Understanding OrchestraCMS
These diagrams illustrate the concepts required to understand OrchestraCMS. OrchestraCMS is comprised of over 70 objects which we reduce here to abstract concepts. Any interaction with OrchestraCMS should be done through its APIs.
Content
A Content item is made up of many Attributes. Each attribute is a name/value pair that stores a piece of author-entered data related to a content item. For example, an Article content item may have attributes for its title, summary, thumbnail image and body. In addition to its attributes, a piece of content may be tagged in a taxonomy (categorization) or have one or more targets applied to it (personalization).
Content Type
A Content Template determines how to transform a content item and its attributes into HTML for rendering. A Content Type determines which content templates can be used to render a piece of content. Content types and content templates are the primary mechanism of extending OrchestraCMS. To learn more about extending OrchestraCMS, see Content Template Development
Content Layout Instance
A Content Layout Instance (CLI) directly associates a content item with a content template. It is helpful to consider a CLI as a rendered content item.
Although a content type may allow a content item to be rendered with many content templates, CLIs are only created when a content template is added to a content item.
Page
A Page Template is a Visualforce page. It defines a page structure – including stylesheets, script files, and general layout markup. A Page Template also defines where content authors can place content. These areas are called panels or droppable areas. See Page Template Development.
A Page is an instance of a page template. When content authors place a content item into a droppable area, they choose how the content should be rendered. This relationship between a content layout instance and a page is called a Page Content Layout Instance (PCLI).