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Reason Terminology

Admin Link

A link (to any URL) that can be placed in the left sidebar of the Reason admin interface. Each site can have its own set of admin links. These are often used to provide easy access to tools outside Reason.

Announcement Blurb

A text blurb that appears above all pages on a particular minisite. This is used for site-wide announcements. (How to assign an announcement blurb to a minisite).

Asset

The type of entity that represents files that have been uploaded to the server. Assets can be any file type — PDF, Word, plain text, or any other valid file extension. Some file types, like images and media files, have their own data type in Reason. Although these file types can be uploaded as assets, they are intended to be uploaded using their appropriate types, which provide richer metadata and more powerful management.

Associate

The general term for making a relationship between two items in Reason. For example, adding a post to a blog could also be described as associating the new post with the blog. Users more familiar with email terminology can think of association as attachment – attaching a photo to an email could also be described as making a relationship between the photo and the email, or associating the photo with the email.

Authoritative Source

The system (typically a user database like LDAP) that manages the information and passwords for each user in your instance of Reason. Reason has an internal authoritative source that requires no extra setup for use, but you can also set up an external authoritative source by creating a "Directory Service" that acts as a shim between Reason and the user database.

Borrowing and Sharing

Reason entities can be shared between sites. Widely used, this can help you avoid duplicating items on your domain, and can reduce the possibility of updates occurring in one site but not another.

An item is considered "shared" if a) the site is set up to share the that item's type, and b) the item is flagged "shared" rather than "private."

Shared items can be browsed from any other site that has access to that item's type. For example, in order to browse and borrow shared images a site must be set up to manage images itself.

Entire Website/Entire Domain

What we refer to as “sites” throughout Reason and its documentation are actually subsets of your website. To try to minimize confusion, we’ll be careful to refer to your “entire website” or “entire domain” when we want to refer to your entire web presence instead of an individual minisite.

Entity / Item

The most basic unit of organization in Reason. Everything that makes up the entire website that an instance of Reason manages is represented by an entity, whether it is a text blurb, a page, or a minisite. Entities are categorized into data types that describe each entity and determine how it can be used. Those familiar with relational databases will understand "Entity" as a similar concept to "Record" or "Row."

Master Admin

The minisite that serves as the administrative interface for your instance of Reason.

Minisite Template / Template

A template defines the HTML framework of Reason pages. While modules handle producing their own HTML, the template proves the overall structure in which modules are embedded.

Templates are one of the elements that are used to define a theme.

A template really consists of two pieces:

  1. A Minisite Template entity whose name is the same (leaving out the .php extension) as:
  2. A file in the minisite_templates directory which extends the default Reason template and redefines the HTML therein

Module

A dynamic element that can be placed on a Reason page. Modules can be extremely simple (the page_title module, for example, simply displays the title of the page) or quite complex (the publication and form modules are sophisticated mini-applications in their own rights).

Many modules grab reason entities and display them (the gallery2 module, for example, grabs images associated with the current page and displays them as a photo gallery). However, it is possible to write modules to do just about anything, including interacting with data from other systems. At Carleton we have written modules for handling credit card transactions and for sophisticated event registration processes.

Modules are placed on pages via page types.

Page

The type of entity that represents an individual web page. A page's content and behavior can be altered by modifying its page type. A simple page may primarily display text entered directly onto the page, but more sophisticated pages can be assembled from a collection of almost any other items.

Page Type

A page type defines which modules should be placed on a page, and in which particular locations. Each page in Reason is assigned a single page type. For example, the show_children page type adds the children module (which lists the children of the current page) to the location immediately below the main page content.

Users with the administrator role can choose from the full set of Reason page types when editing a page, whereas users with other roles can only choose from a limited subset of page types.

Parent Site

A site that has been designated as the parent of another site. This provides the option of arranging sites into hierarchies. Arranging sites this way allows for automatic listings of child and/or parent sites (via special page types) and can help to provide greater context within "families" of sites.

Minisite / Site / Reason Site

A section of your entire website that is treated as its own subsite within Reason. Minisites each have their own home page, primary maintainer, and their own administrative area (sometimes called the Reason backend) where users who have been given access to the minisite can create and edit the items that belong to that minisite.

A minisite's primary structure is provided by a hierarchy of pages, on which any number of features can be placed (using page types,) like event calendars, publications, forms, image galleries, etc.

Reason Instance

A single copy of Reason and all of the data that is managed by it. Typically you would only have a single Reason instance on a particular web server.

Theme

A theme defines the way Reason pages should look and the HTML framework they should use. Visual styling is handled by external CSS urls associated with the theme, and the HTML framework is handled by the minisite template associated with the theme.

Once defined, a theme can be applied to any number of sites.

Themes are assigned at the site level. There is currently no way to assign different themes to separate pages in the same site.

User

A user represents an individual who can log in to Reason. Users are assigned different user roles and site access controls.

User Roles

User roles define limitations and privileges for Reason users. The basic package of Reason has four different user roles that an administrator can assign to Reason users.

  • Contributor Only users have the most limited user role in Reason. Contributors can add new items to the sites that they have access to, but these items will remain pending until a user with higher privileges approves them. These users cannot edit or delete live items.
  • Editor (Default) users can add, edit, and delete items owned by the sites they have been granted access to. Editors have access to both live and pending items.
  • Power Users have all the capabilities of Editors, but they can also edit HTML directly, upload full-sized images, and perform other minor enhancements that require the user to understand basic web best practices.
  • Administrators have special superpowers. In addition to all the abilities of the Power User, Administrators can temporarily pose as any other Reason user, and can edit Unique Name fields.

Developers can add additional roles for specific applications, but we recommend that you use the existing roles as much as possible.

Types/Data Types

A type (for example, "Page," "Image," or "Event") defines a particular kind of data that Reason can manage. Types are themselves entities/items in the Reason database, and they define what other kinds of items can be created, and what their data structure can be.

Each minisite is given a particular set of types that can be created within that site. This way each site can have customized functionality. In addition, sites can be set up to share particular types, meaning that all items of a given type (images, for example) can be borrowed for use in other Reason sites.

Additional Terms not yet defined:

  • Views
  • Blog / Publication
  • Event
  • Group
  • News / Post
  • Image
  • HTML Editor
  • Registration Slot
  • Media File
  • Media Work
  • Form
  • FAQ
  • Category
  • Comment
  • Site Type
  • Site User
  • Subject (??)
  • Task
  • Organization
  • Database
  • Non-Reason Site
  • News Section
  • Theme History
  • Type
  • Text Blurb
  • Issue
  • Asset
  • Field
  • Contact
  • External URL
  • View Type
  • View
  • External CSS URL
  • Sharing
  • Policy(??)
  • Minutes (??)
  • Office / Department (??)
  • Faculty / Staff
  • Content Type (??)
  • Exhibit (??)
  • Job (??)
  • Featured Posts
  • Audience