User Guide

Creating Channels in ExpressionEngine

Before you create your site’s Channels, WE recommend you create your Custom Entry Fields and your Category Groups. Once you have those set up, you’re ready for Channels.

Channel Creation

Channels (sometimes called “Sections” and currently called “weblogs” in EE’s own documentation) are EE’s largest data containers. We recommend that you create one Channel for each of the primary/top-level navigation menus of your website. eeSiteKit uses these Channels to help create all your site’s navigation, and to help organize your content. Your site may also require additional Channels for special content that is outside of the primary top-level navigation, such as an events calendar or the special content in the footer of this website.

Setting up a Channel is a multi-step process. If you are new to ExpressionEngine, or haven’t set up many sites in EE, pay close attention to these steps to ensure success.

eeSiteKit requires a Channel with a short name of “home” for the site’s home page content so you’ll need to create a Channel with a short name of “home.” eeSiteKit has added a Template Group called “home” for you, so you may skip steps 11 and 12 below when setting up your “home” Channel.

In this example, we’re creating a Channel called “About Us”.

If you are creating new Channels in a live website, with pre-existing content that you wish to save, do not delete that Channel as that action will delete your content.

  1. To create a new Channel, navigate to the Channel Management section of the control panel.
    Admin > Channel Administration > Channel Management
  2. If this is a new install of EE, and there is a default Channel listed in this area that you are not using, you may delete it.
    See warning above.
  3. Create a New Channel (big green button)
  4. Full Channel Name: About Us
  5. Short Name: about-us (note: this should be all lower case and we recommend dashes rather than underscores between words)
  6. Duplicate existing channel’s preferences: (if this is your first Channel, then “Do Not Duplicate”. If this is not your first Channel, you may duplicate the settings of the first one to save time.) Learn more about setting up Channel Preferences
  7. Edit Group Preferences: Yes (note: new drop-down section called “Edit Group Preferences”
  8. Category Group: About Us
  9. Status Group: Default Status Group
  10. Field Group: main
  11. Create New Templates For This Channel?: Choose “Duplicate an existing template group” then select “home” from the menu to the right.
    (skip this step and the next if setting up your “home” Channel as that template group was installed for you by eeSiteKit)
  12. New Template Group Name: about-us (note: this should be all lower case and match what you used for the Short Name above)
  13. Click Submit
  14. If this is your first Channel, we recommend that you click on the “Edit Preferences” link now and adjust all the settings in this Channel. Then you’ll be able to copy settings in all future Channels saving you time and it will ensure that your settings are consistent in all your Channels. We have some recommended Channel Preferences if you’re looking for a quick guide to get started with.
  15. Repeat these steps for each of your site’s Channels