Foswiki Site-Level Preferences

• Exclude web from a web="all" search: (Set to on for hidden webs; is overwritten by web preferences) Note it is much better to use AccessControlsin individual webs to control who can and can't view the contents of a web. NOSEARCHALL is retained for compatibility, but you should avoid using it.
  • Set NOSEARCHALL =

• • Set NOAUTOLINK =
  • Note: Use the [[...][...]] syntax to link topics in case you disabled WikiWord linking. The <noautolink> ... </noautolink> syntax can be used to prevents links within a block of text.
• If you use non WikiWords for topic names (for example "Expenses" or "Mighty1") and if you use bracket notation to link to those topics, it is useful to turn of all warnings (like: "WARNING: This topic name is not recommended because it will not be linked automatically") and checkboxes ("Allow non WikiWord for the new topic name"). Can be overwritten by web preferences. Set to onto activate:

• • • Set TOC_MAX_DEPTH =
      • If not set: 6
      • Possible values: 1 to 6

• • The default TOC title:
    • Set TOC_TITLE =
      • If not set: nothing
      • Possible values: any string, for example On this page:

• • Do not show a TOC if the topic it contains is included in another topic:
    • Set TOC_HIDE_IF_INCLUDED =
      • If not set: included TOC is shown

Foswiki Site-Level Preferences

Default Web Preferences

• Web-specific background color: (is overwritten by web preferences)

• favicon: Attach a favicon.ico to a web's WebPreferences or add a FAVICON setting to WebPreferences
  • Set FAVICON = /foswiki/pub/System/ProjectLogos/favicon.ico

• • Set WEBSUMMARY =

• Copyright notice:

• Simplified Copyright notice for the WebRss feed (don't use any special characters, html tags, entities, wiki markup or WikiWords)
  • Set WEBRSSCOPYRIGHT = Copyright 2025 by contributing authors

• Exclude web from a web="all" search: (Set to on for hidden webs; is overwritten by web preferences) Note it is much better to use AccessControls in individual webs to control who can and can't view the contents of a web. NOSEARCHALL is retained for compatibility, but you should avoid using it.
  • Set NOSEARCHALL =

• • Set NOAUTOLINK =
  • Note: Use the [[...][...]] syntax to link topics in case you disabled WikiWord linking. The <noautolink> ... </noautolink> syntax can be used to prevents links within a block of text.

• • Set HIDE_NON_WIKI_WORD_WARNINGS =

• Warn if %INCLUDE{}% of topic fails: Fail silently if empty or off. Output warning message (defined in templates/oopsalerts.tmpl) if set to on. Otherwise output specific text (use $topic for topic). You can override this in web preferences, or by using a warn="..." parameter with %INCLUDE{}% :

• • • Set TOC_MAX_DEPTH =
      • If not set: 6
      • Possible values: 1 to 6

• • The default TOC title:
    • Set TOC_TITLE =
      • If not set: nothing
      • Possible values: any string, for example On this page:

• • Do not show a TOC if the topic it contains is included in another topic:
    • Set TOC_HIDE_IF_INCLUDED =
      • If not set: included TOC is shown

• Vertical size of text edit box: (can be overwritten by user preferences)
  • Set EDITBOXHEIGHT = 22

• • Set EDITBOXSTYLE = width:99%

• Style of the user signature

NOTE: Keyword $filename gets expanded to filename; $fileurl gets expanded to the urlencoded filename; $comment to comment; \t to tab (3 spaces for bullets).

<-- verbatim tag required to prevent error in Apache log; does not suppress Set -->

• Format of images when the link check box is checked: (can be overwritten by user preferences)

  NOTE: Keyword $filename gets expanded to filename; $fileurl gets expanded to the urlencoded filename; $comment to comment; $size to width="..." height="..." attribute of img tag; \t to tab and \n to linefeed (3 spaces for bullets).

Platform Settings

• • Set BROADCASTMESSAGE =
  • #Set BROADCASTMESSAGE = NOTE: Edit and Attach will be disabled today between 05:00 PM and 06:00 PM PDT (00:00 to 01:00 GMT) for a scheduled Foswiki maintenance.

• • Set ALLOWROOTCHANGE = AdminGroup

Search Settings

• Default type for search bin script, one of: keyword (for search engine like syntax), regex (for RegularExpression search), or literal (for verbatim search). It does not influence the default for the WebSearch
  • Set SEARCHDEFAULTTTYPE = keyword

• • Set SEARCHVARDEFAULTTYPE = literal
• Stop words, e.g., common words and characters to exclude from a keyword search:
  • Set SEARCHSTOPWORDS = a, all, am, an, and, any, as, at, b, be, by, c, d, e, for, from, g, h, how, i, i'm, i.e., in, is, isn't, it, it's, its, j, k, l, m, n, o, of, on, or, p, q, r, s, t, that, that's, the, this, to, u, v, w, was, wasn't, what, what's, when, where, who, who's, will, with, x, y, z

E-mail Settings

• 'Mail this topic' mailto: link - can be included in topics, templates or skins

• 'Mail this topic' link text
  • Set MAILTHISTOPICTEXT = Send a link to this page

NOTE: Changing cache behaviour with these settings should not be necessary and may cause cache-related problems. These settings do not affect proxy caches.

• NOTE: The current values of these preferences are not displayed in view mode (values are <link>-tags).

• • #Set HTTP_EQUIV_ON_VIEW =
  • Set HTTP_EQUIV_ON_VIEW =

• • Set HTTP_EQUIV_ON_EDIT =

• • Set HTTP_EQUIV_ON_PREVIEW =

Extension Settings

• Skin overriding the default templates: (can be overwritten by WebPreferences and user preferences)

• • to use the Foswiki 1.0 iconset, set the ICONTOPIC to DocumentGraphics

TinyMCEPlugin

• • #Set TINYMCEPLUGIN_INIT_TOPIC = TinyMCEPlugin

    Not set in this topic, the plugin assumes this value if missing

TwistyPlugin

• • Set TWISTYPLUGIN_TWISTYANIMATIONSPEED = fast

Legacy support

• • Set CLEAR =

• Bullet sign:

• Vertical bar / pipe symbol:

• Vertical caret symbol:

• Line break and bullet with different levels of indentation:

• Hint: Above shortcuts are useful in tables where you cannot use newlines

• Colored text: (see more StandardColors)

  You type:	%RED% red text %ENDCOLOR% and %GREEN% green text %ENDCOLOR%
  You get:	red text and green text

• • Note: %<color>% text must end with %ENDCOLOR%. If you want to switch from one color to another one you first need to end the active color with %ENDCOLOR%, e.g. write %RED% some text %ENDCOLOR% %GREEN% more text %ENDCOLOR%.

    <-- Two sets of colors follow: Color test and color setting -->

  • Set YELLOW = looks like this

• • Set BLACK = looks like this
  • Set GRAY = looks like this
  • Set SILVER = looks like this

• • The following color settings are enclosed in verbatim tags to avoid incorrect nesting of XHTML tags:

      * Set YELLOW = <font color="#ffff00">

• • Set GRAY =
  • Set SILVER =
  • Set WHITE =

Miscellaneous Settings

• A preference is defined in a bullet item: [3 spaces] * [space] Set NAME = value
  Example (as a nested bullet item, indented 6 spaces):
  • Set WEBBGCOLOR = #FFFFC0

• • When you write %WEBBGCOLOR%, it gets expanded to #ffcc99 .

Protected System Settings

• WebPreferences has preferences of the System web.
• User topics in Main can have optional user preferences.

• AccessControl explains how to restrict access by users or groups.
• Foswiki:Extensions.PreferencesPlugin makes editing preferences a snap.