Arc XP Glossary

adapter - A layer of software that converts the data from the application into a common form acceptable for integration with Arc XP’s schema.

Arc XP Customer Support - Arc XP’s post-launch support department. Available to help with bugs, admin issues, some redirects and robots, and other miscellaneous support issues.

Arc XP Learning Center – Arc XP’s site for product documentation.

ANS - Arc XP Native Specification, refers to the collection of schema documents that comprise Arc XP’s definition of “content”, in so far as content is passed back and forth between systems in the Arc ecosystem of applications. See Getting started with ANS.

API configuration (Delivery) - an API configuration is an XML file that consists of a host of rules, including domain name, certificate, DNS, caching, and other customer-specific API configurations.

Arc blocks (Themes) - fusion compatible out-of-the-box blocks, composed of the front-end components, included in the Themes toolkit. Arc Blocks are available for PageBuilder Editor admins to add and configure on their pages or templates or as starters for developers to create custom blocks. These blocks contain the logic, data fetching, and custom fields required to appropriately render on the website. See Themes 2.0 - Blocks Styling Figma Library.

Author API - Arc XP’s API for handling author information. The Author API allows organizations to create rich author profiles to use on articles pages and elsewhere. See Author API.

Back end for Front end - An architecture pattern that creates a layer between the back-end, microservices APIs and the front-end application. In certain cases, this setup can reduce the complexity of the front-end calls and improve performance, especially when working across multiple front-end applications (web, native apps, voice, and so on).

Bandito – A content optimization add-on to PageBuilder that allows you to easily test editorial variants. See What is Bandito?

blurb (Video Center) - Blurb is usually displayed on a video’s leaf or stand-alone page, as it doesn’t limit the number of characters like the “tease” field does.

canonical URL - The primary website base path and the section in which a story is circulated, used to form a URL for SEO credit. A canonical link element is an HTML element that helps prevent duplicate content issues in SEO by specifying the canonical, or "preferred," version of a web page.

channels - see the various definitions across the Arc XP apps:

circulate (Composer) - This Composer tab lets you select which website and sections you want a story to be categorized under.

Clavis – A personalization engine, driven by natural language processing and machine learning, to provide readers with better story recommendations. See Getting Started with Clavis.

closed caption (Video Center) - Closed captions display the text version of the spoken words on a video. The text might be manually imported as an SRT or TXT file, or you can set up your video to accept closed captions from third-party providers.

clipboard (Composer) - The Composer clipboard allows you to stash any content off the body of the article for later consideration or reference. This is not to be confused with the “Copy to clipboard” option also in Composer that allows you copy the entirety of the article to your computer’s clipboard (for email or other uses). To move an element to the Composer clipboard, simply select the element and click the “Move to Clipboard” button. The clipboard can be accessed at the bottom of the right hand tool menu.

comments (Composer) - Composer offers three ways to attach internal comments to a story. When selecting bits of text, there is a talk bubble icon that will appear next to the styling options, which will allow you to turn a word or sentence into a “inline comment” that will be highlighted in the body of the text and will not move across to WebSked, your site or downstream to places like you print product. The second internal comment option are the comment bubbles that show up in the right margin of the story. These comments can be pinned to a comment element and offer the ability to create a thread. Similar to the inline comment, these are only displayed inside the story in Composer. The final comment option is the “Internal Memo Note” at the top of the Compose tab. This comment will be visible in WebSked and can be passed along to your print system.

Composer - The story editing tool, where articles are created, compiled and edited.

Compose tab (Composer) - This is the tab within Composer where you will write your story and collect your digital assets.

Content API – A denormalized API You Can Query that is responsible for storing and making available all content in Arc XP across the entire Arc ecosystem. There are also normalized APIs for the key individual content types: a Draft API, Photo API, Video API, Author API, Sites API, Tags API, Geo Restrictions and a Global Settings API.

content elements (Composer) - These are the various digital assets you can add to your article. This is a configurable list, managed through the settings tab. Within the Compose tab, content elements may be dragged in using the “Content Elements” drawer on the right or by pressing Return/Enter and selecting the desired icon.

Copy to All (Photo Center) - When uploading or editing multiple photos into Photo Center, you may fill out fields in bulk by using the “copy to all button” below each field. For example, if you wanted to give all the photos in you batch the same caption, you would fill out one caption field, then click the “copy to all” button below the caption field, and that caption will be added to the caption field of all photos in that batch.

custom fields - Key/value pairs assigned to an individual feature or chain, allowing Feature Pack developers to define and use data relevant to their components, and for PageBuilder Editor admins to configure blocks on the page/template. See How to Add Custom Fields to Components.

Debugger (PageBuilder Editor) - Located under the Developer Tools tab in PageBuilder Editor, debugger allows users to dig deeper into specific pieces of content (Content debugger) or how content is being rendered (Resolver debugger).

delivery configuration (Delivery) - a delivery configuration is an XML file that consists of a host of rules, including domain name, certificate, DNS, caching, and other customer-specific website configurations. These items are build around each organization's site-id.

Developer Tools (PageBuilder) - Additional tools for controlling and debugging the front end of your site. Contains the following option - configurations, debugger, content sources, deployment log, migrations, resolvers, deployer, runtime properties, compatibility. Access is controlled through permissions.

Draft API - The Draft API standardizes publishing of Arc XP content by providing a basic set of document save and publish operations that are extensible for multiple content types. It replaces the Story API and URL API. See Arc XP Draft API - Production.

DSP - Demand Side Provider of ads. A marketer or advertiser who provides an organization with the ads that will be placed in their video.

edition (WebSked) - Curated, time-bound collection of stories. Useful for a discrete collection of content which publishes at a set time. Pitch statuses available for an Edition of a Publication: Pitched: When someone pitches a story to a Edition, it is given a status of “pitched,” indicating that a producer for that Publication Edition has not yet taken an action on the pitch. Declined: A producer indicates they’re passing on using this story for the edition under consideration. Booked: Selected for this edition.

encoding profile (Video Center) - An organization-wide profile that lets users dictate the bit rate and resolution of videos when they're imported.

environments - A unique database and set of apps and APIs that each Arc XP customer will receive. This is generally Production (live, reader facing), Sandbox (complete set of tools and APIs, but without a CDN in front), Staging and Development (limited apps, meant for development work) and outboundfeeds and outboundfeeds-sandbox (for managing outbound feeds OBF).

features (PageBuilder) - Also called blocks or modules, features are the elements used within PageBuilder to create the pages of your website.

featured media (Composer) - This is the image generally used for thumbnails and the social media image for an article, and can be used as the lead image on the article page.

focal point - Gives you the ability to set the center point of a photo to be used when the photo is programmatically cropped. Currently just within the article in Composer. See How to Use Focal Point in Photo Center and Composer.

fork - A copy of source code from one software package that is used to create a distinct and separate package.

float (Composer) - An object that can be used on the front end of the site to change the styling of elements. For example, you might define “float=right” for images as 300px wide and right justified.

galleries - Also called slideshows, galleries are a collection of photos that can be a standalone piece of content on your site or embedded into an article. Galleries are created and managed in Photo Center.

groups (WebSked) - Groups are a lightweight way to organize Task Triggers and Notifications. Groups do not have members and no user management is required. Instead, users can join the appropriate Slack channel or email distribution list to receive messages. Users can also navigate directly to the Group’s task queue.

headless - Any type of back-end content management system (CMS) where the content database, the “body,” is decoupled from the presentation layer, the “head.” A headless CMS allows you to manage content in one place and still be able to deploy that content across any other frontend through APIs. Arc XP can be used headlessly.

IFX - Arc XP’s Integration Framework (IFX) offers a hosted SaaS set of capabilities which enable clients to easily extend, integrate, and customize their Arc XP environment.

inbound feeds - Content created outside of Arc XP that is pulled into the authoring apps and published out to your frontend, such as wires from other news organizations or photographs, etc.

in-line comments (Composer) - When selecting bits of text, there is a talk bubble icon that will appear next to the styling options, which will allow you to turn a word or sentence into a “inline comment” that will be highlighted in the body of the text and will not move across to WebSked, your site or downstream to places like your print product.

IPTC (Photo Center) - Developed in the early 90s by the International Press Telecommunications Council, IPTC standards define a common set of metadata attributes for images and other media types. When uploading media, Photo Center populates any IPTC data present.

keyboard shortcuts (Composer) - for a full list of keyboard shortcuts for Composer, see Does Composer have any keyboard shortcuts?.

knock (Composer) - You can use the knock action to request editorial permission to a locked story.

licensed (Photo Center) - Signifies whether an image is available for sale to the public or not.

lightbox (Photo Center) - A lightbox is a lightweight, internal-only collection of photos. Might be a collection of photos for a specific story or maybe a collection of all your breaking news/cop stock art images. Lightboxes can be viewed from Composer when placing images into a story and allow the ability to mark photos with different colors, to signify priority, for example.

line count - A measure of the number of lines in a story. If an authoring application, such as Composer, provides a line count to WebSked, this value is stored and displayed in the story metadata. If only a word count is provided, WebSked estimates the line count by dividing the word count by five. Composer also helps ensure accurate word and inch counts for integration with your print system.

live events (Video Center) - Offers the ability to manage your live streams, as well as clip to VOD (video on-demand).

lock (Composer) - When a story is locked, only its creator has access to edit it. 

Meta tab (Composer) - A configurable collection of meta fields to capture information for your article. This can include things like the canonical URL of the story, the different date fields, story tags, keywords, etc.

metadata - Information linked to your story, image, video, gallery, or other content that determines how it is categorized and displayed on your site. Metadata also enhances discoverability by optimizing your content for search engines.

mid-roll ads (Video Center) - Ads that play in-stream during a video stream. They interrupt the video content for a short period and are somewhat similar to traditional linear TV advertising.

Migration Center - Arc XP tool for migrating content from other systems into Arc XP.

multi-org - An option within Arc XP to create and link several Organizations together for greater control of the development process.

multi-site - The ability to share and publish content, as well as develop, across multiple sites or unique URLs across your organization.

organization - A collection of environments within Arc XP.

outbound feeds (OBF) - Arc XP’s feeds application, a series of scripts that manage inbound content feeds (like wire feeds) and outbound content feeds (like distributed social media platforms, and syndication partners). Formerly known as Arc XP I/O.

outbound wires - Feeds from Arc XP to be consumed by an outside vendor like Google, Facebook or Amazon Alexa. You have the ability to create and manage your own custom feeds leveraging Arc XP’s development platform, PageBuilder Engine.

PageBuilder – The broader name for Arc XP’s rendering and presentation tool.

PageBuilder Editor - The WYSIWYG editor for pages and templates — this manages layouts, destination pages (like the home page and section fronts), and content templates (including article templates, author page templates, tag page templates, and so on).

PageBuilder Engine - Arc XP’s rendering engine, previously referred to as Fusion.

pages (PageBuilder) - PageBuilder is divided into “pages” and “templates”. Pages handle rendering content with a specific URI (Uniform Resource Identifier), such as your homepage or About Us page, versus something like a article page, where many different URLs are passed through the same styling. Pages are where you will do your manual curation of your homepage, certain section fronts, and pages like that.

page versions (PageBuilder) - Versions allow you to create different layouts that will serve on the same URL. For example, you might have a weekday version of your homepage that is set up to be hand-curated, but on the weekends, you don’t have as much staff on duty, so you might want to create a weekend version that is more feed-driven.

Photo API - Arc XP’s APIs for managing photo assets and galleries. See Arc XP Photo API.

Photo Center – Photo management tool inside Arc XP, allowing for photo cropping, metadata management, and photo gallery creation.

pitch - (noun) A suggestion to a curated Platform or Publication. (verb) To offer a story to a curated Platform or Publication. Pitches are configured in WebSked and can be created inside WebSked or Composer. See Pitching content in WebSked

Planning tab (Composer) - This is the first tab you will hit when creating a new article in Composer. Its purpose is to help define what the article will be and when it will be ready. Once some general information has been added (like headline, site/section(s), author, and planned publish date), the writer can move to the Compose tab to begin writing their article, and WebSked will start tracking this piece.

plans (WebSked) - Broadly speaking, plans can be viewed as categories or channels to which a story belongs. Plans are organized in a tree structure, using slashes to denote subplans. For example, the /politics/local plan would be a child of the /politics plan. When searching for stories in WebSked, the user must specify a plan to search in. Plans are separated into two categories, based on whether or not they are able to receive pitches. Sections are not able to receive pitches and can be viewed as roughly equivalent to paths of your website (for example, “/business” or “/entertainment/music”). The section list is configured in the Site Service. Platforms are able to receive pitches. Examples of platforms might include “/homepage” or “/social”, or any other location where producers curate featured content.

platforms - see the various definitions across the Arc XP apps:

playlist (Video Center) - Playlists allow you to control the order of videos that follow the one being played.

Power Up (Composer) - Expanded custom embed that allows editors in Composer to interact with third-party content providers and/or create unique content not supported by existing Composer features, like podcast embeds. Also referred to as custom embeds.

post-roll ads (Video Center) - Ads that play after a video on demand (VOD) ends.

pre-roll ads (Video Center) - Ads that play before a video on demand (VOD) begins. 

primary website - The website that signifies to search engines who the canonical owner of the article is. Some Arc XP permissions also rely on the primary website. For single-site organizations, your single site defaults as the primary website. For multi-site organizations, you must designate which site is your primary site.

Production – The live environment for a property.

publish - Publish is the action that makes content available to the public through your website, feeds, or other channels.

publications (WebSked) - Publications house Editions.

PWA – Progressive Web App: A Progressive Web App, based on Google’s service worker framework, to deliver lightning-fast app-like experiences directly in the Chrome browser.

regenerate URL - This action lets you generate a new URL to incorporate new information. For example, if a URL is set up to pull in a story's headline, you can regenerate a URL so that it includes an updated headline.

related content (Composer) - This allows you to tie other pieces of content - articles, images, galleries and videos, for display on your site (in a “Related Content widget” or something similar) or for use downstream in your print system.

render engine - Software that displays text and images on the screen. The engine draws structured text (often HTML), and formats it properly based on the given styles (often given in CSS). PageBuilder is Arc XPs rendering engine.

resolver - A regular expression pattern that matches URIs to a template and piece of content, so that the right template and content is served to the reader on the website. See PageBuilder Resolvers. 

revision history (Composer) - Allows you to select the different versions of your article, see the changes that have been made, and restore back to an earlier version.

role - A bundle of privileges across Arc XP applications. The list of privileges across applications is unique to each application. Clients can set their own Roles and manage granular privileges across Roles. After a Role is created, it must be assigned to a Squad.

Sandbox – A testing environment for the Arc XP tools.

sections - Every piece of content is required to belong to at least once section, such as Business or World. Sections are defined in the Site Service and are displayed in all content authoring tools. See Configuring website sections.

send to print (Composer) - When properly connected, allows distribution of your article and its assets to your print CMS.

Site Service – This maintains the hierarchical site structure for your site. You can create categories and subcategories, and also manage a navigation structure that can be provided by API for a navbar or other type of navigational element on your site. See Getting Started with Photo Center.

slugify - The process of converting a string into a URL-friendly format. It involves removing any special characters, replacing spaces with hyphens, and converting all characters to lowercase.

source - Where the content originated or entered the Arc XP pipeline.

sponsored content - Content that looks like the publication’s content but is paid for by an advertiser and intended to promote the advertiser’s product.

squad - A combination of a Role along with relevant user groups (client-defined user groups in Okta) and relevant Sites (not applicable for single-site organizations, but useful for organizations that manage more than one website in Arc XP).

SSP - Supply Side Provider of ads. Allows advertising by selecting ads from an organization's inventory and inserting them into predefined places within a video.

stage (PageBuilder) - Where all the changes from all individual drafts meet and must be reconciled with each other before they can be published out.

status - A label for tracking and communicating where a piece of content is in the publishing pipeline. Often called “workflow status”, statuses can be customized and set-up to structure the multiple steps of creating content within WebSked. See WebSked.

story card - When browsing the list of stories, each story is represented with the headline, slug, and other key metadata.

subject (Video Center) - Subject is one of the parent categories given to a video and answers the question “what is video the about” and ties into the site hierarchy of your site(s).

Subscriptions (Subs) – A highly-configurable paywall to enable digital subscriptions and monetize content. Part of the Arc XP product ecosystem.

subtype - A ANS object used to control the front-end template PB renders the selected content on. Selected in the content authoring apps (Composer, Photo Center, Video Center)

Tag Service – This maintains the tags used across content on your site. See Managing tags.

Takeover (Composer) - An action you can take to remove a user that has locked a story and take control of the locked story.

Task Trigger (WebSked) - WebSked allows journalists to create tasks by simply updating the workflow status of a story. Organization admins simply need to set up a Task Trigger ahead of time to listen for stories that from the Draft to Copy Edit workflow status, for example.

tease (Video Center) - Tease is generally displayed for videos that are embedded in an article or on another page, like your homepage.

template - see the various definitions across the Arc XP apps:

Themes - A library of blocks that allow customers to quickly build sites on Arc XP. Themes Blocks are customizable and as they are Arc XP maintained code, come with an upgrade path as new features and enhancements.

time to first byte (TTFB) (Delivery) - TTFB is the time required to delivery the first byte of a content to the end user.

time to live (TTL) (Delivery) - TTL is the time period after which content is refreshed.

times (WebSked) - WebSked tracks a host of key dates for each story. The “created”, “updated”, “scheduled” and “published” times are fairly straightforward. The “planned” time (alternately referred to as “WebSked Date”) is key to WebSked’s functionality as a planning tool. The planned time indicates when a reporter expects a story to be ready to be published. This time can be edited from WebSked, triggering an upstream communication to the CMS as defined by the organization. A planned time of null indicates that the reporter does not yet know when the story will go live. Such stories are labeled “TBD” (to be determined).

Trident - an Arc XP-developed app that is responsible for routing the private requests so that Arc XP customers can access back-end applications and so that back-end applications can make API calls to each other. Trident works directly with Okta.

type (Video Center) - Type is one of the parent categories given to a video and answers the question “what kind of video is this." Type lets you pre-fill metadata about the chosen video type.

UUID (Video Center) - The unique ID created for each video in Video Center.

variant (Composer) - A version of a story containing customizable zones that can display different content on different websites.

versions (Video Center) - Video Center allows multiple videos (or cuts of the same video) inside a video file.

Video API - Arc XP’s APIs for video content. See Arc XP Video Center API.

Video Center - Arc XP video CMS, including capabilities for video asset management, versioning, and management of different streams and renditions. Allows video producers to trim videos and manage metadata. Arc also includes a native video player in its web rendering layer and its native apps.

video format (Video Center) - By default, videos being uploaded into Video Center will be set to horizontal (16:9) ratio. If you would like to include a video that is vertical or square, toggle the “custom size” button when uploading.

Video on Demand (VOD) (Video Center) - A non-livestream video that you can cue when needed, similar to a YouTube video.

View Draft (Composer) - The eye icon, in the top left toolbar in Composer, allows you see what an unpublished story would look like on the PageBuilder template, so you can verify items like ad positions, embeds, or size.

WebSked – Content management for editors: copy flow task management, story pitching, edition planning, and booking, content discovery and search, and publishing statistics.

WebSked date (WebSked) - This date appears on each story card, as well as the story view/preview. When searching for stories by date, this is the date used to order the stories. The date displayed depends on the story's publishing status.

wires - Wire services provide news reports to media outlets and can be brought into the Arc XP platform through outbound feeds.

word count - If the authoring application includes a word count in its update for WebSked to process, WebSked will save and display this value in the Story metadata. If a value is not sent, WebSked calculates a (potentially inaccurate) value by counting the space characters in the HTML of the story.