Glossary

Administrator

Can refer either to a user with the Manager role or the Site Administrator role. In the Plone Users & Groups control panel only, it refers to a group that gives all users the Manager role.

Anchor 

An Anchor is a tag that allows you to link to a specific location on a page. Once created, it can be referenced by hyperlinks from other locations to direct you to the exact location of the Anchor. This can be useful for things like tables of contents, endnotes, or subheadings where it is beneficial to jump over a portion of the page’s text for more information.

If you want a hyperlink to link to a certain destination, the destination must have something like <a name="testanchor1"></a> in the HTML code. This code will be invisible to site visitors but allow other sites to link directly to the anchor rather than the page itself. The hyperlink referencing the anchor will look like this: <a href="http://wwww.test.com/index.html#testanchor1"> my link </a> . ) Anchors are also available as internal links which can be used through the Insert/Edit Link dialog of the text editor.

Breadcrumb 

In the context of web design, this is a navigation aid which lets the user keep track of his or her place in a website. It usually includes the path of the current location in the navigation bar, with each component of the location separated by an icon or punctuation such as the "greater than" sign (>). Each part of the location is in fact a separate hyperlink which goes to a progressively higher parent web page. 

Carousel

A carousel is the rotating set of images at the top of the homepage of your site. Carousels can also be created for other folders as desired, and within the content well of a Cover page.

Collection 

A Collection is like a stored search for a specific set of items within your site. The items which appear in the Collection may come from different folders or different users. It generates a list that automatically includes newly created qualifying items. An example of a Collection would be an “Upcoming Storytimes” list that displays any Event with a name that includes the word “Storytime” as a part of its list.

Content Rules 

Set of instructions devised by the Admin user from the Content Rules control panel. You can use a content rule to create triggers for user actions. You can apply content rules to specific folders.

Content type portlet 

Type of portlet which is displayed whenever you view an item of a specific content type. Ex. a portlet configured to display for all Events will appear on the sidebar whenever you click on an Event. Unlike other portlets, the Administrator configures content type portlets with the portlet manager but on Site Setup --> Types. However, they can be hidden from the portlet manager.

Content well

The center section of the website, where information and images can be added while editing a content item.

Dashboard 

A page where you can have the site display a customized set of items for your individual use. This is done by setting up the desired portlets within the dashboard. For example, you could set your Dashboard to display a calendar, a search box, an RSS feed from an external news site, and a list of recently modified pages within your site. Only 4 portlets can be configured at a time within the Dashboard.

To access the Dashboard, click on your username in the top right of the screen. In the drop-down menu that appears, select "Dashboard." 

Dublin Core 

Set of metadata elements which describe and catalog the content on a web page. In Plone, many of the fields in the edit tabs (date, rights, language, etc.) correspond

exactly to Dublin Core metadata standards. In fact, the site administrator can enable the Dublin Core properties to appear as metatags in the actual HTML code (Site Setup --> Site).

External link 

A URL that points to a site that exists outside of your site. Example: http://www.google.com

Folder 

A section of your site, which can contain other content items like Pages, Images, Links, and Events. Some Folders, like Home or Events/Programs, are intended for users to navigate to them and find things inside them. Other Folders, like Images, might be used by the site’s administrator(s) to store content of a certain type for use around the site.

Your site can be configured to show different sets of portlets based on what Folder a user is viewing, and a default view can be set to show users a specific piece of content by default whenever they click on that folder. This allows each folder to have a designated “home page” on which to display important information related to that Folder’s contents.

Group Portlet 

Type of portlet which displays on every page, but only for members of a certain Group. Groups are configured in the Site Setup → Users and Groups by the Admin user. A Group Portlet can be any type (Navigation, Search, Static Text, Calendar, RSS, etc).

HTML filtering 

Stripping certain HTML tags from text input that might be dangerous. Plone and other content management systems will typically remove or strip a number of tags to remove the possibility of someone typing or pasting a malicious script into the rich text editor. As a result, some paste actions may not appear to work in the rich text editor. The Admin user has the ability to modify

what kind of HTML code will be filtered in the web editor.

Home page

The home page is the first page that users see when they come to the site. For most libraries, the home page is where updates about current news and events are posted. For information about setting a page as the home page, see [article about setting a home page].

Hyperlink

A clickable word or phrase that will direct you to another page or area of the same page.

Intelligent Text 

Text format which converts plain text into HTML where line breaks and indentation are preserved, and web and email addresses are made into clickable links. This is one of the options for user comments.

Internal link 

Reference to a URL within the same site. Typically the user makes an internal link using the Edit interface and clicking the “Insert Link” button in the text editor, making sure to use the “Internal” tab of the dialog that appears to browse the site’s content and select the item that the internal link should link to.

Live Search 

Refers to the feature in the Plone search box which will show possible search results underneath the search box, in real time as the user is inputting the search term.

Link integrity 

The tendency for URLs to remain valid over time. Plone includes a link integrity checker feature that will notify you when trying to delete content if another content item is linking to it. That will give the content creator the opportunity to take corrective action or to notify a creator of the linking page. This link integrity checker is turned on by default but can be turned off from the Plone control panel by the Plone manager. (Go to Site Setup --> Editing). Note that there are third party applications or even web applications that can produce regular reports about invalid links (and the site administrator could run an analytics program to analyze the URLs that result in 404 error messages).

Manager (role) 

Powerful role which allows full access to and use of the Control Panel, including the Zope Management Interface. 

Locking 

In content management, this refers to the ability of one user to edit a content item exclusively. Plone uses a system of "soft locks" which will notify you whenever you try to edit a content item at the same any user is trying to do so. However, users have the ability to "break the lock" on locked content. The locking feature is intended more as a "friendly notification system" rather than a way for one user to edit a content item exclusively. Plone's versioning capability makes it relatively easy to reconstruct the series of edits which were made, meaning that even in the case of a collision, content can be recovered.

News Item

Although they are basically the same as a Page, News Items are automatically added to a “News” collection that is available as an RSS feed as part of a basic Plone installation. Aside from the ability to add a Lead Image to the News Item, they are identical to Pages.

Object 

An object is a generic word used to describe all content types which are put into the ZODB. In general objects do not exist on the file system. That means that content items which we are used to thinking as files on our computer (.jpg, .doc or .pdf files) actually reside in the ZODB itself instead of being located in a specific directory on the web server. These content items can be accessed from Plone (and indeed can be downloaded from Plone), but they are not saved as files except in the database itself.

Page

A content type that is used as a container for text and images. Pages are ideal for articles, announcements, and other general information.

Plone 

According to the Plone.org docs, the word "Plone" originally comes from the electronic band Plone that used to exist on the Warp record label. The music is playful and minimalistic. The founders of Plone-the-Software (Alan Runyan and Alexander Limi) were listening to Plone-the-Band when they met (as well as during the initial coding/design of Plone) – and one of the original quotes floating around at the time was 'Plone should look and feel like the band sounds.' Portlet In Plone, a portlet is a web component which displays on the left or right of the primary page content. Although the function of a portlet varies, usually a portlet displays supplemental information or quick links to relevant URLs or user-specific information. For the anonymous visitor, a portlet will appear as a sidebar or box on the left or right of the screen.

Portlet

A portlet is a box on a side of the page that can provide a variety of different capabilities, like a search box or a list of news stories from an external website. There are many different types of portlet, each with their own specific uses. To learn more, see the Portlets section of the Knowledge Base.

Product 

Another term for add on in Plone.

Recurring Event

When an Event is created, it is automatically added to the site’s calendar. A Recurring Event is an Event which is configured to happen at some interval. This configuration is done when creating or editing the Event.

Retract 

Workflow action when a contributor or editor a moves an item from a Published state into a Private state. Depending on the workflow settings, items which are retracted can later resubmitted or republished.

Rich Text Editor 

Web-based editor which is incorporated into a CMS. What distinguishes a rich-text editor from a simple text editor is: 1) the fact that in the editing panel "What You See is What You Get" (WYSIWYG) and 2) the interface includes buttons at the top that assign styles to parts of

the content. The Admin user can usually set the default rich text editor (although users can potentially change the default option in the Preferences menu). Previous versions have used Kupu as the default rich text editor, but for Plone 4, TinyMCE is now the default.

RSS 

Abbreviation for Really Simple Syndication. On the Internet, it refers to a family of web feed formats used when publishing frequently updated works (i.e, for blogs, news headlines, podcasts). An RSS feed includes the full or summarized text as well as metadata such as

publishing date and authorship. These can be read by specialized readers such as Google Reader. Plone can be configured to generate RSS feeds, but an RSS portlet can also be configured to display the RSS feeds from third party sites.

SEO 

Acronym for Search Engine Optimization, the study of tailoring your content for Google and other search engines.

Site Administrator 

Powerful Plone role which allows access to and use of the the Plone control panel, but does not provide the ability to install add-ons, edit themes or control system cache.

Site Setup 

Control panel web page in Plone. A link to Site Setup should appear at the top right side of the page if the logged in user possesses manager, site administrator or Zope administrator privileges. Typically the options that appear on this panel are specific to Plone. However, for

users with the manager role, this control panel also includes a direct link to the ZMI.

Syndication 

See RSS above.

Tags 

A kind of keyword which a content creator can select or add to a content item. When on the Edit display, you can select or insert a tag by switching to the Categorization tab.

Theme 

Group of template files which content items appear on a URL and the layout/presentation of these items. These files are uploaded onto the web site and are generally not editable by content creators or even visible to them. A theme may be created for a specific site, purchased

by a third party or downloaded for free from Plone.org. Plone 4.3 include support for the Diazo theme engine; when "Diazo theme support" is enabled, a control panel will be visible to Site Administrators and Managers to inspect, edit, upload and swap themes.

TinyMCE 

Open text WYSIWIG rich-text editor included by default with the Plone content management system. As a software project, it exists separate from Plone (and is used by other CMS's like Drupal and Wordpress.

URL
Stands for Uniform Resource Locator. A URL is a address of a specific webpage or file.on the internet. As an example here is the URL for the support website knowledge base https://support.enfoldsystems.com/a/solutions/ This can usually be found at the top of a browser.

Versioning 

Plone feature which allows you to keep a record of different versions of the same content item. While logged in, you can access it by clicking the History link. Some reasonable definition here. Versioning includes the ability to compare two different versions of the same content item and also to revert to the prior version.

Working copy 

This allows a content creator to edit a page after it has already been published. Essentially it is a second "cloned" version of the published version of the page. When it is being edited (and even saved), the published version will still be available. However, the published version will become a versioned archival copy after the working copy is checked in again. Note: this feature needs to be enabled by the Site Administrator.

Workflow 

Process by which content is submitted, reviewed and approved for publication by more than one person. Plone allows administrators to set up a custom workflow while offering several workflows out of the box: simple workflow, one-step workflow, community workflow and intranet/ extranet workflow. Note that one Plone site could potentially use different workflows depending on the location of the item and the item type.