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Glossary
API

API

API stands for Application Programming Interface. APIs are common code protocols that let apps safely exchange data with other apps, software, and hardware. They typically include authentication processes, like access tokens, to protect data. 

Individual APIs vary depending on their purpose and the apps exchanging data. Some connect apps with external information, like a weather app that updates on the hour, and others handle sensitive information, like a password manager that hosts your banking information. Other examples of APIs in action include when Google Maps uses location data from a phone’s GPS or when an ecommerce store accesses PayPal at checkout.

‍Webflow’s API lets you build integrations, host user memberships, and incorporate ecommerce into your website. The Authorized User API protects user information, and the Authorized Info API holds information about the authorization you’re using. Learn more about the Webflow API.

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Create animations in Adobe After Effects — the industry standard for motion graphics. Embed and animate them in your Webflow site.

Other glossary terms

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Editor toolbar

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The toolbar that appears at the bottom of the Editor. From here, you can access the various Editor panels to manage page settings, dynamic content, forms, and your Editor account. You can also see and publish the changes you make through the Editor.

Style panel

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The first tab in the right-side panel that allows you to assign classes to elements and style them.

Multi-reference field

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A CMS field used in Collections. Just like a reference field, the multi-reference field lets you reference other Collections in your site. But it’s even more powerful, as it lets you reference multiple items within a Collection instead of just 1 item.

Custom domain hosting

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A Webflow service that lets you point a custom domain to your Webflow-hosted site.

Desktop breakpoint

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A breakpoint, or media query, is the width at which a website’s design and layout adjust to fit screens of different sizes. When designing in Webflow, breakpoints for smaller devices inherit styles from the base — or desktop — breakpoint by default.

End user

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An end user is an individual or group who directly interacts with a particular product, service, or user interface (UI), such as a website or application.

Paginate items

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This checkbox allows you to enable or disable pagination on the selected Collection list.

Save as Backup

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The ability to manually save a version of your site that you can restore at a later date using the keyboard shortcut Command + Shift + S (on Mac) or Control + Shift + S (on Windows).‍

A/B testing

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A/B testing compares two different versions of something — like a web page or campaign — to determine which performs better.

Maximum width (max width)

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The “max-width” CSS property defines an element’s maximum width.

Dither

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Dithering is a design technique that simulates additional colors on a display to smooth transitions in images with limited color palettes.

Display: none

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Display: none is a CSS property that hides website elements. This code tells the document flow to ignore the element entirely, making it invisible.

Last published

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The last time your site was published.

Alt text

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Alt text, short for alternative text, refers to text that describes online images.

Last updated

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The last time someone made a change to your site.

Sibling

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An element that shares the same parent of another element.

Fold

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The fold distinguishes the visible portion of the webpage immediately visible to users without scrolling from the remaining content viewable by scrolling down.

Content management system (CMS)

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A content management system (CMS) is a tool for creating and managing a website and its content.

Abstraction

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In object-oriented programming (OOP), abstraction conceals irrelevant details so they don’t interfere with the task at hand.

Micro conversion

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Micro conversions are small but important user actions on a website that contribute to the overall conversion funnel.

Typography section

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A section in the Style panel that houses CSS properties related to how typography is displayed such as font, font size and height, and align.

Mutable

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In JavaScript, mutable objects are dynamic elements that allow post-creation changes and modifications.

Collection list

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A Collection list is a Webflow element that lets you dynamically display content from a CMS Collection.

Content network

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A content network is a collection of websites where advertisers can pay to display digital ads.

Selector state

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A pseudo-class that allows you to change the styles of an element when it is hovered, pressed, or focused.

SaaS

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Software as a Service (SaaS) is a cloud-based approach to delivering software on a subscription basis without requiring local installation.

Adobe Fonts API token

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An Adobe Fonts API token protects and supports your data from Adobe Fonts with other programs you may be using to personalize your website’s fonts.

Bounding box

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A bounding box is a rectangular border around a website element (e.g., a heading, paragraph, or image) that appears during the design process.

Front-end

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The front-end refers to the visual and interactive part of a website or application that users directly interact with.

Media query

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A media query is a CSS technique that applies different styles to a website or an app based on the characteristics of the device displaying it, such as screen size, resolution, and browser viewport.

Utility pages

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Utility pages are default, customizable templates for your site’s 404 page, Password page, and Search results page.

Height

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Defines how tall an element can be. This can be defined in absolute terms (pixels) or relative terms (ems, rems, percentages, viewport-height, or viewport-width).

Browser

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A browser, or web browser, is a software program that allows users to access, navigate, and interact with websites on the internet.

Application context

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An application context is a set of data that identifies an application’s tasks, where those tasks originate, and how those tasks are configured.

Registrar

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A registrar, or domain name server (DNS) registrar, manages the sale of domain names and the assignment of IP addresses, ensuring each domain’s uniqueness.

Python

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Python is a high-level, object-oriented, general-purpose programming language (GPL).

Flex child

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An element contained within a parent element that has display: flex set.

Dynamic element

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Dynamic elements are web page components that can change based on user interaction or external factors, like a live news feed, without requiring a page refresh or reload.

Tutorials

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The fastest way to learn how to use Webflow.

Media section

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A section of the Add panel that holds multimedia elements like images, video, and Lottie animation.

Item state

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The default UI state for Collection lists, which displays the items in the Collection. It is the opposite of the empty state.

404 page

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A 404 page is an error page a visitor sees when they try to access a non-existent or broken URL on a website.

Borders

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The CSS border property delineates an HTML element.

JSON

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JSON, short for JavaScript Object Notation, is a human-readable, lightweight format for recording, storing, and exchanging data.

Clickjacking

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Clickjacking is when a malicious actor deceives website visitors into clicking buttons or links hidden in a fake layer to steal sensitive data or install malware.

Password protection

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Password protection is a security feature restricting certain website areas to authorized users, requiring a secret phrase or key to access them.

Background

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A website background is a visual element behind webpage content, enhancing aesthetic appeal and user engagement.

Subdomain

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The part of a domain that comes before the root domain (e.g., blog.yourwebsite.com is a subdomain whereas yourwebsite.com is the root domain).

SCA and PSD2 Regulations

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Mid-September 2019, new European requirements for authenticating online payments were introduced in Europe as part of the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2). The Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) requirements apply to businesses in the European Economic Area (EEA) that accept online card payments from cardholders whose banks are also located in the EEA.Webflow Ecommerce payments are PSD2 and SCA compliant (i.e., support 3D Secure payments) for European customers.If you’re a merchant in the European Economic Area (EEA), all you need to do to ensure that your Webflow Ecommerce store is PSD2 and SCA compliant for your European customers is to republish your store if it wasn’t published on or after September 11, 2019. Read more about how to make your ecommerce store compliant in our Payment gateway article.

Tablet breakpoint

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A Webflow canvas setting for creating styles that affect viewports with a minimum width of 768px and a maximum width of 990px. Also known as the tablet media query.

Text area

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A form element that allows site visitors to enter multi-line data.

Webflow Support

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The place to go when you need help using Webflow.

CSS preprocessor

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A CSS preprocessor is a program that helps developers write Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) by providing advanced features such as variables, functions, and nesting.

Email template

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Email templates — or pre-designed HTML layouts — ensure consistent branding and visual aesthetic in marketing campaigns.

URI

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A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a string of characters identifying an online resource.

Rich text field

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A rich text field is an input tool for formatting or applying text styles, such as bold, colors, font sizes, italics, underline, and other visual modifications.

Selector

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A selector identifies and selects specific HTML elements to apply CSS styles to.

Pages panel

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A panel in the left toolbar where you can add static pages and folders to your Webflow site. You can also manage and access Utility pages and Collection pages.

Algorithm

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An algorithm is a set of rules or steps that help solve problems or carry out specific tasks.

Backlink

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A backlink, also referred to as an inbound link, is a hyperlink from one website to another website.

X-Ray mode

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A grayscale view of your site’s canvas that visually displays each element’s border, margin, and padding when hovered over.

Pseudocode

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Pseudocode is a simplified, informal representation of programming code that outlines a program’s structure and logic without strict syntax.

Free plan

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The perfect Webflow subscription for getting started, giving you access to all Designer features, so you can start building a site right away.

CSS Filters

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CSS filters apply visual effects to HTML elements and their children using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

Font weight

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Font weight refers to the thickness or density of a typeface’s strokes.

Cryptanalysis

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Cryptanalysis examines cryptographic systems to find weaknesses that could allow attackers to uncover plaintext or break encryption.

Parent folder

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A parent folder is a directory containing one or more folders and files.

Site

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What you create in Webflow! You can publish sites to a webflow.io staging subdomain for free, export the code on a paid plan, add hosting on any paid plan, or add a Site plan to any site to connect your custom domain and unlock hosting features.

Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP)

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Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) is a standardized network protocol for transmitting real-time multimedia data like audio and video.

Save

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The Designer automatically saves your progress every 10 seconds.

Position section

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A section in the Style panel that houses CSS properties related to the positioning of an element.

Cookie

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Cookies are small text files sent by a website to a user’s web browser that enhance their browsing experience by remembering site preferences and activities.

Designer

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The main interface where you can build sites.

Closing tag

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A closing tag is an instructional piece of code that ends a section of page content in HTML.

Behavioral targeting

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Behavioral targeting is a marketing technique that leverages user data to deliver personalized ads to drive conversions.

Flex-shrink

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The flex-shrink CSS property defines how much an element shrinks relative to other flexible items inside the same parent element.

Right-side panel

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The far right vertical panel in the Designer that houses the Style panel, Element settings panel, Style manager panel, and Interactions panel.

Comment

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A comment is a text note in source code that offers context, internal information, or other guidance to any developers using it.

Meta title

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A meta title is an HTML element that defines a web page's title and appears in browser tabs and search snippets on search engine results pages (SERPs) as a clickable headline.

Google Universal Analytics Tracking ID

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A unique ID you can use to link your Google Analytics account to your Webflow site.

Element

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Elements are individual HTML components that constitute a webpage’s structure and contents.

Flex-direction

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Flex-direction is a CSS property that defines the main axis and direction of flex items, dictating the arrangement of the items within a flex container.

PNG (Portable Network Graphics)

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PNG, short for Portable Network Graphics, is a lossless image format known for its transparency support and quality retention after compression.

Pagination settings

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Through the pagination settings, you can preview Collection list pages by choosing the page number from the page dropdown list, or you can switch to the previous or next page using the arrow keys.

Section

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A section is an element of design layout that divides a web page into visually distinct segments.

Website name

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The title used to describe your website throughout Webflow.

Combo class

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Combining two or more classes into a single selector to target an element.

Beacon

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A beacon — also called a web beacon or web bug — is an HTML-embedded object that tracks user behavior on a web page.

Link block

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A link block operates much like a div block, an HTML element for grouping and organizing other HTML elements (like text, images, and forms) into block-level containers. But in the case of a link block, what’s inside the block becomes a link.

Empty elements

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Empty or void elements are HTML elements that don’t require a closing tag because they contain no content.

Modal window

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A modal window (or modal) is a web element that displays above all content and restricts user interaction until it’s manually dismissed.

Webflow forum

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The place to go when you need help with your site's design, custom code, etc. Visit the forum.

Urgency

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Urgency is a marketing term and psychological trigger that incites potential customers and website visitors to act swiftly.

SSL

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SSL (secure socket layer) is the standard method for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser.

Webflow Editor

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Webflow's visual content editor. You can access it through the Webflow Dashboard by clicking the “3 disclosure dots” on a site thumbnail, then clicking “Editor.” Guest editors can access it anywhere on their live site by adding ?edit after the page URL (e.g., yoursite.com/page/?edit).

Synchronous

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Synchronous programming refers to sequentially executed operations.

Semantics

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Semantics accurately represent the structure and purpose of content in computer languages, enabling web developers and programmers to ensure the written code produces an output legible to humans and machines.

List item

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A list is a Webflow element that displays multiple pieces of content in a structured, visually appealing way. The individual elements that make up the list are called list items.

Locked site

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When you have more unhosted sites in your Dashboard than your Workspace plan allows, those additional sites past your limit will be “locked” until you upgrade your plan. When you upgrade, you’ll be allowed more unhosted sites (up to the limit for your Workspace plan) and will be able to access your previously locked sites.

Facebook button

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A Facebook button is a clickable element on a website that allows users to connect to or share content on the social media platform.
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