This is what makes the difference between the tech pro's and tech afterhour
guys.  It's things like this (php, asp, cgi,...) that make it so much more
fun to create large sites.  And the potential of a GUI for the actual
customer even makes it more attractive.  He'd just have to go to a GUI and
enter text for a new page or edit text for an old page - imagine - no more
updating you have to do, and you just charge a monthly fee for the database.
:):):)


- Kayjey -


-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: owner-hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org
[mailto:owner-hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org]Namens John Allred
Verzonden: donderdag 21 juni 2001 17:28
Aan: hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org
Onderwerp: Re: Print complete site


If I understand where this thread is going, I think I'd like to weigh
in.

I would be interested to know if anyone knows enough about CASE tools
for web development to discuss them here. I've seen them in use in
mainframe development, but I can't help but wonder if web development
has matured enough to accomodate CASE tool analysis, particularly since,
as I understand it, true OOP is possible only with languages like JAVA.
I'd like to think that they could, given the type of development I've
been involved with lately.

IMO, at present, there are two basic approaches to developing a large
site. Either you have a system of standalone HTML pages, or you use an
application server where much of the information is constructed from
database tables or from code snippets tucked away in smaller files (of
course, this option might also combine many straight HTML pages).

I have a site that fits the latter category. With 7 distinct categories
of information covering 82 different counties in my state, I would have
574 flat HTML pages. Instead, I have 7 templates that display their own
information for each of the 82 counties. Each of these templates queries
the database for its own type of information, specific to the county
selected. The site has an additional 40 or so pages that present various
information, as well as searches and lists for the information in the 82
counties.

To get to the point, I can't imagine looking at this site in some sort
of macro view and "checking the code by hand." It's tempting to think
that there is a tool that could run through all my templates and spit
out a graphical view of it. Instead, my own method is to manage the
content and the display separately. Now that the site is mature, the
display changes only slightly when the need presents itself. The
content, however, changes on a daily basis, since I'm constantly adding
new information, with assistance from my site visitors.

Even for sites with less structured information, I would still favor
using a template system, so that it would be fairly easy to change the
main content of the individual pages without having to worry about the
templates that contain them. This way, once the templates and style
sheets are fully developed, there is less to check with subsequent
updates, and new pages are a snap to add.

To illustrate: I have a table in my database that controls the display
of all similar elements on each page. When I add a new page, I also add
an entry to this table to control all aspects of its display. I can set
all of my META tags, whether to display certain images, headers,
footers, individual elements in both the headers and footers, the style
sheet to use, etc. When I create the page, itself, I start with a
template, and drop the content into a section between two comments. The
template contains queries that poll the database for this page's values,
and I add any specialized queries and parameters I need for the
particular page. The whole process takes maybe half an hour. From that
point, I may tweak the content, but I don't have to worry about the page
structure. It works, because it's based on a template that works.

An additional benefit is that I have a list of all my pages, where I can
manage each parameter for every page in the site. For instance, if I
discover I've introduced a coding error into the page, I can temporarily
turn off W3C HTML or CSS validation without having to remove or comment
out a large block of code on the page, which might introduce further
errors.

Sorry to be so wordy, but I just finished this site, and it's fun to be
able to talk about it with other developers.

Regards,
--John

Tomislav Sereg wrote:
> 
> >
> > When we do updates to their site (or when they plan on doing updates to
> > their site) they print it all out (200+ pages) and check it by hand.
> >
> 
> I am sorry to cut into your thread like this, but the above quote gave the
> cue I needed to ask:
> 
> In application programming there are various methods/techniques that help
> software designers by providing/teaching them how to view their project
from
> different angles. E.g. Rational/UML has a use-case view for discussing
> functionality of the software with the client, class view for exploring
> various ways to structure data (objects), collaboration diagrams for
> defining how should objects collaborate in order to accomplish some task,
> etc.
> 
> Such tools are called CASE tools (Computer Aided Software Engineering) and
> should save programmers from "printing out all 100.000+ lines of code when
> they do updates" (to speak simply).
> 
> So, if I say that "Dreamweaver and Photoshop" are like "Microsoft Visual
> Studio and SQL", is there any web design equivalent to "Rational Rose"
(and
> other CASE tools and related methods that would teach you and help you to
> design/manage/maintain web site structure and content)?
> 
> Does anyone feel the need for such a thing?
> 
> Sorry, as I had to "HWG Theory", but the above quote got me wondering how
do
> you design a big site or keep up when it grows large?
> 
> Tom

-- 
"Once in a while it really hits people that they don't have to
experience
the world in the way they have been told to." - Alan Keightley

 

• Web Designer Courses
• Off the Shelf Training Courses

HWG hwg-techniques mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters @ IWA