Amistad Website

http://mywebspace.quinnipiac.edu/taanderson/amistad/index.htm

Ch 8. Site Seeing

-Static HTML web pages are only effective to a certain point. Updating web sites with static HTML pages takes a long time when adding new content for an entire web site. Not to mention the skill of editing the HTML, generating the new content, uploading it to the server, and more.

-Dynamic web publishing is finally getting the WWW closer to separating the content of the site with the formatting.

-XML (Extensible Mark-up Language) is one way to separate the content with the formatting. The tags in XML describe the type of content that they surround.

-HTML code carries disadvantages too. It will be come very complex and bury the content deep within the HTML code. Making it difficult to update.

-Dynamic content makes publishing new content very easy. That is all that will have to be updated and there is no need to update any code. There are also web applications and forms that make updating the content even easier.

-Information is what made the web popular to begin with. But making an income on content alone on a web site is very difficult. Many organizations have turned to different services with web applications. These can be very valuable to customers.

-The cost of web advertising is lower than ever these days. Advertisers are also offering less for ad space and users of the web are ignoring the ads more.

-The basic principle of dynamic publishing is for the data to sit in one location and the means for displaying it is in another location. When it comes time to display the page, the server side software grabs the appropriate data and displays it in the browser in the correct format.

-No dynamic content publishing system is effective without a proper visual template for the data. Templates take the content and arrange it into a web page with a navigation system, formatting rules, footer, etc. They make the content look like a real web page.

-When accommodating for different browsers, two things need to be taken into consideration. The cross compatibility with major browsers like Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox (Netscape). Older versions of browsers need to be taken into consideration. Not everyone is using the latest and greatest software.

Ch 7. Site Seeing

-The home page is an entrance to your site. It is the doorway to the content. It has some sort of navigation and includes some important features. It meets the specific needs of the user coming to the site for the first time.

-The introduction; this lets the audience know what your web site is going to be about. It helps establish an identity and is the most powerful for first time visitors.

-The announcements or news section is usually on the home page, to let people know of exciting information to let them know that you are an active site. For example, when I redo the Amistad Atlantic Freedom tour web site, there will be announcements showing where the ship is currently located as well as a main news entry as to what is happening in the ship's travels.

-The hierarchy of the page is very important. Users need to be able to quickly differentiate between things so they can get around the web site with ease.

-Avoid using too many boxes as a visual separator. It will result in a very cluttered and congested look. Visual boxes can be created without actually drawing a box on the screen with graphics. Text placement and other visual elements will help to create these invisible lines which are used to separate things visually.