For Developers
Support for our UBCMS developers.
Flex UI is available to all UBCMS users now. Learn more.
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Last reviewed: June 28, 2021
Akamai content delivery network
The Akamai content delivery network (CDN) delivers our Web pages through high-speed 'edge' servers physically located around the globe, instead of through the 'origin' servers directly (our UBCMS servers). The CDN helps accelerate, filter, and secure web traffic.
Debugging Tools
no custom
- This trick is good for debugging page problems in live sites and Author.
- Simply add "?nocustom=1" to the end of the URL in the browser location bar to turn off any custom code that is not normally part of the UBCMS which may be interfering with page behavior.
- e.g. compare https://www.buffalo.edu and https://www.buffalo.edu?nocustom=1
- nocustom temporarily suppresses:
- HTML snippets
- External embeds
- “Head HTML” from page properties
- Custom HTML from design properties
- main.css and main.js from design folders
- Google Tag Manager
- Shared Content Reference components directly including CSS or JS files
- “customize” nodes
rescue mode
- This trick is good for debugging and fixing page problems in the Author environment.
- It reduces the page to a skeleton view, so it is easy to find all the components including any that are hidden. Components can be modified normally, or temporarily turned off, before the page is then re-displayed. Simply add "?rescuemode=1" to the end of the URL in the browser location bar.
- e.g. https://ubcms-author.buffalo.edu/content/your-domain/your-site.html?rescuemode=1 (login required)
- This does not disable all CSS but renders most components in a data-only way which can block the effects of misbehaving components that might mess up the whole page. It can also reveal empty or invisible components that cannot otherwise be edited or deleted.
wcm mode
- This trick allows you to preview a page in Author as if it were published live.
- Temporarily disable most of the author environment on a page, including the Sidekick, by adding '?wcmmode=disabled' to your page’s URL in the browser location bar.
- e.g. https://ubcms-author.buffalo.edu/content/www/cmshelp.html?wcmmode=disabled (login required)
Some of these tools are only available in Flex UI.
CRXDE
location of CRXDE off the Start page
The link to CRXDE is off the Start page. Look on the left for the Tools hammer icon. Click that to reveal 'General'. Click that to reveal the link to CRXDE (developers only).
Tag Admin Console
location of Tag Admin Console off the Start page
The link to the Tag Admin Console is off the Start page. Look on the left for the Tools hammer icon. Click that to reveal 'General'. Click that to reveal the link to Tags (admins only).
User Admin / Group Manager
location of User and Group Manager admin tools off the Start page
The links to the User Admin and Group Manager Tools are off the Start page. Look on the left for the Tools hammer icon. Click that to reveal Security. Click that to reveal the link to both user tools (admins only).
Mobile Device Simulator Display your page as it would appear in mobile phones and other size devices.
You can copy and paste content from one browser tab to another.
Compare two versions of a page, usually the current with the last published.
Compare Two Different Pages
Use this trick to compare two different pages side by side in one window. It's similar to the Diff tool, but for any pages you specify, and without markup.
This example compares two university news releases in from shared content: https://ubcms-author.buffalo.edu/mnt/overlay/wcm/core/content/sites/diffresources.html/content/shared/university/news/news-center-releases/2021/01/001?item=/content/shared/university/news/news-center-releases/2021/01/003&sideBySide
Replace the URL fragments manually:
https://ubcms-author.buffalo.edu/mnt/overlay/wcm/core/content/sites/diffresources.html +
/content/shared/university/news/news-center-releases/2021/01/001
+ ?item=
/content/shared/university/news/news-center-releases/2021/01/003
+ &sideBySide