Contributors: A-Z Index

A

Name	Photograph	Title / Role	Contributions / Notes
Allen Ellis		Founder	Original designer for ocPortal Also conceived and coded the Theme Wizard and Point Store Son of one of the early inventors of Internet protocols (Usenet, aka Internet newsgroups) Token non-brit	View

C

Name	Photograph	Title / Role	Contributions / Notes
Chris Graham		Founder	Original developer of ocPortal, former lead developer of Composr CMS Masters degree in Computer Science from The University Of Sheffield Undertaken work for over 15 FTSE-100 companies, as well as many small and mid-sized organisations. Includes a number of banks and major brands.	View
Chris Warburton		developer for ocProducts	Made some key contributions to ocPortal	View

H

Name	Photograph	Title / Role	Contributions / Notes
Haydn Maidment		project manager for ocProducts	None available	View

J

Name	Photograph	Title / Role	Contributions / Notes
Jim Davidson		contributor	written many tutorials via Arvixe	View

P

Name	Photograph	Title / Role	Contributions / Notes
Patrick Schmalstig		Lead Developer	Joined Chris Graham behind the scenes in the development of Composr CMS in 2016. Took on the lead developer role in 2023 when Chris Graham stepped back to attend to his new lifestyle changes. Spearheaded the development of Composr CMS v11 and the new website, Composr.app. Formed the company PDStig, LLC to take on professional support and development for Composr CMS users especially after the discontinuation of ocProducts, Ltd.	View
Philip Withnall		Early Developer	Coded the chatroom, blogging support, the analytics system, and OcCLE (now Commandr) Masters Degree in Computer Science degree from The University Of Cambridge Other work has included helping out with Firefox, and ongoing work on GNOME	View

R

Name	Photograph	Title / Role	Contributions / Notes
Robert Goacher		Founder	Ran some of the early websites where ocPortal came from Technically the original developer of ocPortal, in that he wrote the first few lines of code Heavily involved in the feature design process Hosted some of our early meet-ups	View

S

Name	Photograph	Title / Role	Contributions / Notes
Steve Jarvis		project manager for ocProducts	Wrote many tutorials via Arvixe	View

Newest 10 Entries

Question	Can I use the calendar as a personal diary and keep my entries private?
Answer	Yes. When adding an event to the calendar, you can choose to make it public or private. Private events are generally used when someone wants to use the calendar system as a diary.

Question	How can I set up reminders for events?
Answer	When adding or editing an event, you can enable reminders for yourself and specific user groups. You can also choose how much notice you want for each reminder. Members can subscribe for reminders on an individual event screen. They can also personalize their reminder settings, including removing reminders or having multiple reminders at different times. Members can also subscribe for notifications to specific event types to be notified whenever events under those types are scheduled.

Question	How can I schedule Commandr commands to run automatically?
Answer	To schedule commands, create an event with the "System command" event type. This option needs to be enabled in the configuration first. In the event details, you can specify either a URL for Composr to call or a snippet of Commandr code to execute. Be sure to disable the WYSIWYG editor for this type of event. You'll also need to have the system scheduler configured for the commands to run automatically.

Question	Can I add external feeds to the calendar?
Answer	Yes, you can add RSS or Atom feeds to your calendar. This lets you view time-based information from external sources alongside your calendar events.

Question	What do I do if a recurring event needs to be changed or skipped?
Answer	Composr has a "fixing an event" feature to handle changes to recurring events. This is useful if an event needs to be cancelled or rescheduled. You edit the event as if it were a new, standalone event and choose the "Edit with fixing past recurrences" option. This separates the past occurrences from the modified event, ensuring future recurrences reflect the changes.

Question	What is the "recurrence pattern" and how does it work?
Answer	The recurrence pattern is a powerful tool that defines how often an event repeats. While it might seem complex at first, it provides a lot of flexibility. Think of it as a binary code where each digit represents a time period (like a day or week). A "1" indicates the event occurs, and a "0" means it doesn't. This lets you create complex schedules like "every weekday" (daily with pattern `1111100` if it starts on a Monday) or "every other Tuesday" (weekly on Tuesday with the pattern `10`).

Question	What are the different views available in the calendar?
Answer	The calendar has five views: Year view: Displays an overview of the entire year. Month view: Shows events within a specific month. Week view: Displays events for a selected week. Day view: Shows events scheduled for a specific day. Event view: Displays the details of a single event. You can easily navigate between these views to get different levels of detail and focus on specific periods or events.

Question	How do I add events to the calendar?
Answer	You can add events in several ways: Through the Admin Zone or Content Management Zone: Go to Admin Zone > Content > Calendar. Directly on the calendar: Click on a date box on the calendar view. Using the "Add Event" button on any calendar view. Deleting events can be done at the bottom of the event's edit form. You have options for recurring events, such as editing/deleting the specific occurrence, editing/deleting future ones, or all of them.

Question	How do I categorize events?
Answer	You categorize events using "Event types". Composr provides default types like "Anniversary", "Appointment", "Birthday", "General", "Public Holiday", "Task", "Vacation", and the special "System command" for executing Commandr commands. You can also add your own custom event types to suit your specific needs, such as "Appraisal Session" for a business website.

Question	What is an "event" in the Composr calendar system?
Answer	An event is any entry in the calendar. Importantly, an event isn't limited to a single point or range in time. Events can recur based on a schedule you define. This makes them very flexible – they can represent anything from one-time appointments to recurring birthdays or even weekly team practices.

Top 10 Entries

Name	Philip Withnall
Title / Role	Early Developer
Contributions / Notes	Coded the chatroom, blogging support, the analytics system, and OcCLE (now Commandr) Masters Degree in Computer Science degree from The University Of Cambridge Other work has included helping out with Firefox, and ongoing work on GNOME

Name	Allen Ellis
Photograph
Title / Role	Founder
Contributions / Notes	Original designer for ocPortal Also conceived and coded the Theme Wizard and Point Store Son of one of the early inventors of Internet protocols (Usenet, aka Internet newsgroups) Token non-brit

Name	Robert Goacher
Photograph
Title / Role	Founder
Contributions / Notes	Ran some of the early websites where ocPortal came from Technically the original developer of ocPortal, in that he wrote the first few lines of code Heavily involved in the feature design process Hosted some of our early meet-ups

Name	Chris Graham
Photograph
Title / Role	Founder
Contributions / Notes	Original developer of ocPortal, former lead developer of Composr CMS Masters degree in Computer Science from The University Of Sheffield Undertaken work for over 15 FTSE-100 companies, as well as many small and mid-sized organisations. Includes a number of banks and major brands.
Links	gameRevolt (@[email protected]) - LinuxRocks.Online

Website	Earth & Sky
Screenshot
Short Description	Earth & Sky is a Composr v11 gallery website showcasing natural photography by Mark Brunner.

Website	Saving Wallden
Screenshot
Short Description	This is an informational website for a Visual Pinball X game in development called "Saving Wallden". The site features the planned game rules, development news, and a download of the game as it is so far.

Website	PDStig, LLC
Screenshot
Short Description	This is an informational site / portfolio for PDStig, LLC, the company run by one of Composr's lead developers, Patrick Schmalstig.

Website	Composr CMS: Content management meets social media
Screenshot
Short Description	This is the main website for Composr CMS version 11. It runs the latest build of v11. Currently it is just a placeholder but will soon replace compo.sr when v11 becomes stable.

Question

Should I use the bleeding edge releases or the git repository?

Answer

That depends on several factors. Here are some pros and cons of each:

Bleeding edge releases	Git repository (v11 branch)
Easier to set up and use, and does not require knowledge of git	Harder to set up and use unless you are familiar with git; must routinely run the file integrity check, database upgrade tool, and check database schema tools in the upgrader after pulling
More stable, but less frequent updates	Less stable, but more frequent updates (almost daily!)
Only contains core code and addons unless you manually install non-bundled addons; non-bundled addons must be manually updated	Contains all core code and non-bundled addons; non-bundled addons are updated with pulls (though you will need to check file/database integrity often and check blocks/modules for available upgrades)
Ability to test the upgrader / upgrading between new v11 versions	Not able to effectively test the upgrader because git pull might load in and update new code early before the release is available
Always contains the latest files.bin and db_meta.bin because these are compiled with every release	Does not always contain the latest files.bin and db_meta.bin. Therefore, file and database integrity may report false-positives.
Intended for general user testing	Intended for developers / developer testing: * special run-time checks are enabled for extra debugging (if the .git directory exists in the install) * contains the automated test suite for running tests

Click here to access the git repository.

Question	Can I switch a v11 install from git over to using the releases from composr.app?
Answer	It is not recommended you do this because you may run into issues. For example, some changes were made in crypto_master.php and data/upgrader2.php prior to the first v11 alpha. These changes will result in a broken upgrade unless you already pulled these changes from git. Similar situations could happen in the future as well. It is recommended you either discard the git install and use a fresh install from the Downloads, or to maintain a git install and a bleeding-edge release install separately. Do not combine the two.

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