SECTION FOUR
4. Overview of the parts of a Postnuke Website
Blocks are the special areas of content on the home page of the site. They are usually divided into three regions: left, center and right columns. Blocks are similar to blocks on your newspaper - different regions of content. In a newspaper, there may be a table of contents, several different stories with headlines, a picture, and maybe several smaller special areas for weather or clips of stories to continue further inside the paper. Postnuke blocks are similar in nature to these. You can have menu blocks, calendar blocks, links, login and message blocks (and more). The beauty of Postnuke is that all these blocks can be moved nearly anywhere on the page to suit your wishes.
Modules are what provide the functionality of the website. As an example, consider your computer. A computer needs many things to be functional: keyboard, mouse, monitor, printer, modem, etc. Some of these modules are optional such as the printer and the modem. Some are required for the computer to be useful such as the keyboard and monitor. Postnuke would be analogous to your computer - it functions on its own, but it needs modules to be useful to anyone. Some modules are integral parts of Postnuke and needed to operate (such as the NS-User and NS-Groups modules), others are installed but not required (such as the Comments and NS-Polls modules). Postnuke can be further expanded through the installation of third-party modules such as ContentExpress and pnBloodhound.
Modules can include blocks that can be displayed on the main page as well. pnBloodhound and ContentExpress are two modules that also contain blocks for optional display.
Themes provide the overall look of your site. Any color, graphics or structural layout is determined by the theme. Different themes can be used on the same site, which allows users and/or admins to customize the look of their site to their preference. You can allow users to choose their own theme or force everyone to use the same theme. You have likely had a theme specially created for your website. This gives your site a unique appearance compared to other sites on the web.