Significant-Media.com
Project Overview
Basis
Significant-Media uses Gossamer Threads (GT) GLinks, which is a yahoo type directory system as can be seen here on the right. Based upon the Voyages.Net templates, Significant-Media.com uses further optimised CSS code and XHTML. The aim of this project is to demonstrate how GLinks can be used as a Content Management System (CMS) in English and this was a success. There was a considerable amount of customisation required in different areas but each part was accomplished through detailed specifications that were reviewed by GT. This was only the technical and functional aspect of the project. Design modifications that accompanied CSS optimisation were required. The overall project took me about two months to accomplish. Some of the plugins used in this project are now on sale for GLinks user to buy and are presented here.
Design
Designing was commenced using HTML and during the project transitioned to XHTML and CSS. The aim of the design itself (regardless of the content) was to be colourful, fresh and motivate visitors to travel after visiting. A second and just as important factor was to provide a clean and simple presentation with pages and content that breathe (i.e. not cluttered with information). You can see this from the images above. Animated gifs and JavaScript is used in certain places rather than Flash.
Technical
The site is hosted by Gossamer Threads on a dedicated server. The server uses Apache configured for mod_perl and uses extensive mod_rewrite rules. The whole site is dynamically generated using a MySQL database and GLinks. A customised user back-end system allows authors to add articles to the database vis forms as can be seen here. All pages are generated using a site-wide template set that relies upon perl coded 'globals' or plug-ins (perl routines). For example the contact page that sends messages to members without revealing their addresses, uses routines to check input data before sending it. Nearly all the site uses XHTML Strict 1.0 and CSS. Page headers are randomly generated by a PHP script.
Project Details
Technologies Involved
- XHTML 1.0 Strict, W3C Validated
- CSS 1 & 2, W3C Validated
- Site and user specific RSS Feeds (XML), validated
- DHTML/JavaScript + AJAX
- Apache server and MySQL
- Multiple mod_rewrite server based rules
- Perl (strict) running under mod_perl
- DNS forwarding and funnelling (ethical: protective)
- PHP (for rotating page headers)
Software Used
- UltraEdit (for hand coding templates and Perl modifications)
- Dreamweaver (sometimes used for more basic coding)
- Photoshop
- Word, PowerPoint, Visio & Acrobat for specs
- MS Project for basic Project Management