Recent changes
Friday November 06 2026
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Object relations Updated
Objects can point to other objects. A related object is not a child in the tree: it can be anywhere, and one object can be related to many others. Relations let an article show its author's profile, a product its accesso…
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Node visibility Updated
Hiding a node takes it, and everything below it, off the public site without removing anything. Editors still see and edit hidden content in the administration, and revealing the node brings the whole subtree back exactl…
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Top level nodes Updated
Below the root of the content tree every installation has the same five top level nodes. Each one is the start of a part of the administration interface and of a section , and settings refer to them by node ID. Node ID N…
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The content node Updated
A node, also called a location, is the place of a content object in the content tree . The object holds the content; the node says where it sits, who its parent and children are, and at which address it is shown. Templat…
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The content object Updated
A content object is one piece of content: an article, a folder, an image, a user account. It is an instance of a content class and holds a value for each of the class's attributes. Objects are never edited in place: ever…
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Datatypes Updated
A datatype is the kind of value a class attribute holds. It decides how the value is entered in the edit form, checked, stored, indexed for search, compared, exported and shown in templates. When you add an attribute to…
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Class attributes Updated
A class attribute is one field of a content class : the Title of an article, the Image of a gallery item, the e-mail address of a user. Each attribute has a datatype, which decides what it can hold, and a set of properti…
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Content management Updated
Exponential stores content in a model that is the same for every site: classes describe types of content, objects hold the content, and nodes place objects in a tree. This page is the map of that model; each part has its…
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Storage Updated
A running site keeps its information in three places: the database, the var/ directory and the settings files. Knowing which is which tells you what to back up, what you may clear and what an update replaces. What Where…
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Content and design Updated
Exponential keeps what a site says apart from how it looks. Content is structured data; design is the markup, style sheets and images that present it. Because the two are separate, the same article can be shown on a publ…
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Directory structure Updated
This is the layout of an Exponential 6.0.15 installation, as it is in the installation root (the directory that holds index.php). Files you change belong in settings/override/, settings/siteaccess/, extension/ and var/;…
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The internal structure of Exponential Updated
Exponential is an object-oriented PHP application. It runs on PHP 8.0 to 8.5 and is built in layers: general libraries at the bottom, the kernel on top of them, and the modules that answer requests on top of the kernel.…
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Concepts and basics Updated
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 an…
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Manual installation on Windows Updated
A manual installation on Windows takes the same steps as on Linux: Git, Composer, then one of the installers. Windows is expected to work but not tested by the project ; the simpler and tested path is WSL2. With WSL2 (re…
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Installation Updated
This section installs Exponential 6 (the 6.0 line, current release 6.0.15) from an empty server to a working site. It covers the requirements, the quick install with Composer, the setup wizard in the browser, the kicksta…
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Exponential 5.0 known Issues Updated
This page is historical. It pointed to the known issues of eZ Publish 5.0, a release of 2012 by the predecessor of Exponential, which its creator discontinued. Those issues do not apply to Exponential 6. The earlier text…
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Troubleshooting Updated
What to do when an installation of Exponential 6 does not work. First make sure every requirement is met ( Requirements ): the setup wizard's system check, and the SystemCheck step of exp:install and the kickstarter, nam…
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Activating the extension Updated
An extension in extension/ does nothing until it is switched on. Switch it on for the whole installation (ActiveExtensions[]) or for one siteaccess (ActiveAccessExtensions[]), then let the system see its classes and sett…
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Extension load ordering Updated
The order of the active extensions decides which extension's settings, templates and design files win when two provide the same thing: an extension loaded earlier wins over a later one. How the order is made The order of…
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Extracting the files Updated
The first step of adding an extension is getting its folder into extension/. Pick the way that fits; all three end with the same folder. With Composer (recommended) An extension published as a Composer package with the i…