Technical Details

Colony is composed of a number of different systems that combine to become a very powerful CMS.

The Colony Framework

Colony splits structure from content to make it one of the most stable and flexible CMS's on the market.

Core engine

The core engine of colony comprises of:

• Websites
• Pages
• Page Sections

Since Colony is a multi-site CMS at the top of the tree structure we have the Website.

Websites can have multiple addresses and contain website wide meta-data. Each website comprises of a number of hierarchical pages (a little like Windows Explorer Folders).

Pages can have multiple addresses and contain page meta-data and security. Each Page is made up from Page Sections.

Page Sections point to the content (held in modules), that is going to be displayed on the Page. Adding a Page Section is the equivalent of cutting out a piece of content and gluing it to the Page.

sxForms

sxForms is the Colony form building engine. By using sxForms every form in Colony has a consistent look and feel, data is validated, HTML content is parsed for standards and accessibility errors and every field in the Colony system has help and examples to make using the system child's play.

Modules

Modules contain all the content for Colony and the business logic for any site written in Colony. There are many different types of module, not all modules display content some purely handle business logic. Types of module are: