OpenWGA 7.6 - OpenWGA Concepts and Features

Basic artefacts and terms

Web Applications

The notion of a Web Application in OpenWGA is not different from what a Web Application means in other frameworks. It is a self-contained set of functionality serving a special purpose.

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The level of functionality contained in a Web Application of OpenWGA may differ. A Web Application may merely be a website serving content in some template design. But it may also be a "real" application like some sort of Customer Relationship Management Tool.

OpenWGA Web Applications consist of the following parts:

  • An OpenWGA Design defining the layout and functionalties that an application uses and provides. You may refer to it as the "source code" of the application if you are more of a developer than a designer.
  • An OpenWGA Content Store which is a database that contains the content data which is served or managed by the application.

An OpenWGA web application is uniquely identified by a database key which is just a string that the admin configures for the application. On most URLs addressing your application you will find the database key of it being the first part.

Just like with this "database key" you will find many places in OpenWGA and its documentation where web applications are referred simply as "databases". This is a based on OpenWGA's early history where web applications were really databases that contained all design and content data.

Though we are (slowly) getting away from this view to the clearer abstraction of application/design/content store (which much more closely matches the current situation) there are certain places where the "database" notion must be kept inside OpenWGA for backward compatibility. This includes the "database key". 

Also please bear with us when at some places in documentation we are struck by force of habit and still talk about "databases" where we actually mean web applications...