Basic Settings

The Basic Settings section of Settings > Basic contains settings to control your knowledge base's overall format for language and dates/times:

1. Knowledge base name: This name is what we use for the display everywhere within app.knowledgeowl.com, including:
   • On the dashboard tiles when you first log in to app.knowledgeowl.com
   • In the knowledge base selector in the top navigation of app.knowledgeowl.com
   • In reader and author knowledge base / site access lists
   • If you make changes to the knowledge base name, this should automatically update the "Welcome to {knowledge base name}" displayed on your homepage. You can change or remove that text without having to rename your knowledge base.
2. Timezone: This timezone is what we'll use for all date/timestamps within app.knowledgeowl.com and within your live knowledge base.
3. Date Format: The date format you select here is how we'll display date/timestamps within app.knowledgeowl.com and within your live knowledge base. Options include:
   • American: MM/DD/YYYY format (so July 23, 2022 displays as: 07/23/2022)
   • European: DD/MM/YYYY format (so July 23, 2022 displays as: 23/07/2022)
   • Custom: You can use PHP custom formats tto define your own custom date/time format. See some samples with their output in the official PHP documentation, in the date() Formatting section.
     • For example, to use a format of YYYY-MM-DD, use: Y-m-d
     • Or, to use MM.DD.YY, use m.d.y
4. Default Language: The language selected here sets the underlying HTML "lang" attribute, which helps screen readers know what the primary language you're using is. This is a must for knowledge bases with accessibility requirements, but an all-around best practice, too.
5. If you make any changes to this section, be sure you Save them!

The Domain Settings section of Settings > Basic contains settings to configure your KnowledgeOwl subdomain and/or private domain. It also includes some high-level SEO settings:

Sample Domain Settings section

1. Sub-domain: This is the KnowledgeOwl subdomain used for your knowledge base. You set this up when you first created the knowledge base, but you can change it any time. In the screenshot above, this is set to my-sample-kb.knowledgeowl.com.
2. Private Domain: If you'd like to use your own domain for your knowledge base, you configure it here. See Add a private domain for full instructions.
   • Enable private domain link in the application: By default, the "View KB", "View Article", and "View Category" links in app.knowledgeowl.com will open to your knowledge base's KnowledgeOwl subdomain. You can force these links to open to your private domain by checking this box. We recommend only using this setting once you've confirmed your private domain and SSL certificate are working properly.
   • 301 redirect all sub-domain requests to the private domain: By default, you can use either the KnowledgeOwl subdomain or your private domain. If you'd like to redirect all use of your KnowledgeOwl subdomain to your private domain, check this box. We recommend only using this setting once you've confirmed your private domain and SSL certificate are working properly.
3. Root Path: All KnowledgeOwl knowledge bases are initially set up to direct to your KnowledgeOwl subdomain/help. You can choose from two other root paths: /home or /docs.
4. SEO Settings: These settings govern some general SEO behavior for your knowledge base.
   • Generate a publicly available sitemap: If any part of your knowledge base is available without logging in, you will likely want to generate a publicly available sitemap to streamline search engines crawling your website. Check this box to enable that sitemap. See Generate your sitemap for more information.
   • Ensure that page titles do not exceed 55 characters: By default, KnowledgeOwl won't enforce this restriction for article or category titles, though it is considered an SEO best practice. If you'd like to enforce a 55-character limit for titles, check this box.
   • 301 redirect URLs ending with a trailing slash to non trailing slash: In the land of search engine indexing, a trailing slash (such as https://support.knowledgeowl.com/help/seo-guide#best-practices/) is treated as a directory. The same URL without a trailing slash is treated as a file or page. Those two URLs are indexed and tracked separately by search engines, though, so if you have readers who have somehow bookmarked or typed in an article URL with a "/" at the end, their visits won't factor into SEO reports and algorithms in the same way. Forcing these trailing slash URLs to redirect to the normal article permalink maximizes your SEO. Check this box to enforce this behavior. See SEO best practices for more details.
5. If you make any changes to this section, be sure you Save them!

The Website Settings section of Settings > Basic controls some default behaviors for your knowledge base's Navigation, Top navigation, Related articles, Glossary terms, Table of contents, and some content display/formatting:

1. Navigation
   • Enable breadcrumbs: Breadcrumbs are the navigation displayed at the top of a page to show which category or categories the page you're viewing is within. These are generally considered a web best practice. By default, your knowledge base will have breadcrumbs enabled, but if you'd like to disable them, uncheck this box. See Breadcrumbs for more information on how breadcrumbs work.
2. Top navigation
   • Add a reader login / logout link: If you're requiring a login to your knowledge base for people to access the content, you'll need to check this box to enable the reader login / logout link. See Enable reader logins for more information.
3. Related Articles: These settings control some behavior of the Related Articles section.
   • Automatically suggest related articles based off of the article titles: All knowledge bases include the ability to manually assign related articles. By default, we also check the box here to automatically suggest related articles based off of the article titles. If you'd like to turn off these automatic suggestions so that only manual suggestions are used, uncheck this box. See Enabling and disabling automatic suggestions for Related Articles for more information.
   • Backward suggest articles which list the current article as related: This is another form of automatic related article relationships, which will create an automatic mirrored suggestion from a manually-created related article assignment. See bBackward suggest Related Articles for more information.
   • Limit list to xx articles: By default, knowledge bases are set up to automatically display 5 related articles (this limit has no impact on manually-assigned related articles--we always display all of those). You can change this number from 1-10. See Set the number of Related Articles to automatically display for more information.
4. Glossary Terms
   • For each glossary term that appears in an article, automatically highlight the term xx times: This setting enables automatic glossary term highlighting in articles and lets you set how many occurrences of the term should be highlighted. For more information, see our Glossary documentation, especially Automatically highlight definitions in articles.
5. Table of contents: These settings control the default behavior of categories in the table of contents and adding/removing specific links to the table of contents.
   • All categories closed by default / All categories open by default: You can select only one of these two options. They determine categories' default behavior in the table of contents, whether categories should be open or closed by default. Individual categories also have controls where you can override this behavior. New knowledge bases will have the default set to closed. See Display categories open by default for more information.
   • Add a search bar to the top of the table of contents: You can opt to add a search bar to the top of your table of contents. See Add search bar to table of contents for more information.
   • Add a homepage link to the top of the table of contents: You can opt to show or hide a link to your knowledge base's homepage at the top of the table of contents. This link is included by default with new knowledge bases. See Add Home button to table of contents for more information. You can also edit the text for this link using the Table of Contents section of the Customize Text tool.
   • Add a glossary link to the top of the table of contents: You can opt to show or hide a link to your knowledge base's Glossary in the table of contents. This link is included by default with new knowledge bases. See Add glossary link to table of contents for more information. You can also edit the text for this link using the Table of Contents section of the Customize Text tool.
   • Add a full PDF download link to the knowledge base table of contents: If you are using our Standard PDF export (Full PDF Download), you can choose to include a link to that PDF in your table of contents. See Add a link to the full PDF download to table of contents for more information on this setting. You can also edit the text for this link using the Table of Contents section of the Customize Text tool.
6. Content
   • Disable conditional content in articles: This setting was for an older integration we had and is no longer used. We need to tidy up the interface to remove it, but you can ignore this setting for now!
   • Disable the default code syntax highlighter: If you're adding content in Code Blocks, KnowledgeOwl has a default syntax highlighter to highlight that code based on the language you select. If you don't want to use the default syntax highlighter, you can disable it by checking this box. See Use your own syntax highlighter for code blocks for a sample set of instructions on using your own syntax highlighter (Prism is used in our example).
7. If you make any changes to this section, be sure you Save them!

The Article List Settings section of Settings > Basic allows you to control how many articles are displayed in the various pre-built article lists we have available. You can select anywhere from 1-10. (Note that making a selection here doesn't automatically turn on the feature.)

For more information on each list, see:

1. Recent Articles: This article list is not included in any of our knowledge bases by default. For logged-in readers, it will display xx articles that the reader has most recently accessed.
2. New Articles: Shows the xx most recently published articles, sorted by create date. Prioritizes articles with the New article callout ahead of those without. This article list is included on the homepage of new knowledge bases by default, and in the righthand column of certain themes by default.
3. Updated Articles: Shows the xx most recently updated articles, sorted by last modified date. Prioritizes articles with the Updated article callout ahead of those without. This article list is included on the homepage of new knowledge bases by default, and in the righthand column of certain themes by default.
4. Popular Articles: Shows the xx most popular articles, determined by page views, mimicking the Popular Articles Report. This article list is included on the homepage of new knowledge bases by default, and in the righthand column of certain themes by default.
5. Favorite Articles: If Article Favorites is enabled for the knowledge base, this list will display to each reader their favorited articles.
6. If you make any changes to this section, be sure you Save them!

The Editor Settings section of Settings > Basic controls some of the default behavior for the article and category editors:

1. Content Editor:
   • Turn spellcheck on by default: This setting applies to the Legacy Editor only; Modern Editor automatically uses the browser's spellcheck. See SCAYT Spell Check for more information.
   • Automatically prompt to create a redirect link when changing the content's current permalink: With this setting turned on, any time you try to save an article after editing the permalink, the editor will ask if you want to save the previous permalink as an Old Link--automatically. (We love this feature!) See Automatically redirect when you update an article's URL for more information. This box is checked by default for all new knowledge bases created after July 2023.
2. Article Callout: When the New and Updated callouts are used, this setting determines their default length to automatically set an expiration date. The default can be manually overwritten in individual articles. Use the two dropdown controls to set your desired duration, from 1 day all the way up to 12 months.
3. Article Review:
   • Automatically set articles to "Needs Review" if older than the below date: This setting will automatically change articles' publishing status from Published to Needs Review if they haven't been modified for the selected time interval.
   • Articles in Needs Review status appear just like Published articles to your readers, but received a different status callout in the Articles display in-app and can be viewed in their own filter in Manage Articles.
   • KnowledgeOwl runs a scheduled job each night to set these, so you'll see statuses update as a result of this roughly once a day.
   • Use the two dropdown controls to set the time period you'd like to use, anywhere from 1 day to 12 years.
4. If you make any changes to this section, be sure you Save them!