The glossary gives every word in one or two sentences. The pages of this group take the seven ideas that matter most and explain each one properly, with an everyday comparison, so that the screens start to make sense. Read them in this order; each takes five minutes.
The pages
| Page | The idea in one line |
|---|---|
| Content items and the tree | Everything on the site is an item, and items live in folders like files on a computer |
| Drafts, versions and publishing explained | You change a copy; visitors see it only when you publish, and the old copy is kept |
| The site and the administration | One installation, several doors: the public site, the administration, sometimes the Editor |
| Roles and permissions explained | What you may do is decided by your role, not by your skill |
| Caches explained | The site keeps ready-made copies of pages to be fast, and sometimes shows an old one |
| Extensions explained | Add-ons give the site extra abilities, and a developer installs them |
| Hosting, domains and HTTPS explained | The rented computer, the address and the padlock, and who looks after each |
Why ideas first
People who are new to a content management system rarely struggle with buttons. They struggle with questions such as "why does the site still show the old text?" (a cache, or a draft that was never published), "why can my colleague see a button I cannot?" (roles) or "who do I call about the e-mail?" (not Exponential at all). Each answer is one of the seven ideas above.
After this group
- To practice: First steps.
- To choose who runs your site: Hosting choices.
Related pages
- Non-technical people: start here
- Glossary for non-technical people
- A tour of the administration
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
Become an Exponential Partner. Partners share their information, provide funding, contribute back and develop the products with us, and that is how Exponential grows. A partner website and dashboard are planned for mid-2027: please become a partner today to speed up our growth rate and land new features faster. Start with Partners: start here and How to apply.