Introduction to Raytha
Raytha is a free, open source content management system that you host yourself. You use it to run a website and to store structured content such as posts, products or events. This page tours the admin and explains the words the rest of the guide uses.
What Raytha is for
A Raytha site is made of two kinds of content, and you can mix them freely:
- Pages you design. A site page such as Home or About is assembled from blocks (called widgets) like a hero banner, a text block or an FAQ. You arrange the blocks in the page builder.
- Structured content you collect. A content type such as Posts or Events defines the fields every entry has (title, date, image, body). Each entry is a content item. Raytha builds a public list page and a public detail page for them.
Everything visitors see is drawn by templates that belong to a theme. You can change text and layout from the admin, and you do not need to write code to run a site. If you want to change the markup itself, templates use a small language called Liquid, covered in How Liquid templates work in Raytha.
The same content is also available to other programs through a REST API, which matters if you are building a separate front end. That is developer territory; start at the developer docs.
Your first look
The admin lives at /raytha on your site's address (for example https://example.com/raytha). A new installation already contains a working example site so you can see how the pieces fit:
- A Posts content type with four sample posts and a public list at
/posts. - Two site pages, Home (set as the home page) and About.
- A Main menu with links to Home, About and Posts.
- The built-in theme and the built-in email templates.
The fastest way to learn is the first-hour quickstart.
A tour of the admin
The sidebar on the left is the map. Each entry is shown only if your role has the permission it needs, so an editor may see fewer entries than an administrator.
| Group | Entry | What you do there |
|---|---|---|
| Dashboard | See totals (content items, users, storage), recent activity and quick actions such as Create a site page and Upload media. | |
| Content | Content types | Define content types and their fields. Each readable content type is also listed underneath so you can jump straight to its items. A + button next to the group name starts a new content type. See Content types and fields explained. |
| Site pages | Create pages and arrange widgets. See Site pages and the page builder. | |
| Media | Every uploaded file in one place. See The media library. | |
| Menus | Navigation menus for your site. See Manage navigation menus. | |
| Design | Themes | Templates, widget templates and assets (images, CSS, scripts). See Themes and web templates. |
| Email templates | The text of the emails Raytha sends. See Modifying the built-in email templates. | |
| Automation | Functions, Webhooks | Run code or call other systems when things happen. See Manage Raytha Functions and Webhooks. |
| People | Users, Admins, Roles | Visitors who can sign in to the public site, people who can sign in to the admin, and what each role may do. See Manage administrators, roles and permissions. |
| Observability | Audit log, Email log | Who changed what, and which emails were sent. See View the audit logs. |
| Settings | Configuration, Authentication, Maintenance, Background tasks | Site-wide settings, sign-in methods, housekeeping, and the status of long-running jobs such as imports and exports. See Update configuration and system-wide settings. |
The top bar has a breadcrumb, a Search or jump to… box (press Ctrl + K, or ⌘ + K on a Mac, to jump to any page), a globe icon labelled View live site, and your account menu with My profile and Sign out. At the bottom of the sidebar, API reference opens the interactive API documentation.
Seven words you will see everywhere
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Content type | A blueprint for one kind of content, such as Posts or Events. It lists the fields each entry has. |
| Content item | One entry of a content type: one post, one event. |
| View | A saved list of a content type's items with chosen columns, filters and sorting. A view can be made public, which gives it its own web address. |
| Template | The Liquid markup that turns data into a web page. A web template draws a whole page; a widget template draws one widget. |
| Theme | A bundle of web templates, widget templates and assets. One theme is active at a time. |
| Site page | A page whose body is built from widgets in the page builder. |
| Widget | A configurable block on a site page, such as Hero, FAQ or Call to Action. |
Longer definitions, including terms like primary field and route path, are in the glossary.
Which tool for which job
- A one-off page with a designed layout (landing page, About, Contact): a site page.
- Many similar entries that need the same fields and appear in lists (blog posts, events, team members, products): a content type.
- Changing the look of every page, such as the header, footer or fonts: the theme.
- Changing the links in the header or footer: a menu.
Note Raytha has no scheduled publishing. Content is either published or not; you publish it yourself when you are ready.