Main Points
- Late Breaking News! The latest news about beta testing and development for Earth Chronicle.
- DHTML Development That difficult to describe hodge podge of DOM levels, Javascript, XHTML coding and CSS. Find the latest here.
- ASP.NET 2.0 Development The powerful, yet, Microsoftian server side tools. Can you program with the 800 pound gorilla holding you back? Find out!
- Skip to Main Points links return to the Main Points menu.
Late Breaking News!
Wow... talk about a hiatus. One minute I'm working slowly and steadily on getting Earth Chronicle up and running, and the next I'm training to become a web developer. I became so interested in the behind the scenes beta work - no surprise there, I guess - that I took some time off to train intensively in web design and new technologies. The mantra has been modularity and flexibility; finding ways to build the site more intelligently so that not only is it more powerful, but smarter and better able to adapt to changes later on.
We implemented some long held dreams, and gave the site a total face lift in sepia tone. It's fully revised and ready to go. That Javascript clock I'd been begging for... here it is. I built it. There's not only fully deployed CSS, but unobtrusive Javascript and server side includes as well. The site has fully fledged DHTML giving us a huge boost to the power of the site, and it's interactivity. Moreover, we did it right. We pulled it off as accessibly and elegantly as you could hope for.
Still there are a lot of new and exciting changes not just to the completely revamped look, but behind the scenes as well. And there's a lot of potential for new developments. As we speak, you can almost hear the clicking of keyboard keys as the contact form comes closer and closer to fruition. I really like how modular this code design is and it will give the site a great deal more flexibility as we move ahead. Now I only have to apply it to the entire site. *sigh* that should be fun. At this point most of THAT code is at least a year old and was written when I was first teaching myself HTML. Once it's done though, the site will be better and more flexible than I would have ever dreamed when I first started writing the code I'm now replacing.
Still the new designs were not the only part of the story. We now have shared web hosting which made all the extra functionality possible to implement. We've had the ability to do server side includes at any time... they're ridiculously easy. But Geocities doesn't support them. Web space was donated by an anonymous benefactor, and here we are. QED. So check it out! I present to you... Earth Chronicle Beta!
DHTML Development
How many things does a redesign change? Everything. Large chunks of the appearance are handled completely with CSS from an external style sheet. This allows the XHTML code to be lite, linear, and to maximize the structure for those who need accessibility above all other concerns. It also means I can change significant portions of the appearance site wide by making changes to one CSS file.
Ditto for the Javascript. There is no Javascript code in any of the webpages except for the reference to our master script file, which contains all our Javascript. All the scripting has been diligently used for enhancement so that anyone without Javascript will hardly notice. They just won't get the full functionality of the site (e.g. no clock and no menus, but the navbar buttons will still work fine). Having the Javascript contained in one file also means that I can affect changes to behavior site wide from one file, just like the CSS. Check out our Javascript developing if you're interested.
And using server side includes, I've extended the principle to include the XHTML code itself. Key portions of the webpage, like the navbars are not part of the page itself. They are blocks of XHTML code that are saved in separate files and the server side include pulls them in right before the page is sent to a visitor. So changes to the navbar and/or other key items on the page can be made site wide by modifying only one file.
Moreover we've combined them into an interactive DHTML website. And we've incorporated the enhancements progressively so that it adds the maximum functionality possible for each user no matter what their configuration. Browsers without Javascript AND CSS support will still work just fine, including Google. The worst case scenario is actually if the CSS hides the navbar menus and there's no Javascript to reactivate them. Even in this case our visitors still have a fully functional navbar with links to all the most important pages on the nav buttons.
The word on everyone's lips right now is AJAX. So do we have it? Are we on the outside looking in? Are we losers? So far we have no good reason to incorporate AJAX so to date we have not. The problem with AJAX is it splits downloads up. Now if you actually have a reason to spread out what someone is downloading then great. Large web applications with modular designs can derive huge benefits from it. But we're mainly serving small webpages, so AJAX makes most of our stuff take longer.
It's also not as well supported as standard Javascript (now THAT'S saying something). There are additional accessibility considerations too. The interactive elements which AJAX specialize in are horrible for users with disabilities, and don't forget that the world's most important user, Google, is blind. There are many applications where people are using AJAX even though it's not ready for prime time. That's being kind, most uses of AJAX are poor and detract more from a website and it's functionality than they give back. Now if we have a chance to rebuild the image galleries, there ARE some applications where AJAX would make a lot of sense. So stay tuned, we may be incorporating AJAX on an intermediate scale time frame.
ASP.NET 2.0 Development
This is the biggest change in the website from a technical standpoint, and it's obvious from the moment you pull up the homepage... Default.aspx :) There are some significant advantages to this. All of them now possible because we have fully supported web hosting. We have to be pretty independent... but then we are. ;)
We are no longer facing the trade off between spam and permitting accessibility. That's gone. Using ASP.NET 2.0, I'm in the final stages of putting together a contact form which processes itself and outputs the data as an email to whatever email address I want. I can change address at will and it will never be seen except on the server side. So it might have a prayer of surviving the spammers. Not likely, I admit, but I can dream. ;) That's the first change that you will likely see with the new technology. Keep abreast of all the latest ASP.NET 2.0 developments.