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.
Composr provides several tools to help you stay up-to-date with forum activity:
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.
What security measures should I consider for local payments?
Answer
While Composr supports local payments (Authorize.Net), it requires high PCI compliance. Ensure you adhere to the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) guidelines, including secure coding practices, firewalls, intrusion detection systems, regular security audits, and staff screening.
Composr provides tools for monitoring your eCommerce activities:
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).
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.
Composr primarily uses database connections for importing. However, it also supports neutral data formats like CSV spreadsheet files and importing downloads from a directory.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
