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Question How can I ensure my website complies with email marketing laws?
Answer Email marketing laws like CAN-SPAM protect recipients' rights to unsubscribe. Your website must include a clear 'List-Unsubscribe' header in every email, offer an easy unsubscribe process, and respect unsubscribe requests promptly. Composr provides built-in mechanisms, including an unsubscribe endpoint and support for the List-Unsubscribe header, to facilitate compliance.
Question What are my responsibilities regarding user privacy?
Answer You must have a comprehensive privacy policy that details the personal data you collect, its usage, and if it's shared with third parties. Laws like GDPR have strict requirements, including logging data access, data purging, and security measures. California law mandates specific elements in your policy, like handling "Do Not Track" requests and a clear process for communicating changes.

Composr has an automatic Privacy Policy generator block to help you get started. This is used by default.
Question How can I create effective website rules?
Answer A well-defined rules page is crucial for setting expectations for user behavior and outlining consequences for violations. It should cover a range of offenses with appropriate punishments, reference relevant laws, and assign legal responsibility to users. Composr provides default rules pages that can be customized, and this page is displayed to users upon joining the site.
Question What are the key legal considerations for running a website?
Answer Several legal aspects need careful attention when operating a website, especially for large or corporate sites. These include establishing clear rules and terms of service, adhering to privacy laws like GDPR and California's regulations, managing personal data responsibly, complying with email marketing regulations like CAN-SPAM, ensuring website accessibility, addressing eCommerce regulations, and understanding liability for content and user actions.
Question How do data-tpl and data-view behaviors work in Composr's JavaScript?
Answer Composr uses data-tpl and data-view behaviors for associating HTML templates and JavaScript views, respectively. This facilitates clean separation of presentation and logic:
  • data-tpl: Used with the $cms.behaviors.initializeTemplates function and PARAMS_JSON tempcode directive to bind JavaScript logic to HTML templates.
  • data-view: Used with the $cms.behaviors.initializeViews function to associate JavaScript view classes (inheriting from $cms.View) with specific HTML elements.
Question What are the advantages of using Composr's JavaScript libraries?
Answer Composr's JavaScript libraries like $cms, $util, and $dom offer several advantages:
  • Organization: They provide a structured way to access Composr-specific functionalities, avoiding global namespace pollution.
  • Abstraction: They encapsulate common tasks, simplifying DOM manipulation, form handling, and interaction with Composr's UI.
  • Consistency: They offer a consistent API across different parts of Composr.
Question How does Composr implement the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern?
Answer
  • Model/API: The sources directory primarily houses scripts forming the Model/API, handling data logic and business rules.
  • View: Templates in themes/default/templates represent the View, responsible for presenting data to the user. Comcode pages can also be considered part of the View.
  • Controller: Entry scripts like index.php and site/dload.php act as front controllers, directing requests. Modules and blocks, residing in */pages/modules and sources/[mini]blocks, respectively, serve as controllers, managing user interactions and determining which View to render.
Question Can I translate my content into multiple languages?
Answer Yes, Composr supports multi-language content. You can enable this feature by:
  • Installing multiple language packs: Make sure you have at least two language packs installed.
  • Enabling the Conversr multi-language option: Go to Admin Zone > Setup > Configuration > Site options > Internationalisation.
  • Running a Commandr command: Execute the necessary command to set up the database structure for multi-language content (unless you already enabled Support content translations when installing).
Once enabled, you can translate your content into different languages and allow visitors to choose their preferred language.
Question My language uses gendered descriptors. How can I handle this in Composr?
Answer Composr offers solutions for languages with gendered descriptors:
  • Template editing: You can modify templates to use different language strings based on user gender. This involves adding Tempcode logic to dynamically select the appropriate string.
  • Custom Profile Fields: Create a Custom Profile Field for "Gender" and use it to conditionally display gendered language strings in templates.
These methods allow for flexible handling of gendered language variations.
Question What are language strings, and how are they used?
Answer Language strings are phrases or pieces of text used throughout Composr. They're identified by unique codenames, like WELCOME_MESSAGE. These strings are stored in .ini language files and used to display text in the user interface.

By translating language strings, you change the text displayed on your website without modifying the underlying code.

Top 10 Entries

Question Are there any limitations to importing forum data?
Answer Yes, some limitations exist, particularly with specific forum platforms.
  • General: Private messages are often combined into private topics.
  • phpBB: Usergroup configuration and HTML entities may require manual adjustments after import.
  • vBulletin: Calendar recurrences, ratings (karma), and 'goes to coventry' are not imported perfectly. Attachments may need to be extracted directly from the live database due to potential corruption in SQL dumps.
  • Simple Machine Forum: Banning features may not import perfectly due to differences in how Composr handles bans.
Question Where can I find the import functionality in Composr?
Answer Navigate to Admin Zone > Tools > Import.
Question What data formats can Composr import?
Answer Composr primarily uses database connections for importing. However, it also supports neutral data formats like CSV spreadsheet files and importing downloads from a directory.
Question Can I import data from other platforms into Composr?
Answer Yes, Composr offers importers for several popular platforms:
  • Forum Software: Invision Board, MyBB, phpBB, Simple Machine Forum, vBulletin
  • Content Management Systems: WordPress
  • Special Importers: HTML website importer, Composr merge (for merging another Composr site)
Question How do I move my Composr website to a new server?
Answer Moving a Composr site involves transferring both the files and the database.

Files:
  • On the old server, ZIP the entire Composr directory.
  • Download the ZIP file to your computer.
  • Upload the ZIP file to the new server using SFTP/FTP.
  • On the new server, unzip the file.

Database:
  • On the old server, create an SQL dump of your database using the mysqldump command or phpMyAdmin.
  • Download the SQL dump file.
  • If your URL is changing, search and replace the old URL with the new one in the SQL dump file.
  • Upload the SQL dump file to the new server.
  • Restore the database on the new server using the mysql command or phpMyAdmin.

Important Steps:
  • File Permissions: After transferring files, ensure correct file permissions are set on the new server. You can use the fixperms.php script, the upgrader script, or manually adjust them.
  • Configuration: If database settings are different on the new server, update the _config.php file or use the config_editor.php script to change the settings for both the site and forum databases.
  • Base URL: If your URL has changed, update the base URL setting in the Installation Options editor (config_editor.php).
  • Caches: Clear the block cache using the upgrader.php script.
Question Can I integrate third-party JavaScript libraries into Composr?
Answer Yes, you can integrate third-party JavaScript libraries using various methods:
  • Direct reference by URL: Include the library's URL in your theme's HTML.
  • Composr's JavaScript API: Use Composr's API for organized inclusion and potential future compatibility benefits.
  • Manual integration: Directly include the library's code in appropriate template files.
Choose the method best suited for your needs and technical proficiency.
Question How does Composr handle user authentication with external systems like LDAP or HTTP authentication?
Answer Composr can integrate with LDAP and HTTP authentication, but these features are considered complex and may require programming experience to set up correctly. Both methods allow users to log in to Composr using their existing credentials from the external system, streamlining access and management.
Question What are the limitations of using a third-party forum driver?
Answer Using a third-party forum driver can lead to limitations. Custom profile fields of type LONG_TEXT are limited to TEXT length, cookie integration is not officially supported and can be complex, and some forum drivers have specific quirks detailed in the nuances tutorial.
Question What are the implications of using the "none-forum" driver?
Answer Using the "none-forum" driver disables or limits many Composr features, including commenting, points, and user interactions. Consider using Conversr instead and restricting access to the forum zone, join module, and personal zone.
Question How can I integrate my forum visually into my website?
Answer Composr allows you to integrate your forum visually into your website. Enable "Show forum within website" in the Admin Zone configuration module and update the forum link in your menu to pass through the "forums" embedding module. You may need to adjust CSS to achieve a seamless look.