors and display on your site.

The full channel name is a required field. Spaces, punctuation, and other special characters are allowed. For example, the channel’s descriptive name might be Joe’s Personal Channel.

Short Name¶

The “short name” for the channel is the name used internally within the program. It is also used when specifying a channel in variables or parameters in your Templates. It is not normally shown to visitors or otherwise exposed outside of your channel “setup”.

The channel’s short name is a required field. It must be a single word with no spaces. The underscore character is allowed. For example, the channel’s “short name” might be joe_channel.

Channel Description¶

A short description of the channel. Spaces, punctuation, and other special characters are allowed. This is used, for example, in RSS feeds.

XML Language¶

This preference determines the XML language setting that you can use for your channel pages. This information is available as a variable for use in the channel Templates. A drop-down list is available for selection.

XML Character Encoding¶

The character encoding used for the channel. Most channels will use “utf-8” or “iso-8859-1”, but other encodings can be specified. This information is available as a variable for use in the channel Templates. A drop-down list is available for selection.

Channel URL¶

The full URL to the main page for this channel.

Comment Page URL¶

The full URL to the “comments” page for this channel. The URL should include the Template Group and Template. For example: http://example.com/index.php/channel/comments/

Search Results URL¶

The full URL where you would like search results from this channel to be pointed. The URL should include the Template Group and Template. For example, if you wish that links off the search results page point to your “comments” Template you might use: http://example.com/index.php/channel/comments/

RSS Feed URL¶

The URL where you can view the RSS feed for this channel. For example: http://example.com/index.php/channel/rss_2.0/.

Live Look Template¶

The template that will be used for a Live Look at your entries. Links are available from both the main Edit section of the control panel as well as the “View Entry” page that displays after submitting an entry. If you do not want to use a Live Look Template with a channel, simply set this preference to “No Live Look Template”.

Default Status¶

The default status for new channel entries. The available options depend on what Status Group the channel is assigned to use and which statuses are defined for that group.

Default Category¶

The default category for new channel entries. The available options depend on what Category Group the channel is assigned to use and which categories are defined for that group. In addition to the categories from that group, the “None” option is also available, in which case no category will be selected by default.

Select “Allow Comments” button in Publish page by default?¶

This lets you determine whether or not the “Allow Comments” checkbox on the new channel entry page will be checked by default. If you do not intend to allow, or infrequently allow, commenting on entries in this channel then the option can be set to “No”.

Which field should be used for search excerpt?¶

You can specify which field from your entries to use in search result excerpts. The list is dynamically populated depending on which Field Group the channel is assigned to use and which fields are defined for that group. Only fields that have been set as “searchable” will be included.

Default HTML formatting in channel entries¶

This setting determines how raw HTML code within entries is handled. There are three options:

1. Convert HTML into character entities: This will convert the HTML tags so that they will display as plain text on a page when viewed. This would be useful if you want to display example code often.
2. Allow only safe HTML: This will allow “safe” HTML (<b>, <i>, <em>, <del>, <ins>, <strong>, <pre>, <code>, <blockquote>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, <h5>, <h6>) to be kept so that they are interpreted by the browser when the entry is viewed. All other HTML is converted to character entities and the raw code will be seen upon viewing.
3. Allow ALL HTML: This leaves the HTML code as written and the code will then be interpreted by the browser when the entry is viewed.

Allow image URLs in channel entries?¶

You can determine whether or not you want people to be able to display images within your entries by using the URL for the image. If “Yes” is selected for this option, people can display images as inline content in your channel. If the setting is “No” then images will not be allowed.

Automatically turn URLs and email addresses into links?¶

When this option is set to “Yes”, any full URLs or email addresses will be automatically formatted as a valid HTML link to the address. If the option is “No” then the URL or email address will be treated and displayed as plain text.

Notify the author of an entry whenever a comment is submitted?¶

Whenever a new comment is submitted, the author of the entry can be notified. An email will be sent to the email address associated with the author member in the system.

Enable recipient list below for comment notification?¶

You can specify a list of email addresses to receive notifications when a comment is posted. This setting determines whether or not the list will receive the updates. The addresses are specified in the next setting.

Email address of Notification Recipient(s)¶

If the previous setting is set to “Yes”, then these are the recipients of the email alert. You may define a single email address or list multiple addresses by separating them with a comma. Ex: “admin@example.com, joe@example.com”

Allow comments in this channel?¶

Determines whether or not comments are allowed in this channel.

Require membership in order to post comments?¶

Determines whether visitors to the website must be members in order to post. If this preferences is set to “Yes” and an unregistered visitor attempts to post a comment the comment will not be accepted and the visitor will receive a message.

Enable Captcha for Comment Posting?¶

Determines whether or not you require CAPTCHAs to be used when submitting comments.

Require email address to post comments?¶

You can optionally require that anyone posting comments must list an email address. You can determine in your Templates whether or not the address is shown publicly, but requiring an email address in order to post comments can help reduce the number of “spam” comments you receive since the visitor must submit a valid email address.

Moderate Comments?¶

If this option is enabled, then comments will not immediately appear on the site. Instead, the comments will go into a queue and await review/moderation by an administrator.

Member Groups (such as the SuperAdmin Group by default) can be set to bypass comment moderation and have their comments posted immediately. That option can be set at Admin ‣ Member Groups.

Maximum number of characters allowed in comments¶

You may set a maximum number of characters allowed in any comment. Setting this preference to 0 (zero) will not place a restriction on the number of characters allowed.

Comment Re-submission Time Interval¶

This is the optional number of seconds that must lapse after a comment is posted before that same user can post another comment. This setting can help reduce comment “spam”. The preference can be left blank or set to 0 (zero) if you do not want to impose a limit.

Comment Expiration¶

The number of days after an entry is posted in which to allow comments. After that period has expired, the entry will be closed to commenting and the comment form will no longer appear. Existing comments will still be displayed. Enter 0 (zero) for no expiration. Note that this preference sets the default setting for the channel. The setting can be overridden and changed on a per-entry basis.

You may override this setting in the Comment Module Control Panel section of the Comment Module so that comments are set to be moderated rather than closed once the expiration period is passed.

If you also select the checkbox accompanying this setting, then all existing entries in this channel will be updated to reflect the new setting when you submit.

Comment Text Formatting¶

This setting determines how comments are formatted by the system. There are three possible choices:

1. None: No automatic formatting is done; the comment is left as-is. This could be useful if you want people to be able to use full HTML in their comments.
2. xhtml: Comments will be formatted as valid XHTML. Text blocks with double line breaks will be turned into paragraphs, line breaks will be replaced by <br /> tags, special characters will be formatted as character entities, etc.
3. Auto <br />: All line breaks in the comment will be converted into <br /> tags. This includes any line breaks that may occur inside HTML code, which could cause unexpected displays.

Comment HTML Formatting¶

Like the channel setting, this preference determines how raw HTML code within comments is handled. There are three options:

1. Convert HTML into character entities: This will convert the HTML tags so that they will display as plain text on a page when viewed. This would be useful if you want to display example code often.
2. Allow only safe HTML: This will allow “safe” HTML (<b>, <i>, <u>, <em>, <strike>, <strong>, <pre>, <code>, <blockquote>) to be kept so that they are interpreted by the browser when the entry is viewed. All other HTML is converted to character entities and the raw code will be seen upon viewing. Note that while <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, <h5>, <h6> are considered “safe” in channel entries, they are not allowed in comments.
3. Allow all HTML (not recommended): This leaves the HTML code as written and the code will then be interpreted by the browser when the entry is viewed. This is generally not recommended since visitors would be able to submit HTML code which could drastically alter the display of your webpage.

Allow image URLs in comments?¶

You can determine whether or not you want people to be able to display images within comments by using the URL for the image.

Automatically turn URLs and email addresses into links?¶

When this option is set to “Yes”, any full URLs or email addresses will be automatically formatted as a valid HTML link to the address. If the option is “No” then the URL or email address will be treated and displayed as plain text.

Default Entry Title¶

When a new entry is created or previewed, this value will be inserted by default in the Title field. This is helpful if you wish every entry in a channel to have the titles follow a certain format. The automatic URL Title creating javascript for the Publish page will ignore this text during processing.

URL Title Prefix¶

When a new entry is created or previewed, this value will be appended to the beginning of the url_title value, which will help you insure that url_titles are unique between channels.