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Concepts & glossary

A quick orientation to the terms you'll meet throughout this manual, with a link to where each is covered in depth. If a page assumes a word you don't recognize, it's probably here.

💡 Web dev tip: HTML is a vocabulary, not just boxes

Every tag in HTML carries meaning, not just a shape — a <nav>, an <article>, an <aside> tell browsers, screen readers and search engines what a region of the page is, not merely how it looks. That's why the Div element below can emit section, article, nav or a plain div depending on what you're actually building. MDN: HTML elements reference

The big picture​

  • Framework — the Unyson+ core runtime (fw()): the options system, the backend UI, the extension loader, and the boot lifecycle. Lives in the plugin. See Architecture.
  • Plugin — the Unyson+ WordPress plugin that carries the framework and the bundled extensions.
  • Parent theme — the Unyson+ Theme, a Bootstrap-5 theme built for the framework; it renders the builder output and provides Theme Settings. See The Theme.
  • Child theme — what you actually ship: a theme that inherits everything from the parent and overrides only your brand. See Child themes.
  • Extension — a modular feature (Forms, Portfolio, Theme Builder, …), a folder with a manifest that the framework discovers and activates on demand. See The extension system.

The Page Builder​

  • Page Builder — the visual, drag-and-drop editor for composing pages. See Page Builder.
  • Element (a.k.a. shortcode) — a building block you drop on the canvas (a Button, a Heading, an Accordion). Every element is a WordPress shortcode under the hood. See Elements.
  • Div (Flex · Grid · Block) — the modern layout primitive: one container you set to Flex, Grid or Block that outputs a semantic HTML tag. It leads the palette (as Section / Flexbox / Grid) and is the recommended way to lay out a page. See The Div element.
  • Section / Row / Column (Classic) — the original Bootstrap-grid containers, where a page nests section → row → column → element. Still fully supported, now grouped under the Classic palette tab. See Column widths.
  • Container element — a second boxed/full-width wrapper you can place inside a section.
  • Builder JSON — the stored representation of a built page: a JSON tree of items. See The builder JSON tree format.
  • Items corrector — the pass that wraps loose elements into a valid section/row/column grid at render time. See The items corrector.
  • builder_active — the flag that tells the theme to render builder output instead of the default post content.
  • Snippet — reusable builder content you embed anywhere ([snippet id="…"]). See Snippets.
  • Global Template / Template — a reusable Section/Column, or (in the Theme Builder) a bundle of a header/body/footer plus assignment rules. See Theme Builder.

Options & settings​

  • Option — a single configurable field (a heading text, an accent color). Declared as a PHP array with a type.
  • Option type — the kind of a field (text, select, color-picker, typography, …). See Option types.
  • Container — an option type that holds other options (box, group, tab, multi, popup).
  • Theme Settings — the global design layer (colors, typography, header/footer, custom CSS). See Theme Settings.
  • Preset — a reusable, named design value (a color palette, a font-size scale, a button style). See Presets & design tokens.
  • Design token — a CSS custom property (--color-primary, --radius) the theme generates from settings. See How settings become CSS.
  • Generated stylesheet — the single file the theme compiles all design into (no inline-style soup). See Performance.

Dynamic content​

  • Dynamic Content — the {{token}} system that turns a placeholder into a live value at render time. See Dynamic Content.
  • Token — {{tag_id|param=value|fallback=…}}, what you insert into a text field.
  • Tag — a registered dynamic value (post_title, site_name, current_year, a custom field).

Shipping & extending​

  • Manifest — the manifest.php (or theme style.css) that declares a project's version and requirements. See Manifests & versioning.
  • github_update — the manifest key that opts an extension/theme into GitHub auto-updates. See Updates.
  • Hook — a WordPress action (run code) or filter (change a value) the framework fires. See Hooks & Filters.
  • fw_… / unysonplus_… — the function/hook prefixes: fw_ is the framework core API, unysonplus_ is theme/plugin-era code.
  • AGENTS.md — area-specific developer guides shipped next to the code in the plugin; the most detailed, continuously-verified reference when you're working in an area.