Glossary of common terms

Applets are small programs written in Java and embedded within web pages. Most recent browsers can run these small programs if you have Java installed on your computer.

Abbreviation for "Cascading Style Sheets". CSS defines styles and colours and how they should be applied to a web page.

The Concurrent Versioning System (CVS) is a method of storing files on a server that helps coordinate many people working on those files. Moodle's code repository was managed using CVS from the beginning of the project up until 2010 before switching to Git.

An electronic collection of information, stored in tables of data. For example, Moodle contains a table of all users in a site. There are many brands of database software, but most people use MySQL.

The place where Moodle can save uploaded files. This directory should be readable and writeable by the web server user but it should not be accessible directly via the web.

A name given to a computer or a group of computers. eg moodle.org. You can buy new domain names from a domain name registrar, of which there are many.

To move your files from a server "down" to your personal computer. Also see FTP and upload.

You can download Moodle via the Moodle download page.

To move your files from a personal computer "up" to a server. Also see FTP and download.

The dirroot is the name for the directory in which you have installed Moodle. It's a setting in config.php that must be entered correctly.

File Transfer Protocol - a method of copying files from one computer to another. For example, you might FTP your Moodle files from your home computer to your web server.