Developer DocumentationSplit5 CMS documentation and comments refer to a number of internal conventions that, when learned, should make Split5 CMS more accessible to developers and end users alike. At a summary level: Every Page has editable Areas, defined by its Page Type. Areas contain instances of Blocks (defined by Block Types) which may be anything from editable HTML to a highly customized survey. Each Page has its own Permissions and a Theme associated with it. Themes contain Template files that determine the presentation of a given Page Type. Developer TerminologyInteresting in developing for Split5? You probably ought to understand the following concepts: Common TermsPagesA page in SplitFive CMS is just like a page on any website: it typically fills the full browser, and is found at a unique URL. Pages in SplitFive CMS can have pretty URLs or standard CMS-y URLs. For example, the following URL maps to the same article on split5cms.com: http://www.split5cms.com/services/widget-development/first-look-opensocial/ http://www.split5cms.com/index.php?cID=140 Every page has a unique cID ("c" stands for Collection -see below:) and a bunch of metadata about it in the Pages table. There are some exceptions to this Page=Collection rule, some standard pages like login and register are called "Single Pages" and exist in their own directory in a split5 install. They are still skinned through the CMS, see the bottom of this page for more explanation of the exceptions. AreasAreas in split5 are parts of a particular page that can be edited using the content management system. Without any areas, a page would be completely static. Areas can have permissions applied to them, making it so that only certain kinds of blocks may be added to them, or they can only be viewed by certain people. BlocksBlocks are bits of content added to particular areas on pages. A block is an instance of a certain type of content, as displayed on a page. When in edit mode, blocks may be hovered over with a mouse, clicked on, and edited within the page itself. All blocks have certain bits of data in common, like the ID of the user who added them, or the date the block was created and modified. Block TypesA block is the instance of content or functionality after it's been added to a page. The type of block determines how those blocks differ. Types of blocks include:
All of these are types of blocks. When a block type is installed, an administrator is able to add that type to an area on a page. When adding a survey to a page, for example, the survey is a block type, and the actual survey added to the page, with its customized questions, answers and results page is the actual block itself. Blocks are typically self-contained, and blissfully ignorant of other items on a particular page. Every type of block has its own presentation layer, a form that gets called when it's being added, and a form that's called when it's edited. These forms are typically displayed in in-page popups dispatched by split5CMS's interface layer. Developers interested in writing their own block types should check out the [[.:developers:developing blocks|blocks section of the developers manual.]] Page TypesLike block types, split5 also has the concept of "page types." A page type is a template and convention allowing different types of pages to be added in different areas of a website. Page Types are typically named and considered around functional requirements, rather than layout requirements. For example, here is a list of page types that might be found in a corporate website:
Page Types are typically made only for reusable pages (home is the one notable exception to this rule.) Single, one-off pages are described in "single pages" below. ThemesThemes are the outer graphical skin of a split5 website. Separate from page types and single pages, themes allow the same types of pages to appear differently in different areas of a website. For example, an article within the sports section of a newspaper's website could have a completely different theme than an article page in the finance section. Page & User AttributesWhile all pages and users have data that's associated with them, Split5 allows site administrators to create their own bits of data and associate these with pages and user accounts. These are known throughout Split5 as "attributes." Example of page attributes might be:
Examples of user attributes:
UsersUsers are accounts used to edit a SplitFive CMS enabled site. At its core, a user record in SplitFive CMS consists solely of an ID, a unique username, and an email address. Extended user attributes can be added in the dashboard. GroupsGroups are simply a way of combining users into a particularly semantic...well..."groups!" Groups are used primarily in SplitFive permissions: a given group of users can be allowed read, edit, delete, and administrative access to pages, areas and even individual blocks. CollectionsIn versions of our CMS before Split5, Collections mapped entirely to Pages (see above.) Collections were so-named because they were "collections" of blocks. However, in our current version, a collection can exist without a record in the Pages table, and thereby group blocks together without having any presentional aspect to it, or appearing in the sitemap. Furthermore, these collections can be called programmatically, which can be helpful for programmers who want to use the power and flexibility of built-in blocks programmatically, without having to worry about where a page lives, its permissions, etc... Single PagesSingle pages are Page records that don't have a page type. Instead, they're one-off pages that map directly to a file in the filesystem. These are nice because they can be added directly to the filesystem, and, once installed in the dashboard, exist at http://www.yoursite.com/pagename/. Generally it's a nicer practice to use single pages where you know a particular page will only be needed once. Examples of single pages automatically created by the system include:
Single pages use Split5's Model-View-Controller, which makes them useful when using Split5 as an application platform. |
