Drupal Glossary
Basic Terms
These definitions below are edited to reduce technical jargon where possible.
For more detailed information, we encourage you to review Drupal 10’s Glossary of Terms and Drupal User Guide available on Drupal’s website. Please note that not all terms will be applicable for UC ANR’s implementation of Drupal.
As needs arise, the IWP Core Team will update this list with additional terms and definitions.
Alias - Drupal has a feature called “URL Alias” that allows you to provide a more understandable name to the content. Example: If you have an “Contact Us” page with the path node/7, you can set up an alias so that your visitors will see it as http://www.example.com/ContactUs.
API - An Application Programming Interface (API) is a particular set of rules (“code”) and specifications that software programs can follow to communicate with each other.
Article - One of UC ANR’s Content Types that are part of the basic, standard offering in Drupal. Articles are used for time-sensitive content like news stories, press releases and blog posts.
CMS - Content Management System, a collection of tools designed to allow the creation, modification, organization, search, retrieval and removal of information on a website. Drupal is the new CMS for UC ANR.
Content - Information to be displayed on your sites, such as text, images, files, factsheets, forms, etc.
Content Type - Most of the time, different Content Types have different data fields, layouts and workflows associated with that content type. In Drupal, each item of content is called a “Node” where each Node belongs to a single Content Type, which then defines the various default settings for Nodes of that type.
Featured Content - Provides functionality to highlight specific content within a Group.
Field - Elements of data that can be attached to a Node or other Drupal entities. Fields commonly contain text, images or terms.
Group – A collection of content and users within a Drupal site that functions as a separate “subsite.” Each Group can have its own permissions and settings, allowing for distinct sections in Drupal. This is useful for organizations (such as UC ANR) that need to manage multiple departments, projects or communities under one main site.
Menu - A set of links used for navigation on a site, which may be arranged in a hierarchy.
Module - Software (usually PHP, JavaScript, and/or CSS) that extends site features and adds functionality to Drupal. This provides UC ANR opportunities for future enhancements after go-live and stabilization.
Node - A piece of content in Drupal, typically corresponding to a single Page on the site, which has a title, an optional body and perhaps additional fields. Every Node also belongs to a particular Content Type and can additionally be classified using the taxonomy system. Examples of Nodes are Articles, Pages and Collections.
Path - In Drupal terms, a unique, last part of the URL for a specific function or piece of content. For instance, for a page whose full URL is http://example.com/?=node/7, the path is “node/7”.
Page - One of the Content Types that are part of the basic, standard offering in Drupal. Typically used for static content that can (but are not required to) be linked into the group menu.
Permission - The ability to perform some action on the site, such as editing a particular type of content, or viewing user profiles.
Published – A status referring to content or Pages on a site. On the UC ANR Sites, making something “Published” will make the Page or content available to the public.
Role - A grouping assigned to user accounts that gives all the user accounts classified in that way the same set of permissions.
Reference Field - A type of Field that allows authors to create a relationship between an entity and one or more other entities. For example, authors might “tag” an article with taxonomy terms using a Term Reference field. Other Reference Fields can be used to define other kinds of relationships, for example, between one Node and several other Nodes, or Nodes and users.
Taxonomy term - A term used to classify content, such as a tag or a category. This drives the UC ANR Content Hub.
Theme - Software and asset files (images, CSS, PHP code, and/or templates) that determine the style and layout of the site.
User/Visitor - A person interacting with the site, either logged-in or anonymous (not logged-in).
View - A formatted listing of data; typically, the data comes from created content. For example, “Blogs View” generates a list of all the blogs created using the UC ANR Blogs Group Type that show the blog title, created date and a short description, linking to the blog.
WYSIWYG - Acronym for “What You See is What You Get”, meaning a method for editing content where what you see on the editing screen closely resembles the final product.
Updated 11/6/2024