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Core BlockNinja concepts
Understand how sites, pages, blocks, themes, posts, Tables, Views, and plugins fit together so you can choose the right object before making changes.
Outcome
You can name the BlockNinja object that owns a task, understand its scope, and avoid changing a reusable or live object by mistake.
Access
Viewer, Admin, or Superadmin can learn these concepts. Creating, editing, publishing, and deleting remain limited by the required role, plan, installed plugins, and current record state.
How the core pieces fit together
- A Site is one public website and its CMS configuration.
- Its Theme supplies the broad visual system.
- Menus connect visitors to public destinations.
- Pages and Posts provide published content.
- A Page is a routed document.
- Its Template chooses a page-level layout and available slots.
- Blocks provide the content and features placed in those slots.
- A Master Page can supply reusable structural regions such as a header and footer.
- Tables hold structured data.
- Views shape it for pages by filtering, joining, enriching, nesting, or presenting it.
- Plugins extend the site with optional blocks, templates, admin pages, data, or integrations.
Content and presentation objects
| Object | What it controls | Important boundary |
|---|---|---|
| Page | A public route assembled from blocks. | Its draft and published versions can differ. |
| Block | One configurable content or feature unit. | It can be page-specific or shared. |
| Theme | The site's broad colours, typography, and presentation system. | Changes can affect the whole site. |
| Template | The page-level arrangement and slots. | It is not a Block Template. |
| Block Template | Shared rendering or styling for a block type. | It can affect every block of that type. |
| Master Page | Reusable structural regions around child content. | It is not the same as a page Template. |
| Post | Editorial content managed under Posts. | It has its own listings, authors, categories, metadata, and publication workflow. |
| Menu | Ordered internal or external navigation links. | It points to content; it is not the page. |
Data and extension objects
| Object | Use it for | Important boundary |
|---|---|---|
| Table | Store structured fields and rows. | It owns source data. |
| View | Shape data for a page or another consumer. | It does not replace its source Table. |
| Workflow | Run supported triggers, conditions, and actions. | Resume continues one run; Run again starts another and may repeat side effects. |
| Plugin | Add an optional, sandboxed capability. | Installation does not approve every provisioning or outbound network request. |
Choose the correct object
| If you need to… | Start with |
|---|---|
| Add a heading to one page | A page-specific Block |
| Change the header shared by many pages | The relevant Master Page or shared Block |
| Change site-wide typography | Theme |
| Publish a news article | Post |
| Store a directory of fictional locations | Table |
| Show only open locations, shaped for a page | View |
| Add an optional external integration | Plugin and its reviewed permissions |
Draft and published are different states
Saving updates the working Draft. Publish makes the reviewed version available through its configured public route and current site state. A temporary preview lets you inspect a draft without making the ordinary public route live.
- Before editing a Block, check whether other pages use it.
- Before changing presentation, confirm whether the control belongs to a Theme, Template, Block Template, or Master Page.
- Before changing data, inspect the Table's dependants and the View's consumers.
Check your understanding
- Locate Pages, Blocks, Master Pages, Menus, Posts, Theme, Block Templates, Data Tables, Views, Workflows, and Plugins by exact sidebar label.
- Choose the correct object for each example in the task table.
- Confirm a draft-only page is absent from the ordinary public route.
- Explain why Tables hold data while Views shape it for pages.
- Explain why a plugin remains bound by the signed-in role and reviewed capabilities.
If you chose the wrong object
- Leave without saving and return to the comparison tables.
- If an edit is already a draft, inspect its History or discard warning before publishing or reversing it.
- If shared content changed, identify every affected page before republishing.
- If a plugin, data, or presentation change has wider impact than expected, stop and use its dedicated recovery guide rather than deleting objects.
Next
- Learn what drafts, previews, and published content mean.
- Create your first page.
- Learn how Tables hold data and Views shape it.
Related guides
Welcome to BlockNinja
Learn which BlockNinja surface owns your task: the public site, BlockNinjaCMS, the managed account portal, or an installed plugin before making changes.
Drafts, previews, and published content
Understand drafts, temporary previews, live pages, and unpublished changes so you always know what visitors can see and how to recover safely.
Create your first page
Create a BlockNinja page, add a heading and text, preview the draft safely, publish it, and verify the public result at desktop and narrow widths.