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ClearControl v3.0 - Latest Release


WHAT’S NEW
ClearControl version 3.0 includes a number of changes that impact key features such as speed, search engine optimisation, compliance and usability.
From an administrator’s point of view, you will notice these changes to a number of areas, but the actual admin functions will not be impacted in any dramatic way.

Should you have any questions or problems following the upgrade then please don’t hesitate to contact us for assistance. We are always happy to help. Items and features marked with (A) are “Advanced Features” and will in some cases require modules to be added to your license or re-configured.

1. TEXT EDITOR / GENERAL CONTENT

ClearControl version 3.0 includes a number of changes that impact key features such as speed, search engine optimisation, compliance and usability.From an administrator’s point of view, you will notice these changes to a number of areas, but the actual admin functions will not be impacted in any dramatic way.Should you have any questions or problems following the upgrade then please don’t hesitate to contact us for assistance. We are always happy to help. Items and features marked with are “Advanced Features” and will in some cases require modules to be added to your license or re-configured.
  • Enhanced DDA support: You will notice that when inserting images, links and other items that you are advised on fields that ensure DDA compliance.
  • Enhanced pasting functions (incl. plain text paste). Now you can paste directly from for example a Word document and select to remove all the Word codes as you paste or paste as plain text.
  • Custom links to pages: You can now insert links to your other site pages directly from the editor’s toolbar.
  • Faster loading of the toolbar: The editor toolbar now loads faster and automatically after you open in edit mode and click on the text that you are editing.
  • Enhanced inserting of images and documents
  • Enhanced table management
  • Custom links to user profiles: Insert links to user profiles, directly from the editor’s toolbar (A)
  • Insert Snippets: We can now “pre-cook” certain content areas for you. If you often need copy structured in a certain way, then a snippet may be useful. (A)


2. MENU & PAGE MANAGER

  • Alias Management: See below for more details
  • Include page in A-Z: This option indicates whether you want a page to be listed in the A-Z page directory module. See more below.


3. MENU & PAGE MANAGER - ALIAS MANAGEMENT

This is one of the strongest new features released in this version and it has a major impact on SEO. With this you are in total control of how you can address an individual page. For example, www.clearpeople.com/page.aspx?id=325&mid=17&langid=1 … does not look very pretty, user friendly and is not easy to remember.  Furthermore, search engines tend to rank URLs like this one lower. The link above actually links to our Contact Us page. And, so it would be much more natural to use an alias such as: www.clearpeople.com/contact

From version 3.0 you are able to manage these aliases through the Menu and Page manager. And, when adding a new page, ClearControl will automatically suggest an alias, which you can overwrite. Let us know if you initially want us to add aliases automatically to all your pages (we will use your menu names as the default page aliases).

4. SUPPORT FOR GOOGLE SITEMAP(A)
Google have started an initiative that allows website managers to submit a site map to Google for indexing. This improves the chances of getting certain pages ranked better, and ensures that pages that would otherwise not be found by Google’s spiders are indexed as well. This initiative is currently in Beta by Google, but ClearControl already supports it to ensure our clients get the benefits of this straight away. Read more here about Google’s sitemap initiative: http://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/about.html Speak to us about extending your site with this feature. Please note that Google Sitemaps integration will be included free of charge if you subscribe to our ongoing ClearPromotion SEO service.

5. USER MANAGER

  • “Include profile in A-Z”: tick this to allow a profile to be listed in A-Z (and Group lists). Obviously “inactive” profiles will never be listed.
  • “Highlight profile in A-Z”: tick this to indicate that you want a profile to be highlighted. Depending on the styles that are applied to your lists, highlighted profiles can be marked with bold, underline or similar.
  • Group manager: The group manager was actually added some months back as part of ongoing incremental upgrades. The main reason for adding this was to address the requirement by a number of our clients to be able to group users more flexibly. You can access the Group Manager from User Manager, where you can create, renames and delete groups.


6. PROFILE DIRECTORY A-Z (A)

This A-Z module provides easy listing of all profiles that are added to your site. When adding a user you will notice that you can tick whether the user is “Included in A-Z” or not. You can also select whether to highlight the profile in the directory.

 

7. PAGE DIRECTORY A-Z(A)

This A-Z module is a simple listing of pages in a directory. An example of use for a law firm would be to include all pages describing Practice Areas or Legal Services in the A-Z. The A-Z then in reality would be an A-Z of services that the firm provides. For a retail site this could be used as an A-Z of products.

 

8. SEARCH

The basic search has been improved to return more accurate results, and to list the page title for results as the search result header. Search can now also be enhanced by using two new search results modules:

• News, Publications and Events search results (A)

• Profile search (A)

 

9. STYLING OF MODULES

ClearControl now has improved support for styling a number of modules, including:

  • Enhanced support for styling of News stories / Briefs / Publications
  • Enhanced support for styling of Profiles
  • A-Z and Group lists
  • Search results

 

10. CARBON COPY (A)

This new module is a great tool for sites that require blocks of content to be repeated across many pages.

For example, you want to be able to include a footer section with a few static links and a strap line for a monthly marketing campaign. You want to be able to manage this content like any other content, but you don’t want to have to do this on all pages. To solve this you can use the “carbon copy” module. This module is either directly built into your

templates, or you can drop it into a page, and configure it to carbon copy content from the original page. The carbon copy will from then on show exactly the same content as the original.

 

11. POLLS AND QUESTIONNAIRES (A)

ClearControl now allows you to add new modules to display a poll or a questionnaire. You can use this to collect information from authenticated users, or from guests visiting your site. Results can be hidden from visitors until they have submitted an answer and can be styled in a variety of ways.

 

Use Polls and Questionnaires to collect marketing information, user feedback, customer preferences, and more. Speak to us to arrange a demo of this new feature. 

 

12. HOME AND ADMIN URLS

From ClearControl version 3.0 the home page URL remains as the “clean” home page address.

For example, http://www.clearpeople.com currently loads as http://www.clearpeople.com/Page.aspx?id=301&mid=-2&langid=1 …

 

From version 3.0 the URL http://www.clearpeople.com will not change to the home page.

You will also notice, that going to “/admin” redirects you to “/ adminlogin” which is the new login location for administrators and which you can easily bookmark.

 

For more info on any of these changes, please speak to your ClearControl support team.

 

Enjoy the new release!