WebSynergy Terminology

The following are some common terms that are useful to know.

Portlet

Portlets are pluggable software components that are managed and displayed in a Web portal. Typically, a portal page is displayed as a collection of non-overlapping portlet windows, in which each portlet window displays one portlet. WebSynergy portlets conform to JSR286 standards.

Public Page and Private Page

Every individual user account in a WebSynergy site contains public pages and private pages. Pages that can be accessed by a guest user are public pages. Pages that can only be accessed by logging in to a user account are private pages.

Widget

Widgets are similar to portlets, except that unlike portlets, widgets are created using a programming language other than Java, such as PHP or Ruby.

Theme

The “look and feel” settings that are applied to a portal page. Themes can be applied sitewide by a WebSynergy site administrator or on a page-by-page basis by registered users.

Layout Template

A scheme that defines the general layout of portlets and widgets on a portal page. As with themes, layout templates can be applied by site administrators and registered users.

Guest

A user who does not have an account on a given WebSynergy site. Typically, guest users have limited ability to view or modify content on a WebSynergy site.

User

A person who is registered on a WebSynergy site.

User Group

A grouping of users; members of a user group typically share common sets of access permissions.

Community

A collection of users sharing common interests or goals; community members typically share a common set of portlets and pages. For example, a community might have a wiki that is not available to users outside the community. Multiple user groups can coexist within a given community.

Organization

A hierarchical collection of users, user groups, and communities. Multiple communities can coexist within a given organization.

User Role

Permissions and access rights defined for a given user; typically maps to rights within groups, communities, and organizations.