Key concepts¶

This document will explain the most important concepts to start with Open Orchestra.

Nodes¶

Nodes are mainly pages that the visitors can see on the website, they are containers for zones and blocks. The nodes are multilingual, versioned and have a validation workflow.

There are two types of nodes in Open Orchestra:

Nodes that represent pages of the website
The transverse node containing the transverse blocks (blocks that can be used in other pages, for instance the menu block). This node is not versioned, and there can only be one transverse node in each language of the site.

See also the documentation page about node parameters.

Content types¶

Content types are a way to create new kinds of content that will be available to contribution. Creating a content type allows to define the fields available in the future contents.

For instance, a ‘news’ content will have different fields from an ‘article’ content, so there would be two distinct content types for these objects : one for the news contents and another for the article contents.

Contents¶

With Open Orchestra, contents are used to display contributed information (articles, news, etc.). The contents are defined by a content type. Like nodes, contents are multilingual, versioned and have a validation workflow.

Templates¶

Templates are used to preconfigure pages by setting zones that are commonly used across pages. Open Orchestra let the user start with a template when creating a node.

Zones¶

Zones are the way to organize the architecture of the page. They are embedded in the nodes and can contain other zones or blocks.

Blocks¶

A block is the base brick representing any visible element on a page. Aggregating blocks found in the nodes will lead to the construction of the pages.

Transverse blocks¶

Transverse blocks are defined inside the transverse node, they can be shared by several nodes of a website. All blocks can be transverse, as long as they are added to the transverse node. Transverse blocks can only be configured in the transverse node.

Themes¶

A theme represents the visual identity of a website, the CSS and JavaScript files that work together in order to render the websites in a certain way.

See how to add a theme.

Websites¶

Open Orchestra is multisite and allows to create several websites from the same Back Office application.

Devices¶

Open Orchestra is multi-device and is able to display, on the Front Office, different templates depending on the device of the visitor.

Keywords¶

Keywords can be created in the Back Office, and then be used to tag contents and medias.

Users¶

Users represent people that can connect to the Open Orchestra Back Office and make contributions. They also are the Front Office users who can access to the private pages of a website. It’s also possible to assign groups to users.

Roles¶

Roles allow to define authorization in the Back Office.

Groups¶

Groups combine roles (this combination depends on the website) and are assigned to users. Groups can have several roles.

Bundles¶

Open Orchestra is built on Symfony so the code is split into different bundles.

Open Orchestra’s bundles :

open-orchestra-base-bundle contains some transverse classes common to Back Office and Front Office.

open-orchestra-cms-bundle is the application logic for the Back Office.

open-orchestra-front-bundle is the application logic for the Front Office.

open-orchestra-display-bundle contains all the block display strategies for the Front Office.

open-orchestra-model-interface is a full description of the model classes used by other bundles.

open-orchestra-model-bundle contains the database access logic (doctrinemongodb).

open-orchestra-media-bundle contains the media functionalities.

open-orchestra-user-bundle groups all user logic.

In order to use another database system one should had a new bundle which classes will implement the interfaces defined in open-orchestra-model-interface.