Basics#
Do the versions of MainCross update automatically?
Yes, its a fully managed service and hence updates are rolled out centrally and are automatically available to all instances. Releases are frequent, usually every day or every few days since there is a lot of ongoing activity.
Utmost care to taken to ensure backward compatibility of all changes - but we ask for your understanding if we do fail at this at some point.
Newsletters
Does MainCross have a newsletter like feature? How does it compare to Beehiiv or Substack?
There are 2 newsletter like features - Digest Mail and Notify Subscribers.
Account management#
How do I make the new account the owner of a channel or more generally give them permissions?
Read more about account types here
The Network Owner (NCO) can promote any existing account into a Network Admin (NCA). Read more here.
Channels#
Are there any differences in functionality for the different channel types?
Yes, each kind of channel (Topic, Organization, Persona) has a specific purpose and is part of our attempt to mirror real life social structures and relationships.
The information panels, engagement widgets, cross relationships are different based on channel type.
How do I delete channels?
Under ordinary circumstances, you can't. However if the channel is empty, then it can be deleted.
A channel is a heavy weight mechanism of organizing information and participation - it creates a unique microsite on your network that it available at its own URL with its posts, subscribers, feed, engagement widgets, info cards etc.
Hence it is important to note that channels cannot be deleted. A channel if deleted would potentially orphan a vast amount of attached and cross-linked info and content.
How do I restrict posting access to only admins in an channel, or restrict the post types allowed to members?
All the channels across the network can be globally controlled, or individually controlled.
Are all posts public, or is there a way to make topics private to a select group?
Access control on channels can be individually controlled - ie the network can have a mix of public, restricted, protected & private channels, which automatically apply to all posts in that channel.
When editing channel details like name, slug, description, the "Update Channel Details" button does not activate
All the fields are required to be filled out, and only then the button will be enabled.
Posting and editing#
The 'Link' content type is great for the rich preview it generates, but I want to edit the preview text.
Link previews are a simple feature that work the same way across social media, messengers etc, and allowing editing of the preview makes it needlessly complex.
There is also the matter of trust - If the rich preview can be edited, then how does one trust if this is the original, or someone's (fake) blurb on that link?
An alternative method is to use the Update Post type, into which the link can be embedded and an explanation can be added about why the link is relevant etc.
Can I embed a poll/survey in an article etc? I want to launch a survey and need to provide some context.
There are 2 ways to go about this:
- Use featured pages
- Launch a SocialSurvey, where the context for the survey is provided by the first panel itself
Visual styling#
Why can't we change fonts?
Fonts can be changed on the "website" side of Network Sites, but the "network" side uses system fonts.
We believe that high performance webapps (like MainCross) should use system fonts. Webapps are websites intended to be used as an application. These are not traditional websites which are only meant for viewing or consumption - members are expected to participate across dozens of tools & produce content using the authoring tools.
- The interface of the app looks a lot more “native” in its environment, and this causes less friction to the user.
- It also does not require any extra network traffic, as those fonts already exist on user's devices.
- As display quality improves, system fonts like Apple’s San Francisco and Microsoft’s Segoe aim to do just that, taking advantage of retina screens, dynamic kerning, additional font-weights, and improved readability. They also follow best practices like the i-L-1 test.
- The best UI is no UI. With system fonts, page content can feel more like it belongs on your particular computer or device.
Custom fonts lead to various side effects - layout shifts, FOUT, etc. In fact, most webapps are moving away from custom fonts to system fonts, something we've done from day 1. Notable examples include Github (2018) and Stack Overflow (2021).
Extending#
Are we able to add our own JavaScript code snippets and CSS code to the site elements? Use case would be for tracking user analytics, heatmaping, and other thirdparty tools integrations.
It is not possible for Network Operators to add arbitrary code snippets of any form (JS or CSS) as self-service.
- The technology used for serving the Network Site frontend does not allow this - all the code needs to be integrated, bundled and built before deploying.
- In any case, for security reasons, we do not allow unvetted code to be inserted that directly integrates with secure parts of the system, and would be able to access tokens, user data etc.
- In self-service mode, one may run a standalone tool inside an iframe. This is available Out of Box (OOB) on Featured Pages.
Depending on what is required, functionality may already be available OOB, and/or may just need to be turned on for a Network. If a desired third party-integration has wide utility, it may be considered on merits and released as part of the product roadmap. Please discuss directly with support on a need basis.
Beyond this, many methods for extending functionality are available under paid custom services which are available on Thriving and higher plans. Please discuss directly with support on a need basis.
