Understanding the Contribution Regions

The area that the contributor can edit is called the contribution region. This area is defined by the designer by using a placeholder. Within that placeholder, the subtemplate (if used) and region template are used to control how the data associated within the contribution region is displayed. The definitions - placeholder, region, and element, are used to control how the contributor edits and interacts with that data.

Element definitions are used to determine what toolbar icons and editing capabilities are available to the contributor. The elements are arranged on the region template. The region template is the smallest "chunk" of HTML that is controlled as a site asset, allowing you to use and reuse that one particular section of HTML and associated content passed through the template. The region definition defines which elements are available to use in a region template. It also defines what level of access the contributor has in switching the region content.

A region definition can contain more element definitions than are placed in the region template. Those element definitions listed in the region definition, but not used on the region template, still appear in Contributor when editing the data file. This is especially useful to remember if you use a "teaser" of information on one page to go to the full set of information on another page. This concept is covered in more detail in Region Templates and Region Definitions.

The boundaries of the contribution region are set by the placeholder. In a general sense, the placeholder is the area that is called the contribution region. The placeholder is not a site asset - it is just a marker on a page template (or subtemplate) that is used to show where the contribution region is relative to the placement of the other objects on the site template or subtemplate. The placeholder definition assigned to a placeholder defines if the contributor has access to edit data, and if the contributor can switch the content.

The placeholder definition also defines which region definitions are available in the placeholder, and which region templates are available and which is the default for each region definition within the placeholder.

Since a placeholder does not have to be accessible to contributors, and since a placeholder can contain a subtemplate that is then divided into other placeholders, it's not always the case that a placeholder is strictly a contribution region. But in a general sense, when you conceive of a simple placeholder, it is the contribution region that the contributor works with.