Terminology

A list of some of the key concepts with working the Umbraco Backoffice.

Understanding certain key concepts is essential when customizing the backoffice. These terminologies can help you decode the purpose of code effectively:

• Repository: An API enables communication with a server.

• Store: An API representing data, generally coming from the server. Most stores would talk with one or more resources. You can read more about this in the Store article.

• State: A reactive container holding data, when data is changed all its Observables will be notified. You can read more about state and observables in the States article.

  • Observable: An observable is the hook for others to subscribe to the data of a State.

  • Observe: Observe describes what we do when subscribing to an Observable.

• Context-API: The name used to serve APIs (instances/classes) for a certain context in the DOM. An API that is served via the Context-API is called a Context. You can read more about this in the Context API article.

  • Context Provider: One that provides a class instance as a Context API.

  • Context Consumer: One that consumer subscribes to a class instance as a Context API.

• Controller: An abstract term for a thing that hooks into the lifecycle of an element. Many things in our system are Controllers.

• Umbraco Controller: Enables hosting controllers. Additionally, it provides a few shortcut methods for initializing core Umbraco Controllers. You can read more about this in the Controllers article.

  • Controller Host: A class that can host controllers.

  • Controller Host Element: The element that can host controllers.

• Umbraco Element: The UmbLitElement or UmbElemenMixin enables hosting controllers. Additionally, it provides a few shortcut methods for initializing core Umbraco Controllers. You can read more about this in the Umbraco Element article.

Read more about various ways how to get started with extending the backoffice in the Backoffice Setup article.