Help:There are no HTML pages on the wiki

One of the hardest concepts to grasp for a new editor on the wiki or in the news area is that there is no HTML page stored on the server. When people look at an article like this, the HTML code is constructed on the fly (dynamically) from many different bits and pieces, each of which has its own storage method.

PHP scripts

These are the heart of the system. They are the engine that makes everything else happen.

Basic page template

This is a combination of PHP, HTML, and CSS.

Registered users may choose their own template from their preferences.

The template provides a place for the name of the page, standard tags, the header material, navigation bars, logos, and the standard footer.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

We can exercise a great deal of control over the look and feel of a page by editing the .css files for the template: font, headings, indentations, the look of lists, etc.

MySQL database

The Wiki engine looks up the basic content for a page in the database, then feeds the special page content to the page template.