# Customizing FAQ / Guidelines Pages

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/customizing-faq-guidelines-pages/259351>\
**Category:** Product Support\
**Created:** [March 25, 2023, 12:26am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/customizing-faq-guidelines-pages/259351 "2023-03-25T00:26:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![shyguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/shyguy/32/295079_2.png) [@shyguy](https://meta.discourse.org/u/shyguy)\
**Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 12:26am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/customizing-faq-guidelines-pages/259351/1 "2023-03-25T00:26:44Z")

</div>

i didn’t find it documented in detail anywhere, so i thought i’d make some notes about what i found so far and ask some questions. 🙂

Guidelines and FAQ are two separate entities that are combined in the default config.

## `SiteSetting.faq_url = ''` (default):

![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/optimized/4X/3/d/9/3d9487f50ce92ee9830d7b9e26a21e680967f8c1_2_345x36.png)

FAQ:

- routes: `/faq`, `/guidelines`, `/rules`, `/conduct` → a template (or something) populated with content from `SiteSetting.guidelines_topic_id` (`FAQ/Guidelines` topic in the `Staff` category)
- relevant localizations (Admin \> Customize \> Text): `I18n.t('js.faq')`, `I18n.t('js.sidebar.sections.community.links.faq.content')`, etc
- shows up in the sidebar

## `SiteSetting.faq_url = 'foo'`:

even though it says full url, it seems like it can be a relative url like `/t/25`, which is useful.

![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/optimized/4X/0/f/1/0f132873583ddca792996b18da9232d600346608_2_482x35.png)

Guidelines:

- routes: `/guidelines`, `/rules`, `/conduct` → template using content from `SiteSetting.guidelines_topic_id`
- localizations: `I18n.t('js.guidelines')`, etc

FAQ:

- routes: `/faq` → `SiteSetting.faq_url`
  - for better or worse, this is a direct link to that URL. it doesn’t pull the content and put it into a template like Guidelines does. it’s intended to give you the option of linking to an external resource.

- localizations: `I18n.t('js.faq')`, `I18n.t('js.sidebar.sections.community.links.faq.content')`, etc
- shows up in the sidebar

* * *

# Questions

i am opting for a separate FAQ, and i am linking it to a FAQ topic.

1. ~~**i can’t figure out how to set the topic title to simply `FAQ`** – not `Faq` or similar. i tried `SiteSetting.title_prettify` and `SiteSetting.min_topic_title_length`. the closest i can get is `Faq` (and it is stored in the db like that). i tried directly editing the db like SQL: `update topics set title = 'FAQ' where id=25;`, but that’s a bad idea, and it didn’t even work anyways. the updated value shows up in the topic edit dialog, but idk how to force a refresh. rebuild HTML didn’t work. i guess i need to do this in rails, but idk how.~~
  - here’s how (please tell me if this is wrong):

```ruby
Topic.find(25).update(title: 'FAQ')

```

1. what is the most elegant way to **get Guidelines into the Community section of the sidebar** for all users? can i somehow use the new custom sidebar thing?

2. what’s `I18n.t('guidelines_topic.title')`? is that merely used during initial topic creation when you start fresh?

thanks

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/customizing-faq-guidelines-pages/259351)._