Last Updated: 2023-01-31 19:00:30
Curator Is Sunsetting Custom Code Support: What You Should Know
Ben Bausili
Global Experience
Practice Director
December 12, 2022
Curator has continued to grow with increased integrations and customization options. You can now style your analytics without needing custom CSS, HTML, PHP or JavaScript. By building native styling tools, we've created a more stable system that anybody can use. We believe strongly that the best, most stable Curator experience is when using our native features in place of custom code. That’s why we’re making the decision to end support for custom code.
Here are the big points we want to communicate upfront, then you can read on for details surrounding the move from custom code to native features:
- We’re ending support for custom code on May 1, 2023.
- We want to help you move from custom code to native feature – for free!
- If you’d prefer to simply implement a new design, we can do so at a 25% discount.
- If you really need to keep your custom code, we can discuss a long-term service contract.
Option 1: Going from Custom Code to Native Features
If you’re unsure of what to do next given this announcement, we want to reiterate that you don’t have to go it alone! To give you that best experience, we want to help you move away from any custom code and custom webservers like Nginx or IIS – at zero cost to you.
Our team will help you migrate to as many native features as possible. If we have direct access to your site, we can do this with minimal interruption or time investment on your part. During this work, we will also look for potential items to add to our feature roadmap that may not be native yet. These services are entirely complimentary, and we hope to schedule work on your site before we fully sunset break-fix support for custom code and custom servers in Curator. The current plan is for our Product Support team to cease assistance to any custom code by May 1, 2023.
No action is needed if you do not have custom codeor custom webservers. If you do have custom code, this will hopefully be a straightforward, one-to-one swap. As one example, many customers have collapsible side navigation that later became a native feature of our tool. For some, we may not have a native feature yet (such as multiple menu support), but we will be using this process to inform our product roadmap.
To Check If You Have Custom Code
On the backend of your Curator instance, look at the Settings >Portal Settings >Custom Styles tab (formerly Advanced Styles). You have custom code if the two black text boxes have content in them.
To Check If You Have Custom PHP
There may also be custom code in your Advanced PHP section. If you can see the Advanced tab, check to see if you have this return statement:
If you see this return [] statement and it is not greyed out, you can hide this section by disabling the Enable Advanced PHP toggle under the Features tab on Portal Settings.
Please note that you can turn off custom code by going to the Settings >Portal Settings >Features tab. Disable the Enable Custom Styles (CSS / HTML inserts) and the Enable Advanced PHP toggles.
To Check If You Have Custom Webserver
On the backend of your Curator instance, go to Settings >Curator >Status. A standard setup will have the user running Curator named 'apache', or 'www-data,' as in the screenshot below. If the user is not apache or www-data, that does not necessarily mean you are running a custom webserver, but we'd be happy to help you verify. Please reach out to our support.
Option 2: New Theme Discount and Support Services
Seeing as how we’re already going to be assisting customers with transitions away from custom code, now might be a good time for you to book a design update. To help, we're offering our existing customers a 25% discount on a new site theme refresh. During this process, you'll meet with our designers, who will help you achieve an entirely standard build using tools we track, test, manage and maintain that will make your brand shine. If you are interested, please reach out to your InterWorks account team or use our contact us form.
Option 3: Ongoing Custom Code Support via Service Contract
We also recognize that you may want or need to keep your custom CSS, HTML and JavaScript. You can continue to use custom code, but it will need to be maintained and tested outside our typical product support.
If you do not have those resources or need time beyond May 1st, 2023, please don't hesitate to contact your InterWorks account team or use our contact us form to discuss additional services for managing and testing upgrades.
F.A.Q.
We've provided some more detailed answers to your questions below, but feel free to reach out directly to us. We'll be in touch shortly to help with any specific questions you have about what these changes mean for you. In the meantime, you can read more about our recent changes and updates here on our blog or keep in touch with our updates by signing up for our newsletter.
Q: Do I need to delete all my custom code?
A: No! You can keep it as long as you'd like. What this change means is that the Curator Support team will no longer help troubleshoot or fix issues that have custom code as the root cause.
Q: If you made this code, why can't you maintain it?
A: Native features provide the most stability because we manage, test and maintain it centrally. We want to give everyone a long horizon to migrate their custom features that we have built into Curator for you. When creating new features and styling options, we continue to draw on use cases we’ve encountered during some of the custom dev we’ve created for clients, so the odds are very good that some of your 'custom features' have found their way into the core product. We will be here to help you move away from that so you no longer need to maintain it.
Q: Do I need to hire a developer to keep maintaining my custom code?
A: You will need someone to maintain your code if you choose to keep it. Once again, we are happy to help you move away from needing to maintain the code. Please reach out to your InterWorks account team or use our contact us form if you would be interested in additional services around code and maintenance via a consultant resource.
Q: What if I am reading this email/blog post in 2023? Am I out of luck?
A: Please reach out ASAP to the Curator Support team. We'll see what we can do in the meantime, but the best answer is to back up your code (export your Portal Settings or copy/paste It into a text file) and remove the code to view your site with the default controls.
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