Plugins and Instances

Slotable Plugins can have settings. Settings may define a wide range of things, such as how the Plugin should appear on the site.

These settings are grouped together into a collective object called an Instance. You can think of an Instance as a Plugin which is ready to be plugged-in, i.e. fully configured, settings declared, and ready to use.

Whenever you put a Plugin into a Slot, you must choose an Instance of that Plugin to use.

Scope of a Plugin Instance

When you put a Plugin into a Slot, you have some choices:

• A Plugin Instance can run in a Slot for all Content Items using a given Template Family
• A Plugin Instance can run in a Slot for all Content Items using a given Template
• A Plugin Instance can run in a Slot for a specific Content Item

The CMS uses a cascading system. Starting from the top the above list, the CMS will look for an association starting from the Family level down to the more granular Content Item level.

At each step, a setting will override the setting of the preceding level.

Valid settings are "Show nothing", "Inherit" or use a specified Plugin.

In this way you can run one Plugin at a Family or Template level (which may encompass the entire website), but override it with a different Plugin Instance for a specific Content Item.

In this way, as more a website grows and more Content Items are added, provided they use existing Templates or existing Template Families, those Items will automatically run the Plugin Instances set at the broader levels.