The layout editor uses a few words that may be new to you. This page lists them in one place, in alphabetical order. Each word is the one that you see on screen.
Three words changed on 9 November 2026: a band of the page is now a Section, the band on Cassiopeia's page grid is the Component, and a band inside its main column is a Row. Rows can now also go inside any other section. Where a word changed, its entry names the earlier word once. Saved layouts did not change, and older layouts show the new words.
- Anchor strip
- A bar of up to five links that is fixed to the bottom edge of a phone screen, which you make with a Menu module that uses the layout Webal anchor strip.
- Background
- The colour behind a section or a row, which you choose in its settings from a list of standard colours.
- Background picture
- A picture from the site's images folder that fills a whole section behind its rows or columns, chosen with Choose a picture in the section's settings. A row has no picture of its own: it shares its section's picture.
- Breadcrumb trail
- A line of links, such as Home, then Blog, then the page that you are on, which shows visitors where they are, and which is a fixed block in a layout with the position name breadcrumbs.
- Build view
- The view of the editor in which the outline takes most of the screen and is drawn as the page's own grid: sections as bands, columns side by side at their width in twelfths, rows and positions inside. See View.
- Checks
- The list on the Layout tab that says in plain words what is wrong with a layout, where a problem stops Publish but a warning does not.
- Child theme
- A small theme that borrows everything from another theme, which is called its parent, so that Cassiopeia - Webal Layouts is a child of Cassiopeia.
- Colour guide
- The colours that mark the main parts of every page in the outline, in every view: Header in purple, Navigation in blue, Component in green and Footer in amber. Each has a badge with its word, and a small key above the outline names them.
- Site navigation
- The row inside a Header band section that holds the site menu, one per layout, as in Cassiopeia. It is a plain box: the menu module prints the navigation area itself. See The site navigation.
- Column
- A part of a section or a row that sits side by side with the other columns, and that stacks under them on a phone.
- Component
- The one section that uses Cassiopeia's own page grid, with a main column and a sidebar on one side, on both or on neither, where rows can go inside the main column. A layout has at most one. Earlier versions called this a Section.
- Default style
- The template style that Joomla uses for pages with no style of their own, which has a star, and which the error pages and the offline page always use.
- Draft
- Your changes that you have not yet published, which the editor keeps for you on the server, while the mark next to the layout name says Unpublished changes.
- Equal columns
- A section or a row in which every column has the same width, and in which every column holds module positions only.
- Error message
- The fixed block of a 404 and errors layout, which prints a heading, a plain explanation, the error code and a link to the home page.
- Export file
- A small file with the ending .wbllayout.json that holds the published layouts of one style, and that carries no modules, pages, users or site details.
- Fixed block
- A part of a layout that prints something that Joomla provides, which is the page content, the error message, the offline notice and login, or the breadcrumb trail.
- Sidebar width
- How many twelfths of the page column each sidebar of the Component takes from the Laptop size up: 2, 3 (Cassiopeia's own quarter), 4, 5 or 6, at most 4 with sidebars on both sides. Set on the Component, or by dragging the bar in the Build view. See Sidebar width.
- Gap between main column and sidebar
- The space between the page content and the sidebar of the Component, which you set for each screen size in Bootstrap's own steps, from None to 48 pixels. Usual is Cassiopeia's own 16 pixels.
- Hero
- A wide band near the top of a page, which in the editor is a section template called Hero (full-width band).
- Layout
- The plan of a page, made of its sections, their rows and columns and the module positions inside them, where one style can hold up to three layouts, for pages, for error pages and for the offline page.
- Main column
- The big middle column of the Component, which holds the page content, or the rows one under the other. Earlier versions called it the Main stack once it held rows.
- Module box
- The way that Joomla wraps each module in a position, which you choose from Card, No box, Plain, Card, no border, Outline and Table.
- Module position
- A named place in your template where modules can go, where a module shows only in the position that you assign it to.
- Modules per row
- The setting of a section or a row with two or more columns that are not equal columns, which says how many columns sit side by side on a Phone, a Tablet and a Laptop (1, 2, 3, 4 or 6). It writes Bootstrap's own column classes, and Bootstrap stacks the rest underneath.
- Offline notice and login
- The fixed block of an offline layout, which is Cassiopeia's own offline card with the offline message and the login form.
- Outline
- The list on the left of the editor that shows the sections of the page from top to bottom, with the columns, rows and positions inside them. In the Build view it is drawn as the page's own grid.
- Page content
- The fixed block that shows the page itself, which is the article, blog list or form that the menu item points to.
- Page part
- The choice in the Page element list that prints the HTML element
<section>, a general part of the page. The list reads Page part (section). Earlier versions called this choice Section. - Page type
- One of the three kinds of page that a style can hold a layout for, which are Pages, 404 and errors, and Offline.
- Position name
- The name of a module position, written in lower-case letters, digits, hyphens and underscores, which a module must use in its Position box to show there.
- Preview
- The frame in the middle of the editor that shows your real site, drawn with the layout that you have on screen at that moment. In the Build view it is a slim strip, and in the Preview view it takes the screen.
- Publish
- To make the layout live, so that the pages that use it show the layout to every visitor.
- Resize bar
- The bar between two columns of a row in the Build view, on a window 992 pixels wide or more, which you drag to move twelfths from one column to the other at the screen size the preview shows.
- Row
- A line of columns inside a section or inside the main column of the Component, one under the other, which can hold columns and positions but cannot hold more rows. Earlier versions called this a stacked row, and used the word row for what is now a section.
- Section
- A band across the page that holds one or more columns, or rows, and that you can give a colour or a picture and some space above and below. Earlier versions called this a row. The special section with the sidebars is the Component.
- Shade
- The tint over a section's background picture, chosen under Shade over the picture: Dark (60 % black, white words), Light (80 % white, dark words) or None.
- Sidebar
- A column of the Component beside the main column that holds up to eight module positions, where the modules of each position stack one under the other.
- Template
- The set of files that gives your whole site its look, where Cassiopeia is the template that comes with Joomla.
- Template style
- A saved set of settings for a template, which is where a layout is kept, and which you find in the list under System, Site Template Styles.
- View
- One of the three ways that the editor shares a wide screen, chosen with the switch Build, Split and Preview in the top bar. Build gives the outline most of the screen, Split shows the outline, the preview and the settings side by side, and Preview gives the screen to the preview.