Think of a module like an app on a smartphone or tablet. There are many different types of apps that do different things. Some are common and others are rarely used. Modules work in a similar manner. They do specific functions, some are more commonly used than others, and sometimes the same type of module might be on the page multiple times. Our website has many types of modules that can be used. The most commonly used module is called the “HTML Pro” module. Don’t be intimidated by “HTML” in the name. You don’t have to be a programming pro or even know HTML to use it. Almost every content edit you will make is likely going to be within an HTML Pro module. Because of that, we will primarily focus on this type of module.
If the only thing you’ll ever need to do for the website is to edit text on a page, then it may be easier to simplify the concept of “module” even further. Imagine that you wrote your content onto notecards. You can pin the notecard into different panes and even shuffle around the layout and order of those notecards. You can place multiple notecards in a single pane, or make a duplicate notecard and place it on a different page altogether. That’s how the HTML Pro module is used on the Pitt Public Health website. It is a grouped chunk of content that has been placed into a layout pane on a page. These chunks of content can have different visual design styles applied to them and they can be shared between web pages.