Module Settings

Overview

Whenever you're managing a page and the content on the page, you'll often be required to edit some aspect of the settings of a module.  You might read somewhere or be told to, "go to the module settings."  This article helps you understand the various aspects of module settings and how the manage them.

Requirements

The following prerequisites will be necessary to accomplish the goals of this article:

• Have access to your Hotcakes store administration
• Be familiar with the CMS control panel
• Be familiar with how to edit a module

Getting Started

You'll need to review the requirements before being able to follow along with this article.

Module Settings

The module settings will most often open in a popup window, unless your site administrator has disabled the popup windows.  Module settings are broken down into four sections, each represented by a tab.

If you click the "X" icon in the top right of the popup, it will be the same as cancelling the settings using the "Cancel" button.  The popup will close and any updates you've made will not be saved.

You can resize the module settings popup by using the arrow icon in the top right corner of the window, or by using the positional icon in the bottom right corner.

When you're ready, clicking the "Update" button will save your changes made in any of the tabbed sections.  The "Delete" button will delete the module from the page, by placing it into your site's recycle bin.

Finally, you can always see who last editing the module settings and when at the bottom of the settings view, below the buttons.

Module Settings

The module settings tab contains settings that any module will have, but these settings are the common ones that you might finding yourself update regularly.  You'll find these settings organized into 3 sections, as shown below.

Basic Settings

The basic settings are module informational and the most common setting that you might find yourself ever changing.

Setting	Description
Module Culture	On a site that's only using a single language, this setting isn't very useful to you.  However, if you are managing a multi-lingual site, this setting will indicate to you which language version of this module you're currently editing.
Module	This is a read-only field that allows you to quickly remind yourself or discover what module you're editing.
Module Title	The module title is not always displayed to visitors, but when it is, this is where you go to update it.  Even if you're not planning to show the title to your visitors, you should still try to make the module title meaningfufl and unique to this instance of the module.  This becomes useful when you need to do things later, such as restore a deleted module.
Tags	If your site administrator has enabled tags, you'll see them listed here.  Please see your site administrator if you have any questions about the tags that are available and how to use them.

Advanced Settings

The advanced settings are still quite common, but the cascading impact of the updates you could potentially create here makes these options more "advanced" than the others.

Setting	Description
Display Module on All Pages?	When checked, a referenced copy of this specific module will be injected into all of the pages on your site.  When you first check this setting, an additional checkbox will appear, asking whether you only want to add the module copies to new pages.  Check that too if you wish to truly add a copy of this module to every page on your site.  This setting is unchecked by default.
Is Shareable?	You'll find this setting enabled by default.  The CMS is multi-tenant, allowing you to have multiple sites to be created and managed in the same place.  This setting allows this module to be copied to other sites, if they exist.  If you wish for this module to never appear on another site, uncheck the checkbox.
View Only?	This setting only applies when this module is shared onto other sites.  If the module does indeed appear on another one of your sites, this setting will ensure that the content can only be edited here in the original copy of the module.  This setting is enabled by default.
Hide Admin Border	When a module or the page that a module is on is only viewable by administrators, a message will be displayed to visitors of the page stating so.  This setting is unchecked by default, but checking it will hide that message.
Header	This setting allows you to insert a chunk of HTML-friendly content that will appear in the web page markup, just before your content.  You should use this setting sparingly, as it can make a site difficult for some people to manage.
Footer	This setting allows you to insert a chunk of HTML-friendly content that will appear in the web page markup, just after your content.  You should use this setting sparingly, as it can make a site difficult for some people to manage.
Start Date	If you wish for a module to not appear on a page until a certain date, enter your desired date and time here.  For example, you might want to use this to help automatically announce or advertise a business announcement.  Anyone that can edit the page will still be able to see the module before it is visible to your visitors.
End Date	This setting does the opposite of the start date, where this one tells the module when to no longer appear to your site visitors.  Anyone that can edit the page will still be able to see the module past the end date and time.

Added to Pages

This section displays  if and where you midule might be shared anywhere on your current site, or other sites you may have created.  As you can see below, in most instances, your module may not be shared anywhere.

Once your module appears in at least one other place, you'll begin to see those locations listed.  You can click through on the location to see where that module is and manage it from there.

Permissions

Permissions allow you to specify if a module can be seen, and what people looking at it can do with it.  You'll see the basic permissions below on nearly every module and site, but some modules might also inject additional permissions to this grid.

Setting	Description
Filter by Group	If your site is using Role Groups, you may need to first select the group before you see your expected security roles appear in the next setting.  Most sites aren't using role groups.
Select Role	This drop down list will contain all of the security roles that have been created on your site, or those that match the selected role group.  You'll use this drop down list to add a role to the permissions grid, if you don't already see it included.  Simply select the security role from the drop down list, then click the "Add" button to add the role.
[Permission Grid]	The permissions grid isn't labeled, but you see it just the same.  This grid lists all of the available permissions that can be assigned, and the roles that they're assigned to.  Only the roles you add and the roles that have been previous assigned will be listed here.  You'll either see the lock in a specific grid cell, or a tristate checkbox.  The lock means that you can't change the permission.  A checked checkbox means the permission is assigned.  Checking the checkbox a second time will change the allow permission to deny, which is the same as unchecking the checkbox altogether.
Display Name	You have an option of assigning permissions to a single person, instead of to a security role.  This is not considered to be a best practice.  You should instead create a security role and assign the person to that role - even if you believe that they'll be the only person in that role ever.
Inherit View Permissions from Page	By default, all modules will use the same "View" permissions that the page has.  If all visitors can see the page, then they'll be able to see the module as well, unless you specify otherwise here.  When unchecked, you'll be able to manage the "View Module" column of the permissions grid.

Page Settings

The term "page" settings may seem deceiving at first.  The settings found here have a greater scope than just this specific module (in most cases).  They either affect the page, affect how the page displays the module, or the setting applies to all other instances of this same module.

Basic Settings

This settings are very basic in nature, as the name suggests.  The edits you make here have little to no impact on most sites.

Setting	Description
Icon	This is a rarely used setting.  Generally, your theme designer will tell you whether you should be using it or not.
Alignment	This is a legacy setting that should not be used.
Color	This is a legacy setting that should not be used.
Border	This is a legacy setting that should not be used.
Collapse/Expand	This is a legacy setting that should not be used.
Display Container?	While this isn't exactly a legacy setting, it still should not be used.  If you need to hide elements of your container, you should instead choose a container that has those elements hidden.  If you don't have such a container, you should contact your theme developer.
Allow Print?	This is a legacy setting that should not be used.
Allow Syndicate?	This is a legacy setting that should not be used.
Is a WebSlice?	This is a legacy setting that should not be used.
Module Container	You can think of a container as a "mini theme" that only is applied to this specific module and the area it covers on the page.  This setting allows you to choose the container that gets applied to the module.  You don't need to specify anything here, unless you wish to override the same setting that's applied in the site or page settings.

Cache Settings

In general, you should not modify the cache settings, unless you're told to do so by the software vendor that provides the module you're editing, or by your technical team.  Making the wrong change here could end up breaking the page, or even the site.

Setting	Description
Output Cache Provider	You might have different options here, depending on the extension you might have installed.  In most cases, you'll see None Specified, File, and Memory as options here.  This drop down list is followed by an indicator to let you know if you're overriding the primary settings on the site.  In most cases, you should go with the default like shown here.  However, you can selectively override that to get better performance or compatibility.  For example, memory is the fastest and preferred option in most use cases, but it might be interfering with a module.  Setting this to file instead, could fix that.
Cache Duration (Seconds)	Many modules will come preinstalled with "0" being the default amount of time the module is cached.  This doesn't mean there isn't anything being cached though.  Most modules are still caching, but not by using this setting.  In some cases, you should help a page load faster if you increase this value.  However, if you're using page-level caching, you should ignore this setting altogether.  You should only use this setting for modules that primarily contain static (HTML-based) content.

Advanced Settings

The final section of the page settings allows you to determine how these settings are applied once you save.

Setting	Description
Set as Default Settings?	If you check this checkbox before saving the module settings, you'll set everything on this tab to be the default setting if/when a new instance of this module is added to another page on the site.  This will not retroactively apply these settings to modules already on the site.
Apply to All Modules?	You should use this setting with extreme caution.  It's very easy to accidentally apply this setting in situations that are unintended. When checked, the settings you apply in the page settings area will be applied to every existing instance of this module across the site.  This setting is usually only useful and safe when you're first building the site.
Move to Page	If you wish to completely move this module to another page on your site, select the other page here.  When you save the settings, the module will be moved to the other page.  You should immediately go and view that page to ensure that it's placement is as intended.

[Specific Module Name] Settings

Depending on the module you're editing, there may be a fourth tab seen here.  Not all modules will have it.  This fourth tab will have a name unique to the module.  For example, if the module is named "Blog," the tab label will be "Blog Settings."  The settings you see here will vary greatly from module to module.  You should see the documentation for the specific module and/or software vendor to learn more about it's unique settings.