User Tools
Sidebar
startup_tutorial_and_checklist:feature_configuration:field_configuration:standard_fields:description_field_configuration
Table of Contents
Description Field Configuration
There are many features tied to the description field specifically:
Highlights of the description field:
- Allows html within it.
- Can have a WYSIWYG editor display on the client side to allow the client to format their description the way they like with the html you allow
- Control the html that's allowed into the description field using the SITE SETUP > ALLOWED HTML admin tool
- Control the max number of characters allowed into the description field. All displayed and non-displayed (html/js) characters are counted towards the character limit
- Choose the use of this feature site wide or on a category by category basis.
- Control the length of description to display within modules/category browsing feature if you choose to display this field within those features.
- Choose to keep/discard return/enter key formatting within the description by configuration
- Choose to display the description as it's own column or below the title in some module/category browsing configurations.
- Control the max word length allowed in this feature to break long words (like urls) to keep them from breaking your design/display on the client side
- Automatic stripping of html when displayed in module/category browsing results
Where do you manage the description in the admin tool?
Controls for the description field are located in a few different locations throughout admin tool depending upon what you want to do.
To control the max number of characters allowed within the description you would look to the Main Settings tab for standard fields within the following admin tool:
LISTING SETUP > FIELDS TO USE
Description Use/Requirement/Editable/Field Length?
You'll see the following screenshot:
Within the above screenshot you'll see:
- controls to turn the use of the description field on/off by checking/unchecking the checbox in the enabled column
- check whether the description must have something in it before any form that contains it can be successfully submitted
- check whether the description field can be edited after the listing placement process is complete
- set the match number of characters allowed within the description field
NOTE: If you anticipate allowing html into your descriptions we suggest raising the max field length for the description to a much higher value than the default 2000 characters. If the description contains more characters than the max character count/max field length it will be cutoff to the max characters allowed and displayed that way on the client side. The software will not "correct any calamities" this may have on the client side listing details display page for that listing that exceeds the max character count. If the description contained a closing html </div> tag at the end and that was cutoff this will most certainly disrupt the design of your listing details page. The exact design flaw happening on the client side regarding issue can be different for each listing it happens to as this depends on what html formatting was cutoff at the end of the description for that specific listing.
Note: if a listing's description is cutoff because it exceeded the max character count and you adjust the field length to allow more characters this admin tool change will not affect current listings in the system. The excess description beyond the max character count was discarded and the characters up to the max character count were saved in the database. The excess was lost. To "fix" them you'll need to edit those listing's descriptions with the originally pasted full description to correct them
You may need to make this field allow large amounts of characters if you anticipate clients pasting Microsoft Word generated html. Microsoft word produces very bloated html and can be a large character count versus the actual amount displayed.
The above specifically references the site wide tool but if you have created any category specific field configurations you'll need to check the same configuration there
Description Display in What Feature?
In the Display in Pages tab of the LISTING SETUP > FIELDS TO USE admin tool for standard fields you'll find the following:
In that screenshot you'll see controls for:
- check to display within the category browsing feature results
- check to display within the listing tag browsing feature
- check to display as a search choice within the advanced search feature
- check to display within the search results
You can additionally check to display the description within the results for pic modules, general modules and within addons that can display it using the Display in Modules, Display in Pic Modules and Display in Addons tabs of the above shown admin tool.
You can also control where the description field appears in the listing placement details form with the following admin tool setting:
LISTING SETUP > GENERAL SETTINGS > Description Field Position on Page
You can choose to display at the top or bottom of the listing details collection form.
Control What HTML is Allowed in the Description
You would go to the SITE SETUP > ALLOWED HTML admin tool to control what html will be accepted into the description. You can read more about allowed html feature here in the support wiki.
Additional Controls for Category Browsing Display
You can find additional controls for display of the description field within the category browsing feature with some controls within the LISTING SETUP > FIELDS TO USE miscellaneous section….scroll to the bottom of that admin tool page to see these:
LISTING SETUP > FIELDS TO USE > Display the Description below the Title
LISTING SETUP > FIELDS TO USE > Length of Description to Display
LISTING SETUP > FIELDS TO USE > Keep full description HTML when browsing
and shown in the screenshot below:
Within that screenshot you'll see:
- This allows you to make the description display within it's own column or below the title within the category browsing results.
- This allows you control how much of the description you display within the category browsing/search results. You can choose to display all of the description or just a certain number of characters. If you choose to display a specific number of characters the software will not display a "half-word" and instead will not display that "half-word" cutting the description display before that work
- If you choose to display the description within the category browsing results any html within that description is stripped by default. If you wish to display the full html description within the category browsing results you can also choose to display any html within that description also by checking this checkbox.
Note: The "Keep full description HTML when browsing" configuration in this section is a site wide only configuration. The "Display the Description below the Title" and "Length of Description to Display" configurations exist within category specific field configurations also
CATEGORY SPECIFIC: These settings also exist within the category specific field configuration (category specific fields to use) and if you have a category specific field configuration those settings will override the site wide (or parent category settings) for that same category (and possibly subcategories if configured that way).
Display within the Description
These configurations affect the display of the description itself. The following admin tool will allow your clients to keep the formatting of their description even if they did not insert any html. If this setting is checked the "carriage returns" your clients insert into their descriptions will be kept. If this is unchecked all "carriage return" formatting will be removed but NO html formatting will be removed. So if unchecked and your clients do not insert html to format may see "one big paragraph" for their description.
LISTING SETUP > FIELDS TO USE > Automatic Line Breaks on Text Areas?
This shows where that is:
Note this setting is a site wide setting and not available in category specific field configurations
Note that changing this setting will not affect current listings already in the system but will affect all listings placed after the change and any listing descriptions edited after the change.
The following setting will allow your clients to use a WYSIWYG editor when placing their listings:
LISTING SETUP > GENERAL SETTINGS > Use WYSIWYG Editor (description field only)
If checked "yes" your clients will be able to use a WYSIWYG editor for their description when placing a new listing or editing a current listing. If you wish to configure the WYSIWYG editor used in the software look to the support wiki page on modifying the WYSIWYG here
The following admin tool setting "breaks" long words at the number of characters you set. HTML does not break long words up unless you tell it to. This can affect your design in that a "single word" could stretch your design to where it does not look good. You would set the max number of characters that "word" (really a continuous non-breaking set of characters) can be before the software would "break it" automatically for you.
LISTING SETUP > GENERAL SETTINGS > Max Word Length
Note: This setting can affect urls as they are essentially a non-breaking set of characters. So take this configuration into notice if you allow html links within your descriptions. This setting could "break" that url at your "max word length" value making it useless.
Note that if the above setting affects a url changing that setting will not change the current state of that url in the description. You would need to edit that url after the admin tool change to "fix" it if "broken" by this feature
Word Length Within The Description
One of the things that can affect the display within the description is very long words….really just any string of characters that do not have a space within them. A belligerent client can insert a word with no break in it and mess with the display of that page. We have tried to alleviate this issue using css but there are still some places this could "break the display". This feature was inserted to protect against such an occurrence:
LISTING SETUP > GENERAL SETTINGS > MAX WORD LENGTH
But there is a side effect with regards to urls inserted within the description. URLs are essentially long non-broken words and this setting can affect them. So if the max word length value is set to 30 the software will automatically insert a space for every 30 characters of a non-broken word. If a url a client inserts into their description is longer than 30 characters that url will essentially be broken by this feature. So if you allow links/URLs in your descriptions make sure to adjust this setting pretty high so that these urls are not affected. To illustrate if max word lenght were 30 and a client had inserted the following link in their description:
<a href="http://www.geodesicsolutions.com/thisisaverylongurlthatshouldbebroken.php">link to geo</a>
The above setting would change that link to this with max word length of 30:
<a href="http://www.geodesicsolut ions.com/thisisaverylongurltha tshouldbebroken.php">link to geo</a>
thus breaking the link. You will need to adjust this value well above what you think URLs will be for your site. If you expect URLs like the above set max word length to 100.
If you do not wish to use this feature within your site you can simply choose the "no max" configuration for this feature. As the software has come to be used with many languages we've learned some do not have spaces in them. For those languages choose the "no max" setting for this feature.
IMPORTANT: Also note that changing this setting to a longer setting after some clients urls have been broken will not "fix" the already broken urls. After the change to this admin tool setting those listings with broken urls within them will need to be edited and those urls fixed.
Urls Within Descriptions
If you allow client to insert html links within their descriptions those links by default make the browsing client clicking that link leave your site unless that seller inserted that link a different way. Using the following admnin tool setting you can have that entered link pop into another browser window:
LISTING SETUP > GENERAL SETTINGS > Open User-Entered Links in New Tab
startup_tutorial_and_checklist/feature_configuration/field_configuration/standard_fields/description_field_configuration.txt · Last modified: 2021/11/10 16:11 by jonyo
Except where otherwise noted, content on this wiki is licensed under the following license: CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International
