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Glossary
Every word ClickWhale uses that means something specific, in one place.
The building blocks
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Template | The reusable frame a page is built on: header, footer, and anything else every page of a kind should share. Editing a template changes every page built on it. → Templates and pages |
| Base template | The template as a whole, as opposed to one of its language versions. On the Templates screen it's the top row, the one carrying the name. All the structure (every element and all the styling) belongs here and is shared by every language. → Managing your templates |
| Page | One address on your website. A page uses a template and adds its own content inside it. A page can only exist in a language its template already exists in. → Creating and managing pages |
| Folder | A way of grouping pages on the Pages screen. Folders never appear in a URL. They organise the builder, nothing else. Pages have them; templates don't. |
| Element | Anything on a page or template: a section, a row, a piece of text, a button, an image, a form. Elements sit inside each other, and each one only accepts certain kinds of child. |
| Component | The same thing, seen from the left pane. The list you drag from, and the tree of what's already there. "Component" is where an element comes from; "element" is what it is once placed. |
| Root element | A top-level element of a template. Typically the header section, the main content area and the footer section. They're the only elements that can be shared between templates. → Managing your templates |
| Shared element | A root element that belongs to more than one template. Edit it in one place and it changes everywhere it's used, which is how several templates keep exactly one header. |
Styling
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Display setting | One styling value on one element: a background, a padding, a border. Display settings can be set per screen size and per state. → The Display settings pane |
| Property | A setting that isn't styling: a link action, an image ratio, an autoplay interval, which menu a Menu element shows. Unlike a display setting, a property holds one value for the whole element: there's no per-screen-size version. |
| Display set | A named bundle of styling attached to many elements at once. Change the set and everything using it changes. Sets are for styling that repeats. Buttons, headings, body text, menus, form fields. Layout specific to one place is styled on the element instead. → Reusable styling |
| Screen size / breakpoint | One of six widths you can style for: All, then 1400, 1200, 992, 769 and 480 pixels. A value set on All applies everywhere; a value set on a smaller width overrides it from there down. The control switches what you are editing, not just what you're looking at. → Making it work on phones |
| State | A variant of an element's styling for a particular condition. default, hover (the pointer is over it), active (it's being clicked, or it's the selected tab). Not every element has states. |
| Colour palette | A shelf of remembered colours. Picking one copies the value into the element, so changing the slot afterwards doesn't change anything already styled. |
| Function colour | A colour slot that elements point at rather than copy. Change the slot and everything using it recolours, including any darker or lighter shade of it. This is the one to put brand colours in. The first eight have a fixed meaning, such as page background, text and accent. → The colour palette |
| Dark mode | A second set of colour values, shown when the visitor's device asks for a dark scheme. There's no switch on the website. The device decides. An unset dark colour is opaque white. → Dark mode |
Content and modules
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Module | An optional feature switched on per website under Settings: Publications (the blog), Forms, Members. A module's elements only appear in the editor once its module is on. → Website settings |
| Publication | One blog article. It has a title, a summary, an image, a category and a publish window, and its content is edited with the same elements as a page. → Writing and publishing an article |
| Category | A group of publications. A category belongs to one language, fixed when it's created, and drives both an overview element and an RSS feed. → Organising articles into categories |
| Member | A visitor who can log in to your website, as opposed to a ClickWhale user who can edit it. Members see restricted pages. Every logged-in member sees every restricted page. → Members |
| User | Someone with a ClickWhale account and access to your website in the builder. Users have roles: Owner, Admin, Developer, Writer. → Inviting someone to your website |
Publishing
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Save | Stores your work in the builder. Nothing a visitor sees changes. The tick inside the text editor is not Save; it only puts your text into the element. |
| Preview | Shows you your saved work at a temporary address, before anyone else can see it. |
| Publish | Makes a snapshot of the site and points your domain at it. This is the only step that changes what visitors see. → Publishing |
| Snapshot | One published version of your website. ClickWhale keeps the 3 most recent; publishing again removes the oldest. You can restore an older snapshot, which is how you roll back. |
| Free address | The address every website gets at creation. Your site name plus .free.clickwhale.com. It's a working address, not a published one: it's kept out of search results, and once your own domain is live it redirects there. → Your free address |
| Main domain | The domain your site advertises as itself. Only a domain that is Live and active can be made the main one. → Connecting a domain |
Money and account
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Trial | A new website's first 30 days, with everything switched on. When it ends the site goes straight Offline: there is no grace period after a trial. |
| Grace / Expired | A 14-day window after a subscription that was actually paid for lapses. The site stays up. It only ever exists after a paid subscription. → Your subscription |
| Offline | The public website has stopped answering, on your domain and on the free address. The builder still opens and nothing is lost. |
| Credits | What an AI-generated website costs. Credits are personal, not per-website, and a generation is the only thing they buy. The first generation on a new account is free. → Credits |
Privacy and consent
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Consent category | One of four groups the cookie bar asks about: essential (always on), functional, analytics, marketing. Anything ClickWhale holds back until consent is filed under one of them. YouTube videos and maps under functional, analytics tools under analytics, tag manager and pixels under marketing. → The cookie bar |
| Custom code | Your own HTML, CSS or JavaScript. It exists at three levels: on one element, site-wide under Manage → Custom code, and as a page element: a named style you can apply while editing text. → Site-wide custom code |
Terms that are easily confused
| These two | Are not the same |
|---|---|
| Save and Publish | Save stores; Publish makes it public. |
| Display setting and Property | A display setting is per screen size; a property is one value. |
| Colour palette and Function colour | The palette copies a value; a function colour is a reference. |
| Member and User | A member logs in to your website; a user logs in to ClickWhale. |
| Template and Page | A template is the frame; a page is one address using it. |
| Base template and Template language | The base template holds the structure; each language holds only its own text. |
| Free address and Domain | The free address is for working on the site; the domain is what you publish under. |
| Folder and URL | Folders organise the builder and never appear in an address. |
What will you create today?
ClickWhale is a website management system created by Ikabus