Glossary

Add-on

An add-on is an extra application that interacts with the core code to display something that wasn’t required in the original scope or purpose of the sNews application.

CMS

Content Management System. A system that enables storing, editing, displaying of site content.

CSS

Cascading Style Sheet. This is a set of rules that determine how your site is to be rendered by your browser. Browsers interpret some aspects of CSS differently, resulting in sites appearing different in various browsers.

CSS Hacks

Various alternate css rules that have been found to correct the behaviour of errant browsers that do not strictly conform to the css specifications.

Dynamic website/pages

Refers to pages of a site being built by the host server, with all relevant parts assembled (decided according to settings) and then sent to the browser. Generally, the site uses a template or layout, with code calls pulling data from a database into different sections of the page.

HTML

HyperText Markup Language, scripts the skeleton of your site, and determines what segments your page is divided into for the display of various content. This is then styled using CSS.

LAMP

LAMP is an open source Web development platform based on Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP

MAMP

MAMP is a very easy to install compilation of Apache, PHP and MySQL for OSX.

Mod

A mod (or more correctly, a modification) is a change of the sNews core code to achieve an alteration in the behaviour of the original sNews functions. This is different terminology to other CMS’, in that with them, mod refers to a module which is plugged into the core.

Mysql

The MySQL database has become the world’s most popular open source database. It is used in more than 10 million installations ranging from large corporations to specialized embedded applications on every continent in the world. (Site:-mysql.com)

PHP

PHP is a recursive acronym for- PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.
PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. (Site:-php.net)

phpMyAdmin

phpMyAdmin is a tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the Web. This tool comes as standard with many web hosts. (Site:-phpmyadmin.net)

Short tags

Short tags are php shortcut tags, which are not recommended for portability reasons. In the php.ini setup, these can be enabled/disabled. If disabled, any script using any of the short tags will fail to operate.
It is recommended to open a php script with the full opening tag
<?php, not the short tag <?

Static website/pages

Static pages/sites are individually built by the author on their computer, and uploaded one at a time. Often the author uses a template or layout and places content in manually. These are very cumbersome to maintain when the site begins to grow.

WAMP

Windows, Apache, MySql, PHP. Server bundle for use on a Windows machine.

XAMPP

XAMPP is an easy to install Apache Distribution for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, and Solaris.

WYSIWYG

What You See Is What You Get. When refering to an editor, it usually indicates an editor that uses a graphical interface, allowing you to see how the site looks as you construct it. For example, MS Frontpage, Dreamweaver. Potentially a good tool for designing layouts, provided it is possible to remove proprietry tags/code from the finished layout and have it still render in most/all browsers as expected.