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.

Channel¶

The full URL to the main page for this channel.

Comment form¶

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

Search results¶

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: {base_url}/index.php/channel/comments/.

RSS feed¶

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

Preview URL¶

The template path, or route, to use for Preview in this Channel. You can use the variables {entry_id} and {url_title} which will be replaced with the entry’s ID or URL Title when rendering your template. For example: blog/entry/{url_title}

Generated 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.

Status¶

The default status for new channel entries. The available options depend on what Statuses the channel is assigned to use.

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.

Search excerpt¶

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

HTML formatting¶

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.

Show extra publish controls?¶

When set to yes, a second set of publish controls will appear at the top of the publish form for this channel.

Allow image URLs?¶

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.

Render URLs and Email addresses as 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.

Status¶

Status assigned to all new entires in the channel.

Author¶

Default author for guest entries posted via Channel Form.

Allow guest submissions?¶

When set to yes, unregistered users will be able to submit forms for this channel.

Enable entry versioning?¶

When set to enable, ExpressinEngine will save revisions of each entry for this channel.

Maximum versions per entry¶

Maximum number of revisions to be saved per entry.

Enable author notification?¶

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 channel entry notification?¶

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”

Enable 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.

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?¶

Determines whether or not comments are allowed in this channel.

Allow comments default?¶

When set to yes, the “Allow comments” option on the publish page will be set to “yes” by default

Require membership?¶

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.

Require Email?¶

You can optionally require that anyone posting comments must list an email address. You can determine in your Template Manager 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 Members ‣ Member Groups.

Maximum characters allowed?¶

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 time limit¶

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.

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.

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?¶

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

Render URLs and Email addresses as 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.