This page is intended to summarize and define Lenya terminology, to point out usage inconsistencies and synonymous terms, and to collect pointers to more detailed information either in the official Lenya documentation or other pages in this wiki.
It is aimed at new Lenya users looking for a short primer, at proficient users in need of a handy reference and at developers and documentation writers who need a quick refresher in order to maintain consistent usage of technical terms in their code comments and docs.
For a comparison of Lenya's terminology with that of other Content Management Systems see CMSTerminologyComparison.
A more concise top-down overview of those key terms concerning Lenya content structure can be found at GlossaryStructure.
This page is meant to apply to all versions of Lenya, although it currently concentrates on Lenya 2.0. Where Lenya 1.2.X usage differs, please mark it with [Lenya 1.2.X].
access control
(see also OverviewAuthenticationAndAuthorization)
accreditable
- =>user
- =>group
- =>IP range
- =>world
archive
<p><br class="atl-forced-newline" /> (1) n: An <strong>=>area</strong>. (2) v: The act of moving a deactivated document to the archive area for later reference or re-use (as opposed to deleting it). <br class="atl-forced-newline" /></p>
area
<p><br class="atl-forced-newline" /> In Lenya, the content can exist in different versions at the same time. The "storage containers" of the content version sets are called areas. At the moment, the following areas are supported: <br class="atl-forced-newline" /></p> - authoring - edit pages
- live - the published pages, visible to site visitors
- archive - archived pages, can be restored
- trash - deleted pages, can be restored until trash is emptied.
- admin - administration area (not really a content area, just a tab for administrative tasks).
- staging - review edited pages (this is not supported in Lenya 2.0)
In Lenya 1.2, the prefix "info-" can be added to the authoring, staging, archive, and trash areas. This is used to display the sitetree and page information (commonly refered to as "info area").
The areas share many properties (notably the presentation of the content), but can have additional properties of their own (an obvious example are the editing menus in the authoring area). Live and authoring can have different content.
A page moves from authoring to live and back according to *=>workflow*s.
In the docs you will sometimes find term mode instead of "area" to describe the same concept.
(see also http://lenya.apache.org/1_4/concepts/authoring_live.html)
[The area concept is currently debated and will probably be scrapped for the next major release.]
asset
authoring
Cocoon
(see also: OverviewCocoonKnowledge and http://cocoon.apache.org/)
content
content item
[This is awkward. "document" seems to be the preferred term on the mailing lists.]
content type
context
deactivate
document
delete
edit
fallback mechanism
group
identity
info
internationalization
see also: http://solprovider.com/lenya/&cat=Language (Lenya 1.2 specific, but gives a good overview)
see also: http://cocoon.apache.org/2.0/userdocs/transformers/i18n-transformer.html (the cocoon I18nTransformer that governs i18n in Lenya)
i18n
live
localization
l10n
metadata
see also: http://lenya.apache.org/docs/2_0_x/reference/metadata.html
mode
module
- a resource type (e.g., docbook module)
- a repository implementation (e.g., jdbc module)
- a collection of XSLTs (e.g., content2svg module)
(see also http://lenya.apache.org/1_4/reference/modules/index.html)
navigation::
policy
<p><br class="atl-forced-newline" /> A policy assigns a set of <strong>=>roles</strong> to an <strong>=>accreditable</strong> on a specific URL. The resulting role set of an identity is the union set of the roles of the accreditables belonging to the identity. <br class="atl-forced-newline" /></p>
Example:
- policy 1: user John has the role "edit" on the URL "/news"
- policy 2: IP range 182.12.4.122/255.255.0.0 has the role "review" on the URL "/news"
If John logs in from a machine in this IP range, he has the roles "edit" and "review" on the URL "/news".
protocol
<p><br class="atl-forced-newline" /> A specifier used in URIs to define where the content comes from and in which format. The most famous is likely <strong><code>http://</code></strong>. In Lenya publication sitemaps, you will find the following protocols: <br class="atl-forced-newline" /></p>- from Cocoon:
file://
- read a file from disk, using the operating system's path as the URIcocoon://
- request a resource from the cocoon servlet (handled by the sitemap pipelines, so this need not exist as an actual file)context://
- request a file from disk, using the webapp context directory as root
- Lenya-specific:
lenya-document://
- request a document from the Lenya storage by its =>UUID and optionally language and revision (i.e. independent of its current location in the site tree)site://
- request a document based on its sitetree pathfallback://
- request a file using the =>fallback mechanismfallback-template://
- dito, but skip the current publication and start looking in its template insteadaggregate-fallback://
- concatenate the content of a file in this publication with the contents in all ancestors
Protocols are implemented using =>source factories.lenya://
- request a file from disk (same as context:/, but the returned source is a [RepositorySource] with additional features) FIXME: is that correct?
_(see also http://lenya.apache.org/1_4/reference/protocols/index.html)_
[Needs proofreading and completion. Lenya-Metadata factory is missing.]
publication<p><br class="atl-forced-newline" /> A website created with Lenya. A Lenya installation can contain more than one publication. Publications can either be fully independent, or they can share common properties via <strong>=>publication templating</strong>. <br class="atl-forced-newline" /></p>
(see also http://lenya.apache.org/1_4/concepts/publication.html)
[Some people feel this term is unfortunate (why not just call it a "site"?), but for now we're stuck with it.]
publication templating<p><br class="atl-forced-newline" /> A mechanism for sharing properties between publications. Every publication can be used as a <strong>template</strong> for new publications, producing <strong>derived publications</strong> or <strong>child publications</strong>. Provided you use the "New Publication" usecase, all publications will ultimately be based on the <strong>default publication</strong> that comes with Lenya. <br class="atl-forced-newline" /></p>
Templating is implemented using the fallback mechanism, a lenya-specific uri resolver that can be applied to any uri reference in xml files by using fallback:// as a protocol specifier. If this is done consistently, publications can share arbitrary properties (i.e. xslt files, configuration files, user/group account files, sample pages, resource types etc.) from their template or from the default publication.
The fallback mechanism operates on a file level. Thus it can only be applied to whole files (not parts thereof), and only if those files are referenced by URIs in configuration files.
The creation of a new child publication from a template is called instantiation. Therefore, you will sometimes find the term "instance of template X" instead of "child of X".
Child publications can use features of their template(s) in two ways: by copying files from the template during instantiation, or by referencing those files.
Copying severs the link between child and template - later changes to the template will not affect the child. Referencing implies that all changes to the template will immediately affect the child as well, since the child uses the template's property.
(see also http://lenya.apache.org/1_4/reference/publication-templating/index.html)
publish
<p><br class="atl-forced-newline" /> see <strong>=>workflow</strong> <br class="atl-forced-newline" /></p>
resource
<p><br class="atl-forced-newline" /> A generic term in need of clarification that can mean almost anything. <br class="atl-forced-newline" /></p>
resource type
<p><br class="atl-forced-newline" /> An XML source format for Lenya <strong>=>documents</strong>, together with processing options. It typically consists of <br class="atl-forced-newline" /></p>
- an XML structure definition (e.g., Relax NG)
- some presentation pipelines,
- some presentation XSLT stylesheets,
- usecases to manipulate documents.
The default publication contains the resource types xhtml, homepage, OpenDocument, CForms and links.
(see also http://lenya.apache.org/1_4/reference/resource-types.html)
review
<p><br class="atl-forced-newline" /> The act of proof-reading a <strong>=>submit*ted document and deciding whether to *=>publish</strong> or to <strong>=>reject</strong> it. See also: <strong>=>workflow</strong>. <br class="atl-forced-newline" /></p>
revision control
<p><br class="atl-forced-newline" /> The ability to preserve past states of documents, roll back to them as needed and show the differences between revisions. Lenya currently has a file-based revision control mechanism and an experimental new one based on the <span class="error">[JackRabbit]</span> implementation of the JCR (or Java Content Repository) API (JCR development is currently stalled, though). <br class="atl-forced-newline" /></p>
(see also JcrConfiguration)
role
<p><br class="atl-forced-newline" /> The capabilities and privileges of an <strong>=>identity</strong>. <strong>Policies</strong> are used to determine the roles of an identity for acertain URL. Roles are used to define conditions for <strong>=>workflow</strong> transitions, and to restrict access to <strong>=>usecases</strong>. The default publication defines four basic roles that a lenya user can have. An <strong>admin</strong> can control all aspects of a publication and create, delete or modify users and groups. An <strong>editor</strong> can modify and create new content, but cannot publish it; for this, s/he hands the work to a <strong>reviewer</strong>, who does the final check and decides whether the page can go live. The <strong>visitor</strong> is just allowed to view pages. <br class="atl-forced-newline" /></p>You can define custom roles and workflows.
Roles are frequently assigned via =>group membership, but do not confuse roles and groups. OverviewAccessControl has a good explanation of how different they are.
- from Cocoon:
site
sitemap
(see also OverviewSitemapStructure and http://lenya.apache.org/1_4/reference/lenya-sitemaps.html)
site tree
site tree node
source factory
submit
translation
trash
usecase
(see also http://lenya.apache.org/1_4/reference/usecase-framework/index.html)
usecase handler
user
UUID
version
workflow
To move a page back from live to authoring, a reviewer must deactivate it. Afterwards, it can either be re-published or deleted.
Workflow transitions are typically invoked when a =>usecase is executed. Moreover, in a workflow context, "usecase" is sometimes used as a synonym for "workflow transition".
In Lenya, the workflow of a document is controlled by a finite state machine with arbitrary states, transitions, and events, which is expressed using XML. Each resource type can use its own workflow schema. You can implement custom conditions to be checked before a transition can fire, this requires custom java code.
zones
To do
- cross-reference each term to the appropriate docs
- keep each definition short and sweet. perhaps the more verbose explanations can be merged into the docs if it makes them easier to understand?
- maintain alphabetic order
New terms coined for this section
- property (any file within a publication)
- child publication (we have instance, but i think that's too OOP)
Are there better, already established terms for these concepts? If so, let's use them instead and get rid of these new ones.