• Advanced Polls: Blind polls, forcing or setting of default options, and point-weighting.
• Private Topics: More sophisticated than traditional private messages.
• Forum Introduction Questions: A flexible way to control access and encourage engagement (e.g. forum-specific rules or forum passwords).
• Cascading Topics: Pinned topics that appear in multiple forums.
• Integrated Moderation: Streamlined moderation tools within the forum interface.

• Control Result Visibility: Choose whether results are visible before voting.
• Require Topic Reply: Force users to reply to the topic before voting.
• Show Voter Identities: Optionally display which members voted for each option.
• Allow Vote Revocation: Let voters change their vote while the poll is open.
• Set Voting Close Time: Define a specific date or time for the poll to close.
• Restrict Selections: Limit the number of options voters can choose.
• Allow Guest Voting: Enable voting for unregistered users.
• Weight Votes by Points: Give more influential members greater voting power (requires the points addon).

• Regular Posts: Standard posts made by members within a topic.
• Quick Replies: Shorter replies made directly from the topic view.
• Anonymous Posts: Members can choose to post anonymously, appearing as a guest. Staff can track the actual user if needed.
• Emphasised posts: Posts made by staff (or marked by staff) which are highlighted to draw attention as they are important.
• Whispers: Private messages embedded within public topics, allowing for side conversations.
• Private Topic Posts: Private messages sent between specific members (e.g. an on-site "inbox").

• PHP IMAP extension installed
• System scheduler (Cron) running
• IMAP-compatible mail server

• Mail server enforces SPF and DKIM for email validation
• Mail server limits email size to prevent abuse
• System scheduler runs frequently (e.g., every minute) so members get prompt updates

• Structure: Composr's forums follow a hierarchical structure. You can create forum groupings, forums, and sub-forums (and sub-sub-forums etc) in that order of hierarchy.
• Strategies: Avoid creating too many forums, which can dilute activity. Start with a few well-defined forums and expand as needed.
• Permissions: Use Composr's permission system to control access to forums and features. For example, you can create private staff forums.

• Virtual Forums: Special forums like "Posts since last visit" and "Topics with unread posts" provide filtered views of recent activity.
• Read Status: Topics with unread posts are displayed in bold with a jump-to-first-unread link. You can manually mark topics or entire forums as read or unread.
• Notifications: You can enable email notifications for specific topics or forums, either manually or automatically based on your activity.

• Sales list management: Cancel purchases, view sales history, and manage refunds (Admin Zone > Audit > eCommerce > Sales list management).
• Charts: Generate profit/loss accounts and cash flow diagrams for specific periods (Admin Zone > Audit > eCommerce, and Admin Zone > Audit > Site statistics).
• Manual transactions: Record transactions outside of Composr for accurate accounting (Admin Zone > Audit > eCommerce > Manual transaction).

• Monetary payments: Issue refunds through your payment gateway.
• Point payments: Manually refund points through the points system.
• Cancellations: Cancel purchases in the Admin Zone to allow repurchasing. Remember to manually undo any associated actions (e.g., removing name highlighting).

• Flat rate per order: Configure a fixed shipping cost for all orders.
• Weight-based calculation: Define shipping costs based on the order's total weight.
• Shippo integration: Get real-time shipping quotes from various carriers based on weight, dimensions, and destination.

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

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.

gameRevolt (@[email protected]) - LinuxRocks.Online

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

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.

Absolutely! Frequent changes may be made to both bundled and non-bundled addons. Bundled addons will be updated via the upgrader. For non-bundled addons, you will have to update them through the addons management screen (Admin Zone > Structure > Addons). You will be informed which ones need updated.

Once version 11 reaches release candidate, we do not expect frequent updates to non-bundled addons anymore. But it is still good practice to check after every update.

Yes, for basic non-custom v10 sites. However, expect some issues to arise in the process. And please report those issues to the tracker.

For v10 sites with non-bundled addons or customisations, upgrading to v11 will likely break the site until you update the non-bundled addons or temporarily remove the customisations.

We aim to have the upgrader fully functional for a large majority of types of sites and for sites using non-bundled addons by the time version 11 reaches release candidate stage.

We do not recommend upgrading production v10 sites at this time until v11 reaches stable.