The Knowledgebase tab explained

The Knowledgebase tab is the second tab under the Settings menu. The settings here apply to the public view -- that is, to what users see.

Only an administrator can change the settings on this page.

1. The Titles/Meta section controls how the browser displays the knowledgebase.
   
   

• The site title is the title displayed on the tab when you view the page. If you know HTML at all, this is the <title> tag.
• Site keywords (meta) and site title (meta) contain keywords used by site engines to identify your site.
• The header title is the text displayed in the header,
• The navigation title is the home page in the navigation bar
• You can show or hide the article title in the breadcrumb trail at the top of the screen by changing Display article title in navigation
  
   
• Extra links in navigation show any extra links in the navigation bar.
  Extra links in the navigation are added as the name of the link (text to be displayed), followed by a space, followed by a pipe (|) symbol, then another space, then the address. For example, to add a link to your home page you would use 'Home | http://mydomain.com'. You can add more than one extra link by adding a double pipe (||), surrounded by spaces, between each link. e.g. 'Home | http://mydomain.com || Support | http://mydomain.com/support.
  
  
  '
• The search engine friendly URL controls what you type into the address line when you want to jump direct to an item in the knowledgebase.

2. The Security/Privacy/Registering section controls who can log on and how they do it.
   

• Access for registered only means that only people who are registered users can view the knowledgebase. If this
  is set then even if a user ends up on your site they will not be able to read articles unless they are registered.
• Allow registration means that if a user does end up on your site and wants to view the knowledgebase, they can request and (maybe) get access.
  i.e. The user comes to the knowledgebase site, gets a message that he has to register to use the site, and gets a registration form to register.
• If Allow registration is set, then two things can happen. If Approval required for registration is not checked, then the user is automatically assigned a user ID and access.
  If Approval required for registration is set, then they cannot get access until the administrator approves their request.
• When users register they take on the default privilege and default role assigned here.
• Enable visual confirmation to register means the user has to type in a confirmation code before they can register. This is to stop scamming.
• Login policy determines whether a user gets a login option on the public view screen, whether they don't get the login option but can still login (if they know the link to the login page), or whether they cannot login at all.
• When a user has not used the public area for the number of minutes nominated in the Session expires in field they will be logged off. If you wish to turn automatic logout off, set this value to 0.
• The private policy setting controls whether content that is locked because it is private is displayed in the menu with a locked symbol, or whether it is simply not visible at all. When this is set to Do not display entries then the user only sees items he can access. When it is set to Display entries as 'locked' sign, then the user can see the entries title but he cannot read them.
  Please note it works only for articles without any role assigned. If private article has any role assigned it is always in "hidden" state for not logged users or for users who do not have access to it. 

3. Look and feel (format/template/style)
   

• You can use the default knowledgebase template, or you can specify your own in Page to load. Your template can be pretty much any HTML, with a few extra commands to display the content and RSS feeds. This article explains more about the template.
• The View format allows you to set your knowledgebase up with a left menu or without.The sample screen in section 1, above, shows a knowledgebase with the left menu set.
• If you go with a left menu, you can also choose whether to display Article, File, Glossary and Ask a Question links on the left menu or as tabs across the top of the screen by nominating a specific Template.
• The menu type can be a standard menu tree, or it can be a follow-on menu that allows users to click on one article after another to read them.
• If you choose not to display the header then the header title (specified in section 1, above) is not be displayed.
  
  Setting up the look and feel is covered in more detail in the article that explains how to change the way articles are displayed.

4. Look and feel (settings) control what the user sees and how he sees it.
   

• Articles can be sorted by alphabetical order, the date items were added or modified, and by popularity.
• The number of articles displayed on the page is controlled by Default number of articles.
• Whether or not people can see the latest articles that have been added is controlled by Recent articles. If it is set to 0, recent articles are not shown,
  otherwise the number of recent articles displayed is the number set here.
• Likewise whether or not people can see the most popular articles is set under Most viewed articles.
• Others in this category controls whether or not the'Others in this category' sub-heading is displayed at the bottom of the screen, and how many items are displayed
• Display prev/next navigation controls whether the user sees links to the next article and previous article at the bottom of the screen.
• Count entries/sub-category defines whether a count of the entries is displayed in the menu header.
  
• Category cols defines the number of sub-categories displayed across the page in public view. If this is set to 0, no categories are displayed.
  
  
  
  
• You can add text to the front of an article heading using the Article title prefix pattern. For example, if your article is named Keeping Pets, you can use the article title prefix pattern to make this: Question: Keeping Pets. Even better, if you use types in your knowledgebase, you can customize the article prefix to each type. Suppose, for example, you have two types of articles. One is Facts, the other is General info.If you wish you can change the title to include the type. e.g. Fact: Climate change is happening and General info: What are greenhouse gases?.
  You can include the article number as part of the article title prefix as well. e.g. Q: What can I do to help?
• If you choose to include the article number in an article title prefix, you can also say how many digits the number will have by specifying an entry ID padding number. For exaple, if you had 100 questions and chose an article title prefix of 'Q', by default they would be numbered Q1...Q100.  If you would prefer it to be Q001: .. Q100 set the entry ID padding to 3.
• You can show or hide the files option using the Display 'files' link
• You can show or hide the glossary using the Display 'glossary' link
  
  

5. The Actions section controls user feedback and comments.
   

• You can set whether users can contact you using the Feedback facility through Allow contact us. You can set this so that all users can contact you, only registered users can contact you, or no users can.
• Allow attachments says whether users can attach documents to their mail. The value here is the number of files that can be attached. When this is set to 0, attachments cannot be included.
• Allowed extensions controls the type of files that can be attached.
• Send attachments with e-mail must be set if a user is allowed to send attachments in the Feedback form.
• If enable visual confirmation for contact form is set then the user must type in a visual code before they can add any feedback.
• You can set whether comments are allowed and who can make comments through Allow add comments. This can be set to all users, only registered users, or no users.
• Likewise, you can set it so that anyone who adds a comment must type a visual confirmation code before they can send it.
• Whether or not comments are published immediately, or must be approved first is controlled by the Comment approval policy.
• If you want users to be able to rate articles in your knowledgebase then Allow rate article must be checked.

6. The way the article is displayed on the preview screen is defined in the Article preview format section.
   

• The number of characters displayed in the preview is controlled by the Article Character Limit
• Whether the last date the article was updated is shown is controlled by Display updated date
• You can also nominate whether to display the rating, number of comments and number of views.

7. Once you actually open an article, what you see is controlled by the Detailed article block.
   

• This is where you define whether or not to show the Display Article Block, and if you do, what goes into it. Whether to include a print link and/or a send to friend link, and whether to include the number of hits.
  
• You can also choose whether to display author details.

8. Lastly, the RSS settings control whether the knowledgebase is available as an RSS feed and how the feed is set up.
   

• Generate RSS feeds controls whether there are feeds, and how many
• Channel Title is the title included in the <Title> tag in the RSS feed
• Channel Description is the description included in the <Description> tag in the RSS feed.