The following sites share some common features. Each of these sites use plain text based links in a flexible navigation structure. The links have been formatted with CSS to improve their graphical appearance. The advantage of this approach is three fold. First the text of each link can be easily changed since it is text and not a graphic image. Secondly, since the navigation is flexible, the links can be easily added or removed from the navigation structure quickly and easily as the site changes over time. Finally text based links have an advantage with search engines since the search spiders can read the text of the link, which is not the case with a graphical button.
CSS is not only used to format the navigation links it is used for formatting purposes through-out the site. This means that formatting features like fonts, colors, spacing and layout can all be controlled from one single file location.
In addition to using cascading style sheets these sites also take advantage of “include files”. This feature allows for the quick and easy updating of content to sections of the site like the navigation, footer, or header files from a single file location. For instance, if you have 30 pages in your website with your address at the bottom of each page, then any change to that information would have to be done in the 30 different places. However, with an “include file” that address is stored in one single file. This means that any changes can be made in one single update regardless of how many pages display it.
Some of these websites also incorporate a database to aid in some sort of their functionality. I will give greater detail in each website’s description.
www.fitperfectwindows.com
The graphic design of this website was developed by www.dolcemedia.net while all the technical development of the website was handled by Gwebassist.
www.www.lenoxyouthbball.org
The graphic and technical design of this website was developed by Gwebassist. The announcements feature is the only part of the website that was developed by a third party. This allowed for a quick and inexpensive addition of an email newsletter to the site.
www.bcarc.org
This site was fully developed, graphic and technical design, by GwebAssist. Some of the notable features implemented in this site were: the flash animation on the home page, the dynamic job opportunities page, and the photo gallery powered by i-gallery software. Both the job opportunities page and the i-gallery pages utilize databases. While the i-gallery software was produced by a third party GwebAssist designed and developed the database and its password protected interface for the jobs opportunity page. Staff members at BCARC can now add and remove job listings from the administrative interface.
www.thetechforce.com
The graphic design of this site was created by a third party graphic designer. GwebAssist was responsible for generating all the graphics from an original PhotoShop file. The stores dynamic shopping functionality was also built using another programmer’s original design. However, GwebAssist had to implement numerous upgrades to the software and the database design to allow for full tracking of the customers and their order information. GwebAssist developed the navigation system which uses a dynamic structure that creates links based on categories in the database. GwebAssist also added a number of features to the website’s administrative back-end.
www.consuelostaqueria.com
GwebAssist was fully responsible for the development of this site. At the current time this site is still under development, but since it just opened the owners wanted a copy of their menu online asap. GwebAssist was able to develop this site rapidly and inexpensively.
www.primitiveartisan.net
This site was developed using images from the company’s paper catalog. The site would have been more efficient using individual images and a database interface to display the inventory items. However, the customer opted for the existing format in order to limit development costs. This site utilizes CSS and include files as well as a dynamic functionality that allows one page to display all the catalogs pages. These features allowed for a faster development time and will result in faster maintenance and upgrade times. This site also dynamically preloads images to reduce download times.
In addition to developing these sites there are a number of other websites that GwebAssist did not develop, but have managed as webmaster. For some examples please contact Gwebassist today .
