Settings Tab
Each page in Dictator contains a settings tab that controls specific aspects of how the page displays and performs on your site.
Generally you will not have to modify your page’s settings, but it is good to know what the capabilities are for when you need them. Each of these settings is detailed below.
Parent Page
This setting lets you change what page is the parent of the current page. To word it differently, this gives you the capability to move your page to somewhere else in the site. To move your page, click the change link. Drill-down to the page you want to move to, and click select. Remember to save changes.Page Status
- Public indicates that the page is live on your web site and everyone can view it. This is the status that most of your pages will likely have.
- Private
indicates that your page is available only to users that are logged in. - Off
indicates that this page is not accessible for viewing to anyone other than yourself (and other superusers, should they exist).
Template
This is the HTML template that the content of this page will flow into. The HTML template contains all design and layout elements, while your page contains all content elements. Changing the template allows you to flow your content into a new design or layout. See also Config: Templates.Cache this page
If page caching is being used and this option is set to yes, Dictator will store a copy of this page in it’s cache for faster delivery. Generally you want to leave this set to yes unless the page contains an entry form, a channel, or some other form of dynamic content.Launch in new window
If set to yes this page will launch in a new window (“_blank” target, for those familiar with HTML) when someone clicks a link to it. In most cases, you will want this to be set to no.Show in Navigation
By default this should be set to yes, but if for some reason you don’t want this page to appear in your site’s navigation, set this to no. Setting this to no can be useful in some cases. For an example, see section Pre-Installed Pages. Note: this icon (dictator/images/5/nonav.jpg) appears next to pages that are set to not appear in navigation.Share Photos & Attachments
When set to yes any photos and attachments attached to this page will also be accessible to other pages in your site. To utilize this feature, you must also assign a tag to any photos or file attachments you intend to share so that you have a means of referring to them elsewhere in your site. In general, you should keep this setting off unless you are certain you will be using this page’s photos and/or attachments elsewhere in your site. Keeping this setting on for pages arbitrarily can potentially cause confusion and tag conflicts down the road.Page Edit Fields
Provided are checkboxes for each text field in your content tab. As an example, if your site does not use Dictator’s authors capability, then there would be no reason to have an authors field. You can simplify your page editing by unchecking any fields that you won’t be needing.Text Formatting
Use Markdown Syntax
This is a text formatting syntax that allows you to make bold and italic text, bulleted lists, links and more. Please see our section on Markdown Syntax. If you are using lots of HTML codes on your page, you may prefer to turn off Markdown if you experience any display problems.Use SmartyPants
SmartyPants is a helpful typographic tool. It automatically converts straight quotes to proper curly quotes, two dashes to an em-dash, and more. Please see our section on SmartyPants for more information. If you are using lots of HTML codes on your page, you may prefer to turn off Markdown if you experience any display problems.Convert Line Breaks
Markdown automatically converts line breaks, but If you aren’t using Markdown, you might want to turn this on. This will ensure that your paragraphs remain separate paragraphs rather than all the text running together. If you are using plain HTML and prefer to insert your own line breaks with BR tags, then you’ll want to leave this off (along with Markdown and Smartypants too).
Sort Subpages by
If you prefer to have your pages sorted automatically by date, or by name then you’d want to select the associated option here.Sort by Date
An instance of where you’d want sort subpages by date is on a press releases or news page. This would ensure that the newest press release appears at the top of the index.Sort by Name
An instance of where you’d want to sort pages by name is if your page contains subpages consisting of people’s names. This might be a company directory page where you want to ensure that when you add a new employee, they are automatically sorted alphabetically with the others.
Tag
Just like you can tag a photo or a file attachment, you can also give an entire page a name tag. This gives you the capability to refer to the page elsewhere in your site. A page tag has to be one word containing no spaces or punctuation. An example might be “homepage”. For more information on how to use this feature (and tags in general) please see our section on Using Tags.Page Views
This is a statistic more than a setting. It gives you a count of the number of times this page has been viewed since a certain date.Browser Title
This is the title that appears in the very top of your browser window (above the forward/back/home buttons). By default, the page name or headline is used. If you’d like it to say something different, then enter it here. This browser title is considered important by search engines like Google, so this can be handy for search engine optimization purposes.Meta Description
Similar to the Browser Title setting (above), the meta description is sometimes used by search engines like Google in generating a snippet or summary of your page.
Note: When you create a new page, it’s settings are automatically inherited from it’s nearest sibling or parent page.
