Tiki Glossary

If you're new to Tiki, this glossary will help you better understand the Tiki application and Tiki for Dummies Smarties. Is there a term that you're unfamiliar with? Ask us...

admin

The admin user account is the Tiki system administrator. The admin is automatically part of the Admins group and has all permissions.

backlinks

Incoming links to a wiki page, from another wiki page. Tiki automatically maintains the list of a page's backlinks, even if you change the name of one of the pages.

CAPTCHA

Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart — A test, typically consisting of distorted numbers and letters, to determine if the respondent is a human or a machine. Tiki supports two CAPTCHA systems: Zend_Captcha (default) and ReCaptcha.

category

Tiki uses categories to organize different objects (such as wiki pages, blogs, and forums). Each Tiki category can have permissions that override the global/group permissions.

CMS

1. Content Management System — Tiki is a CMS.
2. The Tiki Article feature is sometimes labeled as the CMS feature.

encoding

By default, Tiki uses UTF-8 encoding for the database. If you find odd characters in wiki pages, check your database encoding.

group

Web site user accounts are organized into groups. Each user can belong to multiple groups and groups can include/inherit other groups. Permissions applied to specific groups are global (but can be overridden on a category- or object-level.

IRC

Internet Relay Chat — A real-time Internet text-messaging system. The Tiki Community maintains the #tikiwiki IRC chatroom on the Freenode.net network.

local.php

The Tiki configuration file (located in the /db directory) that contains your database connection information. Normally, Tiki creates or updates this file as part of the installation process.

mod

Abbreviation for modifications. In Tiki, mods are extensions that are not included with the Tiki installation (for example, due to licensing restrictions). The Tiki Community maintains a public mods repository at http://mods.tiki.org.

module

A box of content (for example, a list of the most recently updated pages) typically displayed in the left or right column of a Tiki site. Modules can also be included in a page by using the Module plugin.

A full Tiki installation includes more than 100 pre-defined modules. You can also create custom ("user") modules.

orphan

A wiki page with no incoming links from other pages. An orphaned page has no backlinks.

php.ini

The configuration file used to customize PHP (the language used by Tiki). See http://php.net for details. The location of your php.ini file may vary, depending on your web server configuration.

polom

A greeting often used by Tiki developers on the #tikiwiki IRC channel. Geeky responses include bolow (upside-down), qolom (backwards), or wolod (upside-down and backwards).

plugin

A way to extend Tiki's wiki syntax. With plugins, you include complex elements on a wiki page, such as videos, database queries, and more. Tiki includes more than 150 plugins with a full installation.

You can include modules in a wiki page by using the Module plugin..

Smarty

The template engine used by Tiki. Smarty template files are identified by the TPL file extension.

structure

A way to organize wiki pages into a "book" with navigation aids (such as next and back links, breadcrumbs, and sections). Structures allow you create a specific browse sequence for your site's visitors.

t.o

An abbreviation for the Tiki Community sites (*.tiki.org). A list of all Tiki Community sites appears in the footer of each site (for example, http://dev.tiki.org).

template

1. A Smarty template file (TPL) used to define the display of Tiki features and pages (HTML and CSS) For example, the tiki-register.tpl template controls the look of the Registration page.
2. A content template is user-defined content that can be used when creating specific Tiki objects (such as wiki page or article).

thumbnail

A miniaturized version of an image. Tiki automatically creates thumbnails for images that have been uploaded to the file gallery.

Tiki

Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware. May also refer to the Tiki Software Community Association or the Tiki Community, in general.

topic

In Tiki's article feature, topics are categories of articles. Each article topic can be identified by a unique image or picture.

TPL

The filename extension for Smarty template files.

type

1. article
2. forum post

WikiWords

A Tiki option that automatically converts all words with mixed upper- and lower-case letters into wiki links.

WYSIWYG

What You See Is What You Get — An editing system in which content displayed during editing appears very similar to the final output. Tiki uses a WYSIWYG implementation by CKEditor.