Tips for getting forum questions answered

This is a community-contributed tutorial. This tutorial is over a year old and may not apply to your version of Concrete CMS.

Mar 30, 2016

By MrKDilkington for Editors, Designers, Developers

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Questions that are clearly written and include specific details have the best chance of being answered by community members. To prevent duplicate questions from being asked, please search the forum, documentation, and tutorials for an answer first.

1. Have you included a question with specific details including:

What is the problem?
When did the problem start?
Did the problem start after a certain action or event?
Examples:
switching themes, changing theme CSS, adding theme JavaScript, modifying code in files, adding a custom block, installing an add-on, upgrading Concrete CMS, moving your site to a new server
What are the steps to reproduce the problem?
What are you trying to accomplish?
- What is the expected result?
- What is the result you are getting?

2. Have you cleared your concrete cache?

Dashboard > System & Settings > Optimization > Clear Cache

3. Have you cleared your browser cache?

4. What version of concrete and PHP are you using?

Version information for concrete and PHP can be found on the Environment Information page:
Dashboard > System & Settings > Environment > Environment Information

Core Version
Version Installed
PHP Version

5. What operating system, browser, and browser version are you using?

6. What theme are you using?

Is it a custom theme or a theme from the marketplace?

7. What is the address of your website?

8. Are you receiving an error message?

9. Are there errors in your browser console?

http://documentation.concretecms.org/tutorials/how-open-browser-console-view-errors

10. If you are receiving an error:

Include the location of the error and the page it was on. Copy and paste the full error inside [code] tags. Placing errors inside [code][/code] tags keeps the original error formatting and allows for quicker inspection.

Example:

[code]
your error message
[/code]

11. Include screenshots and screen recordings:

Taking a picture or video recording of your screen assists others in identifying the problem you are having. It is especially helpful for questions that you may have a hard time explaining with words.

Free screenshot and screen recording software is available for Windows, OSX, and Linux.

free screenshot making software:
PicPick - Windows
http://ngwin.com/picpick
Skitch - OSX
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/skitch/id425955336?mt=12
Shutter - Linux
http://shutter-project.org
free software and online hosting for making and sharing screenshots and screen recordings:
Jing - Windows and OSX
https://www.techsmith.com/jing.html