Core Concepts
This page introduces the vocabulary used throughout the rest of the documentation, and the authoring model that vocabulary serves. It assumes no prior reading; the technical pages under Data Model & Architecture pick up where this one ends.
Vocabulary
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Grid Element | A content element that defines a grid-based structure in which other content elements can be organized. |
| Container | A Grid Element in its role as parent. The term appears throughout the technical pages for the record on the parent side of a relation. |
| Child | A content element placed inside a container. A child can be any content element type, including another Grid Element. |
| Row / Column | The grid structure a layout defines, the same concept as a page's Backend Layout, applied to a container instead of a page. |
| Cell | A single position within that grid, where a row and column meet. A container's children each occupy one cell. |
| Nesting | Placement of a Grid Element inside another Grid Element, adding another structural level. No separate setting is required to enable structural nesting, see Nesting. |
| Restriction | Configuration on a cell that governs what may be placed there and how many elements are allowed, see Restrictions, Validation & Permissions. |
| Grid Wizard | The visual tool for defining a grid's row and column structure. See below. |
| New Content Element Wizard | TYPO3 Core's standard tool for selecting and creating a content element. See below. |
| Drag-In Wizard | Grid Elements' tool for creating and placing a content element directly in its structural area, in one interaction. See below. |
Structure-first Authoring
Structure is not merely where content is placed. Structure can be part of what content means.
With Grid Elements, an editor can create a structure, a container with its rows, columns and cells, before any content values exist inside it. The structure describes a hierarchy and a grouping, which elements belong together and in what arrangement, before it describes any specific content.
That structure can also carry more than arrangement. A cell can declare which content types belong in it and how many, giving it a functional role rather than just a position, see Restrictions, Validation & Permissions. None of this depends on how the structure is rendered. The parent-child relationships and structural assignments created while editing remain available to frontend processing and templates, while restrictions govern what editors are allowed to create and place in that structure. See Data Model for how the persistent structural relationships are stored, and Parent-Child Relations and IRRE for how the parent-child relation is maintained as editors work. Structure-first Authoring is the description of that authoring model: relationships, roles and constraints defined through the structure itself, available to be filled with content, rather than inferred afterwards from where elements happen to sit.
Defining structure, then filling it
Grid Elements provides three related but distinct tools that put Structure-first Authoring into practice. They are easy to conflate because all three appear while an editor is building a page.
The Grid Wizard belongs to the structure-definition layer. It is a visual tool for defining a grid's rows and columns and how they relate, the same concept TYPO3 Core provides for page-level Backend Layouts, carried forward by Grid Elements to content-element level. Using it does not place any content; it defines the structural area content will later go into.
The New Content Element Wizard is TYPO3 Core's standard mechanism for selecting and creating a content element. Grid Elements integrates with it like any other content element type.
The Drag-In Wizard is Grid Elements' own direct-authoring tool. It exposes suitable elements right inside the page layout and lets an editor create one by dragging it straight into the structural area it belongs in, combining selection, creation and placement in a single interaction. Used consistently, it covers that workflow directly, without needing to open the New Content Element Wizard separately, so an editor builds structure and fills it with content in the same place, in one continuous act of authoring rather than two separate steps.