Glossary

When a site visitor clicks on an expired link, due to a page becoming unpublished, deleted, or moved, they will be directed to a 404 page. These pages let the visitor know that the page is no longer available. Team members with edit access can take advantage of 404 pages by including links to other helpful resources. It's important that these are not removed from your website.

A team member’s access level denotes which actions they may take on a given website. Access levels include: manager, editor, contributor, and read-only. All access levels except for read-only will be required to complete training. 

Are you interested in gaining or providing Gato access to someone, or are you looking to add a new manager or owner for a website? Learn more about levels of access as well as find the forms needed to request changes.

A web anchor is a link that directs to content on the same page. For instance, if a webpage is very long, a page might provide anchor links at the top to link to specific points further down the page.

Team members can upload different documents and images to be used on their websites. These are referred to as assets.

The audience is the people that you are designing your web page for. For instance, one website might be focused on recruiting new students, while another page is built primarily for faculty and staff.

Breadcrumbs refer to the trail of links that help users understand the location of the current page in the website hierarchy. At the top of this page above the icons, you'll notice the following breadcrumbs, "Texas State / Gato Content Management System Support / Glossary." Glossary is this current page which is located within the Gato Content Management Systems Support website. This site is under the umbrella of the TXST homepage.

When you visit a website, your browser stores the website data locally. By doing this, you'll notice increased speed when accessing a page in the future while decreasing pressure on servers. Your browser is essentially taking a snapshot of the page. This also means that changes made to a page might not be immediately visible, or may appear slightly delayed. Cache can be cleared from the browser to get around this issue.

This is a marketing term which designers often use to prompt an action from a site visitor. "Fill out your application today" would be an example of a call to action item on a website.

Campus Press allows TXST faculty, staff, and students to create their own personal websites -- which would otherwise not be allowed to be created in Gato.

A content management system, such as Gato, is a system which allows website administrators to collaborate in creating/editing websites. It allows end-users to edit website content by using tools which don't require knowledge in HTML, CSS, or Javascript.

Content types are what team members use to add text, images, videos, and other types of content to a page, such as sliders and FAQs. Find a full list of content types and learn more about them in our Canvas training.

Contributors have limited access to a Gato website and can only access and edit as permissioned by the site manager. They can be restricted to a specific sub-section of pages, blocked from accessing data, or not allowed to publish pages. This access level may be used for students, temporary workers, or any team member that only needs access to certain content. Previously, some site managers may have had a version of this called a limited editor. Contact Gato Support to set up contributor access level options on your site. 

Web cookies are small blocks of data sent to your browser from a server when you visit a website. They can be useful in providing essential functions for you, by both collecting and storing information to improve your web experience. They can help store personalized options for a website, such as language, items in your cart, etc.

An editor is a team member on a Gato site whose access level allows them to edit pages, publish, unpublish, and access assets and data. They cannot add or manage users.

This is a term used to describe the content that loads when a visitor first gets to a website before any scrolling is performed. This content is usually the most important content and provides a first impression to site visitors. Below the fold refers to content a visitor sees while scrolling down a page. Note: Fold content will not be consistent among devices due to varying screen sizes.

The footer is the bottom section of a website. On this page, you'll notice that it has a dark gray background with white text. Footers are edited from the homepage of each website and are visible throughout the website. They provide helpful information that visitors can benefit from on any page of the website, which includes contact information and other helpful links.

Gato is Texas State University's web content management system and is used in managing all official department and division websites.

Access to Gato can be granted under two conditions:

1. Training must be completed, and
2. Permission must be received from an authorized website manager and/or owner.

Google Analytics can be used by departments to collect visitor information for their websites. Departments can sign up to use Google Analytics from the Google Analytics support page in order to receive a GA code (such as: UA-123456-12). Access to this analytics data is managed completely by each department. IT support staff at the university are unable to provide support for it, such as updating who has access to a GA account or retrieving analytics data; it's important to maintain your list of admins as changes occur within the department. The information gathered through GA allows website editors to make informed decisions when making changes to their websites.

Website headers are the first main part of a website. They contain the title of the website, navigation options, search, and the TXST logo. They can optionally contain a background image as well. See also Hero and above the fold. 

In web design, ‘hero’ refers to the top matter of the page that’s seen first when a person first visits the page, under the site’s navigation and before they start to scroll. It’s meant to catch the attention of a site visitor and help them immediately understand what the goal of the webpage is. You may have also heard this portion of a webpage being referred to as ‘above the fold.’

On Calico pages, the hero includes your Page Title, Intro. Text, and the Separator line managed in Page properties, plus the Banner Image and Parent Organization (the latter being managed only on your site’s homepage).

Information architecture relates to how information is organized within digital products, such as a website or mobile app. This practice is helpful in allowing users to easily navigate through resources without too much effort.

Launching a Gato website is a multi-step process. After a new blank website is requested and developed, it will be submitted into a review process to ensure that it meets technical, design, ADA, and security requirements. Once those requirements are met, the website will be launched.

In Gato, different sections of a page can be created. Within each section, a variety of different layouts are available. Layouts are areas within each section that can be customized to have 1 - 4 columns of content.

Links help visitors navigate from one web page to another. They can direct visitors to a location within the same website, or another one entirely. They are typically underlined and may appear differently than other text on the page. They can be associated with text, images, or buttons.

Updated: A manager is a team member whose access level affords them the same permissions as an editor (edit, publish, unpublish, access assets and data) as well as the ability to add and manager users. They also serve as the primary points of contact for a website and are ultimately responsible for its upkeep. 

Website navigation is how visitors explore a website to find information. Navigation in websites is typically located at the top of the page. On this page, you'll notice a hamburger menu (three lines) at the top-left hand corner of the page, right next to the search feature. Once selected, visitors will see a list of sub-pages to select from. Other ways to navigate around a website include using the search feature, the breadcrumb trail underneath the header, or the site map which is linked in the footer of each page.

A website owner is the head of the department or division the site serves. Owners often do not take part in actively editing websites and thus may be assigned read-only access. If they’d prefer to have editor or contributor access, they must complete the training. They’re responsible for appointing managers to a website and can authorize access for new team members.

The page properties menu of website can be found when editing a website in the Gato CMS. Options in this menu allow editors to adjust the title of a website, restrict pages to faculty, staff, or students, hide a page from navigation, provides an area to add a Google Analytics code, and more.

The page tree is a list of all the pages in your site (including collections of live, sandboxed, and archived pages) along with their statuses. An active site may show one or more page trees. There are three types of page trees:

• Primary (live) page tree: The current version of a website’s pages that are, or can be, publicly accessible.
• Sandbox: An environment where new versions of web pages are developed before launching. This requires that site administrators complete the Website Launch Process. Each website may only have one sandbox.
• Archive: A cluster of old pages that are no longer publicly available.

Access to Page Trees: 

We do not provide separate access permissions for individual page trees within a site. Adjustments to access will uniformly apply across all page trees in a site. For example, if a team member is provided with editor access to a website that has a sandbox and an archive, that editor will also have access to both of those page trees as well. 

Prebuilt sections are limited to Calico and Admissions templates. Editors have the option to add in fully designed sections into their webpages to provide a quick, nice looking feel to a page without having to spend a lot of time manually trying to create them. They provide a nice touch for homepages and landing pages.

There are three page states in Gato: published, unpublished, and modified. When a page is published, it is publicly available and can be seen by site visitors. When a page is unpublished, it cannot be viewed publicly and can only be see in the Gato CMS by website editors. A modified page is a published page which contains changes that are not yet publicly available. This is common when a page is actively being updated prior to being published.

An access level that denotes a team member that can access and view a Gato site but has no editing permissions. This may be given to executive-level owners or team members who require oversight but don't need to be hands-on. 

Redirects are used to direct traffic from one URL to another one. This is typically used when a website or specific webpage moves to another location or changes URL. Redirects ensure that when people visit the old URL, they'll be directed to the new location, rather than end up on a 404 page.

Release notes are notes that include changes that occurred in a specific update. These notes will include information relating to enhancements, fixes, and changes made in the system.

In Gato CMS, a role is the specific permission and editing access a team member has within a site. At least one role is assigned to all site team members. By default, all sites include standard editor and read-only roles, which are assigned when granting their corresponding access level. Custom roles are required for contributor access levels and can be created and assigned by Gato Support upon request.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving how your website is ranked in search results in order to generate more traffic.

The information in each webpage is often broken down into different pieces of related content, called sections. In Gato, editors can establish different sections on a page which can contain different types of content and layouts.

All Gato websites must abide by the University's security policies. It's important that team members are aware of the types of information provided on their websites, as well as the nature of any information requested.

A site map is a layout of the pages in a website. It can be provided to editors as a method for easy navigation. Our websites contain a link to a websites' site map in the footer section of each page. Only pages that are unpublished or hidden from navigation won't appear.

Siteimprove is our third-party website quality assurance platform. It tracks accessibility, link checking, spell checking, stale pages, reading level, policy topics, as well as provides a digital certainty index (DCI) for each website it monitors in order to track website improvements over time. 

A team member refers to a person who has some level of access to a Gato site. TXST faculty, staff, and students are allowed to become team members in Gato if they complete the training and are granted permission to access by a site manager. 

Also referred to as Page Types, web templates are pre-designed pages created for specific purposes, making website development easier. At TXST, we offer a variety of templates to meet different needs. For example, the TXST Form page template collects visitor information, while the TXST Filterable Search template showcases detailed lists of items or faculty and staff.

In Gato, different themes are included. Some of these themes include: 

• Calico
• TXST Standard
• TSUS
• Wittliff

Each theme has a different look and feel, and will have different content and prebuilt section types available. Themes may be restricted to specific groups and use cases. 

This page is using the Filterable Search template within the Calico theme. 

The self-paced Gato training in Canvas is available to all TXST faculty, staff, and students. Training must be successfully completed before anyone is allowed to have access to the Gato CMS. Aside from regular Gato training, team members can take Calico Transition Training as well in order to learn more about how to successfully create or redesign a website to provide a great experience for visitors.

Relevant UPPS includes:

• 04.01.08: Texas State Domain Name and URL Policy
• 04.01.06: University Websites

This is the last part of a URL. For example, in the URL "https://www.txst.edu/research," "research" is the slug.

This form can be used to request a URL for your new website, or to replace an existing URL.

User experience focuses on understanding the audience, what the audience is looking for, as well as their ability to navigate content. That information is used to create an engaging, easy to use interface.

Digital technology creates an environment where information can be stored and displayed in ways that make information more available to everyone. However, when web sites, applications, technologies, or tools are designed without considering accessibility, they can create barriers that exclude people from using these electronic resources.

A webpage is a single page within a much larger website, which is comprised of multiple pages. For example, this Glossary page is a webpage within the Gato Content Management System Support website.