Make changes on the User Settings page to personalize aspects of PerlMonks for you. Be sure to press the submit button below the form to make your changes take effect.

There is a link to your User Settings at the top right of your homenode — it's labeled "Edit your: Profile, Settings".

FrontPage Configuration

"FrontPage" is an alternative name (an alias) for The Monastery Gates. You can choose which sections of the Monastery will be shown to you on the FrontPage. Simply check the box next to any that you do not wish to see. The Maximum Entries column allows you to set the number of posts shown in each section. If you leave these fields blank, they will default to some sensible value.

Miscellaneous Settings

• Show Unapproved Nodes: if checked, you can see all content, not just those nodes which have been approved by moderators. Note that Friars (and above) see unmoderated content all the time anyway; so if you're a Friar (or above), you should turn off this option, or you will see unmoderated content in duplicate!


• Turn Hints Off: Normally, when you see an input box for commenting on a post or creating a new post, you will see some hints regarding allowed markup, formatting, etc. Check this checkbox to suppress these "hints".


• No Forced Preview: Checking this option will make it possible to submit a node without first previewing what you've written -- in other words, without reminding you to check that your post looks the way you intended. This is a bad idea except for those very wise in the ways of Markup in the Monastery and even then, only for those who never make typos or other mistakes. As Writeup Formatting Tips notes, "Preview, Preview, Preview!" For the same reason you faithfully
  use strict; use warnings;, you should also leave "No forced Preview" UNchecked.


• Null vote: If you have this on, then for each post, a radio button for "no vote" is shown along with the radio buttons for ++ (upvote) and -- (downvote). If you turn this off, then if you click a ++ or -- and then change your mind, your only recourse will be to completely re-load the page. (Obviously, this setting only pertains to members with voting privileges.)


• Show Reputation Spread: See Display of Node Reputation


• Disable some JavaScript on homenodes: this setting attempts to filter out JavaScript when you visit someone's home node. The people who maintain the site don't use JavaScript so you would be even safer by turning it off in your browser.


• Don't filter risky HTML from monks' homenodes: By default, homenodes are subject to the same restrictions of allowed HTML as ordinary posts. However, some monks like to jazz up their homenodes with images, CSS, and other gewgaws. To view these, you'd need to ease up on the HTML restrictions. That's what this flag does. However, be aware that such things are potentially risky, in terms of making possible some types of cross-site scripting attack. Therefore, it is recommended that this flag be used very judiciously and only temporarily — if at all.
  
  When filtering is on (the default), unallowed HTML present in a homenode will be escaped, which means it will be appear as plain text.
  See Perl Monks Approved HTML tags for the full list of what is allowed in posts. In addition to that set, the following are also allowed in homenodes:
  • form tag: attribute method
  • input tag: attributes name, type, value
  • select tag: attribute name
  • option tag: attributes selected, value
  Note that even if you have this flag set, you can enable filtering individual homenodes by appending ;scrub=1 to the URL.


• Perl Monks User Search Default Length: sets the default number of nodes to display when listing a user's nodes at Perl Monks User Search.


• Search finds nodes I can't read: if this is set, Super Search will list nodes that you might not be permitted to see.


• Format for date-times: lets you set the format for how date-time strings are shown. This format is used in most places on the site, wherever a longer time format is reasonable.
  The default is %b %d, %Y at %H:%M %Z. See Date-Time formats for a complete description of the format specification.
  See New timezones and datetime format for background detail.


• Abbreviated Format for date-times: As above, but for a handful of places in PerlMonks where shorter date-time strings are needed — in particular, when a list of items (e.g. nodes) is shown with a date-time column. Currently, this is in just two places: in a user writeups listing (e.g. tye's writeups), and in a user vote view listing (e.g. your votes on tye's nodes).
  The default is %Y-%m-%d %H:%M. Again, see Date-Time formats for a complete description of the format specification.


• No navigation menu under title bar: normally there is a list of links that point to the various sections of the monastery at the top of each page. Checking this option will cause pages to be generated without these links.


• Default XML ticker style: This is used when you pull an XML page from PerlMonks. (You can override this setting with an explicit parameter.) The valid values are:
  • array
  • clean
  • escaped
  • flat
  • gmtime
  • parsed
  • rawchatter
  • rss
  • stream
  • xmlns
  However, what these do is not always clear. The values which have known effects are 'clean', 'flat', 'rss'


• Extras in Domain Nodelet: Normally, the Domain Nodelet only contains links to the current node in other domains. If you enable this setting, it will also contain whatever other miscellaneous stuff the developers have thrown in there. (Of course, it is only relevant if you have it enabled.)


• Show count of all replies: When viewing posts in sections or on the Monastery Gates, you will see the current number of replies. You can have it show you just the count of immediate replies ("children"), or the count of all replies ("descendants"). To get the latter, check this checkbox.


• Show quips on XP loss/gain messages: PerlMonks includes humorous quips in your XP nodelet whenever you gain or lose XP, unless you turn this setting off.


• No April Foolery: On April 1, the site administrators implement some kind of gag, which is different every year. If you would rather not partake in the fun, turn on this setting.


• Preferred Default Page: Normally, when the site redirects you to a 'default' page, it is The Monastery Gates. If you'd rather have it go to a different page, you may enter its node ID here.
  (Currently, this is only respected in the Log In page.)

Note Configuration

These settings control the display of a single page view of a discussion thread. The Replies header depth setting controls how many levels of node headers are displayed on a page. When replies in a thread are deeper than this level, a box appears with the text "Some notes below your chosen depth have not been shown here". To view a node below this depth, click on it (or on any of the lower level nodes in the thread of interest) to make it the top-level node on a new screen.

The Replies text depth setting controls how many levels deep the node text is displayed on a single page. Nodes of which the level is deeper than set with Replies text depth will be shown with just a header (title, author, date, link), and no body text. Of course, no nodes are shown deeper than the level set with Replies header depth. To view the text of a node of which the text is not displayed, click on it (or on any of the lower level nodes in the thread of interest) to make it the top-level node on a new screen. By the way, the User Settings page allows you to set the Replies header depth below the Replies text depth, in which case the Replies header depth takes precedence.

Example: Replies header depth = 10 and Replies text depth = 2: the discussion is shown 10 levels deep, but only the first 2 levels show the actual text of the discussion; the next 8 levels only show the header information of the replies.

Note ordering: you may choose to see threads either in chronological order or by their reputation.

Back to the PerlMonks FAQ.