Concepts and basics
This chapter explains the ideas that the rest of the Exponential 6 technical manual builds on: how the system is put together, how content is modeled and stored, how a request becomes a page, and how settings, designs and permissions decide what each site shows. Read it once before you build your first site or extension; the other chapters and the guides in the help center assume these terms.
Everything here applies to Exponential 6.0.15. Where a setting is named, its default lives in settings/<file>.ini of the installation, and you change it with an override (see Configuration), never in that file.
The ideas in one minute
- Content is separate from design. Content is stored in the database (and files below var/); designs are directories of templates, stylesheets and images. One piece of content can be shown by many designs. See Content and design.
- A content class describes a type of content (Article, Folder, User) as a list of attributes, each of a datatype. Content objects are instances of a class; each object has versions and translations. See Content management.
- Nodes (also called locations) place objects in one content tree. An object can have several nodes; the tree gives a site its structure and its addresses.
- Sections group objects for permissions and template choice, independently of the tree.
- Siteaccesses are the faces of one installation (the public site, the administration, the editor), each with its own settings, design and languages. See Configuration.
- Modules and views answer every request: /content/view/full/2 is the view view of the module content. See Modules and views.
- Roles and policies decide who may do what. See Access control.
- Workflows run extra steps (an approval, a payment) before or after an operation such as publishing. See Workflows.
The pages of this chapter
| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| The internal structure of Exponential | Libraries, kernel, modules, extensions; how a request is answered; the directory structure. |
| Content and design | Why content and presentation are kept apart; where everything is stored. |
| Content management | Classes, attributes, datatypes, objects, versions, nodes, the tree, visibility, relations, sections, languages, information collection, links. |
| Configuration | INI files and overrides, siteaccesses, how a siteaccess is chosen, siteaccess settings in extensions. |
| Designs | What a design is, and how several are combined into one search path for templates. |
| Modules and views | The URL scheme, the module definition and how extensions add modules. |
| URL translation | URL aliases, history aliases, global aliases and wildcards. |
| Access control | Users, user groups, roles, policies, limitations and the anonymous user. |
| Workflows | Events, triggers, processes and the workflow cronjob. |
| Webshop | Products, basket, orders, VAT and payment. |
Where to go next
- The step-by-step guides of the help center, for example The content model and editing content, Configuring Exponential 6.0 and Extending Exponential 6.0.
- The glossary for every term in one place.
History. An earlier version of this chapter was written for eZ Publish 3 and 4 and described those releases. It stays in each page's version history. The comment threads below some pages come from that documentation site and are kept as they were.
In this section
- The internal structure of Exponential The layers of Exponential 6 (libraries, kernel, modules, designs, settings, extensions) and how a page request is answered.
- Content and design Why Exponential keeps content apart from design, and how templates connect the two.
- Content management The content model of Exponential: classes, attributes, datatypes, objects, nodes, sections, languages and relations.
- Configuration INI files and overrides: the format, the order in which files are read, the INI cache and the most used files.
- Modules and views The system address of a page, how a module and its views are defined, and modules in extensions.
- URL translation URL aliases of nodes, history redirects, custom and global aliases, wildcards and their settings.
- Designs What a design is, the designs that ship, and how a siteaccess chooses its design.
- Access control Users and user groups, roles, policies, limitations, the anonymous user, registration and activation.
- Workflows Workflows, events, triggers and processes, the event types of the kernel and the workflow cronjob.
- Webshop Products, basket, checkout, orders, VAT, discounts and payment in the Exponential webshop.
Contributors
- Balazs Halasy Maintainer
- Geir Arne Waaler Maintainer
- Graham Brookins Updated Maintainer
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