Constructive design feedback is valuable. To provide effective feedback:
Be specific and detailed. Identify particular issues and provide clear examples.
Offer solutions. Suggest improvements or provide mockups demonstrating your ideas.
Avoid vague statements. General comments like "it looks dated" are unhelpful.
Understand design constraints. Consider factors like modularity, generality, feature density, compatibility, performance, and the subjective nature of design.
Directly reporting specific design bugs to the tracker or redesigning Composr interfaces yourself are excellent ways to contribute.
Be comprehensive and self-contained. Provide all necessary information and context for the developers to understand your suggestion.
Focus on widely beneficial features. Esoteric suggestions are less likely to be implemented.
Understand developer constraints. Feature development depends on factors like developer availability, funding, and project strategy.
Consider sponsoring features. Financial contributions can prioritize the development of desired features as it affords developers the time to implement it.
How do I report an emergency problem with my Composr site?
Answer
Emergency problems are events that have significantly and suddenly affected your website's functionality due to legitimate bugs or undocumented usability issues. To report these:
Open a tracker issue explaining the problem and providing as much detail as possible (mark it as a major bug).
Help the developers help you. Provide access to your site (see the software feedback tutorial for more information), describe the exact situation, and avoid protracted back-and-forth communication.
Take backups before upgrading. This allows for easier recovery in case of problems.
Remember that bug fixing is not a free service. While developers are committed to Composr's stability, maintaining backups and practicing restoration procedures is your responsibility.
The community forum is an excellent resource for support. Users can help each other out with various problems. However, please remember that there's no guarantee of free professional support. If you need immediate or guaranteed assistance, consider hiring a professional developer.
I'm getting a lot of spam on my site. What can I do?
Answer
Composr offers various anti-spam measures. Refer to the Anti-spam settings tutorial for advice on configuring these settings. If you believe there's an issue with the anti-spam system itself, report it to the issue tracker. Do not report general spam incidents.
My website is experiencing performance issues. What should I do?
Answer
If you are experiencing performance issues, first identify the specific problem with your web host's help. Composr provides tools to manage database size, bandwidth, and disk I/O. However, high request volume or CPU usage may require server upgrades like a VPS or dedicated server.
If your web host complains about resource usage, gather detailed information from them, including specific URLs causing problems and resource usage metrics. If their limits are unreasonable, consider switching web hosts.
Security problems must be reported privately. You can do this by marking the issue as 'Private' on the issue tracker (if you use the Report Issue Wizard, it will do that automatically when you select security-hole). Publicly disclosing security holes is irresponsible and may result in penalties. The core developer team will disclose the issue after a patch is released.
Every bug, no matter how small, should be reported. You can report bugs using the Report Issue Wizard or directly through the issue tracker. There is also a link to report bugs on your Admin Zone Dashboard where the version information is located. And when clicking that link, you can view open issues specific to your version of Composr.
When reporting a bug, be sure to:
Check for duplicates: Make sure the bug hasn't already been reported.
Report bugs individually: Each issue should be reported separately for better tracking and resolution.
Verify it's a Composr bug: Issues with third-party addons and code should be reported to their respective developers.
Consult the FAQ and tutorials: Check for common problems and solutions, particularly server configuration issues.
Provide comprehensive information: Include a clear and specific title, detailed steps to reproduce the problem, your browser version, Composr version, error messages, stack traces (if available), and any other
relevant details.
Use clear and concise language: Write in proper English, use correct terminology, and avoid vagueness.
Be respectful and patient: Remember that developers are volunteers and may not respond immediately.
The robots.txt file provides instructions to search engine crawlers about which parts of your website they should and should not access. You can customize the robots.txt file to prevent sensitive content from being indexed or to guide crawlers toward the most important areas of your site.
Composr offers three main systems for providing online support:
1. Support Ticket System: This system allows users to submit tickets and staff to respond, track, and resolve them. It features email notifications, ticket categorization and prioritization, staff assignment, and attachment support.
2. Discussion Forums: Conversr, Composr's built-in forum software, can be utilized for support by creating dedicated forums or subforums. Features like post templates and multi-moderations enhance support capabilities.
3. Feedback System: This system allows for comments on various content types, facilitating support directly related to that content.
How can I access the raw data behind the statistics graphs?
Answer
Every graph in Composr offers a spreadsheet export option. This allows you to download the data in a spreadsheet format, enabling detailed manual review or further analysis using third-party tools.
All times in Composr statistics are displayed according to the configured website time zone, regardless of visitor or user account time zones. While this is a limitation due to pre-computation, some graphs displaying hourly stats and country filtering offer insights into local times for manual analysis.
What are the limitations of pre-computed statistics in Composr?
Answer
Pre-computed statistics introduce certain limitations:
Filtering constraints: Limits filtering options to those incorporated in the data structure.
Historical data limitation: To maintain site stability, statistics older than 31 days aren't pre-processed. This may lead to data gaps if the system scheduler malfunctions or statistical data is manually deleted.
KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are specific measurements selected for marketing analysis. In Composr, time-series graphs can be added as KPIs. They offer several benefits:
Quick reference: Available on the Admin Zone dashboard staff checklist.
Target setting: Allows setting targets against KPIs, visualized on graphs and in overview summaries.
Notifications: Staff members receive regular notifications regarding target achievement status.
Tracking codes help you identify the sources driving user sessions to your website or associate specific split testing variations with users. Composr offers integrated referral tracking through various means:
URL parameter: The _t URL parameter can contain any custom tracking code, automatically registered by the stats addon.
Recommend addon: This addon automatically includes tracking codes for the referral source, referring member, and the referred page.
Member joining: When a referred member joins, the referring member receives points and a friend request.
Referrals addon: Allows manual tracking code input upon joining and facilitates a referrer reward system.
Stats addon: Generates graphs of tracking codes, including conversion rate measurements.
User lookup tool: Allows checking if a user accessed the site via a tracking code.
Tempcode integration: Inject tracking codes into Tempcode using symbols like {$SET_TRACKING_CODE,some code} or {$SPLIT_TEST,some code,some other code}.
What are the different ways to track events in Composr?
Answer
Composr offers various methods for tracking events:
Inbuilt events: Automatically recorded for actions like form submissions, purchases, newsletter signups, etc.
Tempcode symbol: Use the {$LOG_STATS_EVENT,event} symbol within your templates to track events when the template is displayed.
JavaScript function: Employ the $cms.statsEventTrack JavaScript function to track events from within your JavaScript code.
HTML data attribute: Add data-click-stats-event-track="{ category: 'some event', nativeTracking: true }" to HTML elements. This method acts as a wrapper for the JavaScript function.
URL wrapping: Wrap URLs in links using the {$STATS_TRACK_URL,URL,event} symbol. This approach records events via a redirection script and doesn't rely on JavaScript.
The JavaScript and HTML data attribute methods can also be integrated with Google Analytics events.