Glossary
Whilst most of our How To guides are self-explanatory, it can help to have a good grounding in our terminology to speed up the learning process. What follows is a glossary of our commonly used terms.
Administrator
A person who has the right to log in to a Tribiq CMS site and administer it in some way.
Permissions will govern the things which this person is allowed to do.
User
A person who visits the front-end of a Tribiq site and who is authenticated via the Extranet system.
Whereas a visitor means any non-Administrator looking at the front-end, a User is by definition authenticated.
Extranet
A site, or part of the site, which requires visitors to enter a username and password in order to access it.
Content Item
A "page" in the most simple sense.
In Tribiq CMS, all Content Items are version controlled, they can be drafted for private viewing and editing by Administrators, they can be Published, and then potentially Trashed or Hidden.
Menu Item
The Menu system is the principal kind of hierarchical navigation for visitors of a Tribiq CMS site.
A Menu Item is a a single navigational item in a menu, which may be in a variety of styles.
A Menu Item usually links to a Content Item.
However, a Menu Item can be "unlinked" if it does not link to a Content Item (such as when it it used in a popout menu merely to cause the level beneath it to appear).
When a breadcrumb trail appears on a page, it shows the path from Home, via the top level of the menu, down to the current item.
A Menu Item is a "Primary Menu Item" if it is the only Menu Item pointing to a given Content Item.
If there are several Menu Items pointing to a given Content Item, then only one Menu Item will be the "Primary", the others will be "Secondary".
A breadcrumb trail always shows the Primary Menu Items.
Language
A human language in which a visitor may view a website.
Tribiq CMS stores its data in UTF-8 format, so all character sets are supported, including multi-byte character sets.
For each language in which visitors will view a site, there must be a Language Pack enabled in Tribiq CMS.
Language Packs can be downloaded from Tribiq directly into Storekeeper.
Language Packs contain Phrases. When Plugins are installed, they may add Phrases into the Language Pack, and thereby such Plugins can display phrases in the required visitor languages.
Where necessary, Language Packs and Phrases may be added manually by an Administrator.
Each Language Pack also stores settings for certain special pages, such as the home page of each language, the search results page, and extranet-related pages, where relevant.
Phrase
A word or phrase which may be displayed via the front-end of a Tribiq CMS site to a visitor.
Phrases are grouped into Language Packs and may be added by Plugins or manually.
A phrase consists of a code of the format "_SOME_PHRASE", containing a leading underscore and no spaces.
Plugins which are designed to use Phrases to display some output can be set to display a given phrase using its Phrase Code in the above format.
This is preferental to inserting plain text in a single language, because if other languages are added to the site, all required Phrases can be viewed and edited in a central location in Storekeeper.
Phrases can be exported in CSV format, edited in a spreadsheet application such as Excel, and re-imported, thereby creating a new Language Pack.
Site Setting
A site-wide setting.
Site Settings are controlled via an Administrator in Storekeeper, in the Administration section.
Content Area
The editable content area of a Content Item, in which there is a WYSIWYG editor to assist an Administrator in preparing simple HTML.
A Content Area may normally contain HTML, Inline Images and SWF (Flash) movies.
Plugin
A software package which may be installed into a Tribiq CMS site to enhance its functionality.
Plugins can be installed via the Storekeeper Plugins panel, and once installed they must be Run in order to be put to use.
A Plugin can contain PHP program code, instructions for database updates, a Framework which describes how any visitor-facing material should appear, Phrases, images and stylesheets.
Some Plugins are visitor-facing (they are inserted into a Slot), while some are designed to work inside Storekeeper only. Some Plugins do both.
Plugin Instance
A Plugin with a set of relevant settings.
Whenever an Administrator wishes to insert a Plugin into a Slot, a Plugin Instance must be created.
A Plugin on its own cannot appear in a Slot; in order to appear in a Slot it must have some Plugin Settings, which will depend on the nature of the Plugin.
Plugin Instances are designed to be re-used. If a Plugin Instance is used in several places on a site, then by changing the Plugin Instance in one place, all pages that contain that Instance will display the change.
A Plugin Instance can be inserted into a Slot for: a single Content Item; all Content Items which use a given Template Instance; or all Content Items which use a given Template Family.
This model is designed to be highly scalable. Where pages are added to a site which are similar to existing pages, the same Plugin Instances are typically used by default, thereby allowing a site to be grown without having to keep adjusting settings.
Slot
A rectangular area within a Content Item into which a Plugin Instance can be inserted.
The precise location of a Slot is determined by the Template file which a Content Item uses, and the appearance of any Plugin that is in a Slot will be determined by the Framework of that Plugin Instance, and the Theme which is assigned to the Plugin Instance.
Framework
A chunk of HTML which determines how the output of a Plugin which is in a Slot will appear on the web page.
Frameworks contain merge fields, so that data output from the Plugin can be merged with HTML.
All Plugins contain at least one Framework, and Frameworks can be customized.
Theme
Determines the appearance of a Plugin Instance when it appears in a Slot.
A Theme is CSS styling and images.
A Theme can come from within the Plugin, or from the Skin which the current Content Item uses.
When an Administrator views a Content Item in Slot Mode, there is a "T-shirt" icon which, when clicked, allows the Theme of a Plugin Instance to be changed.