Website Services

CSS coding is used to style a page or link pages to an external attribute style sheet for global updating of layout and text characteristics. External CSS is very useful to achieve page design consistency; recent CSS styling allows for complete control of a page's appearance: text and link styling, page padding and margins, absolute and relative positioning, z-index stacking order, and more. Note that the different browsers (primrily Internet Explorer) renders CSS code different for some elements, though they are getting better at cosistency.

Flash has long been used to provide quality animation to a page, both as page accents (buttons, bars, banner, intros, embedded sound, text effects, etc) and full site designs. The concern with Flash is that it requires one to have the Flash plugin version that the design was created in to view it. Since Flash is often updated previous version of the Flash Player have to be updated to view content. The other concern is that Flash code cannot be read by the search engines (no more than a movie's contents can be), and for this reason Flash is not SEO friendly. Java and Gif animations can provide similar effects as flash, but they are not used as often, and there are similar concerns with their compatibility for all users since not everyone has the Java plugin, and Gif animations are often disabled by browser security settings.

Frames were used often in the past to provide fixed navigation on the left or top frame while the content on the right-side or body frame changes as links are clicked. Frames are useful to to display large amounts of information while providing a consistent stationary framework, purposely hide URLs of content pages, and send visitors to other sites while keeping them within your own site framework. Internal frames (I-Frame) can be used to include content into an existing design from an external source such as another website. In most cases frames are not used as they once were since the search engines can't navigate through a "frameset" (ineffective for SEO), and ADA accessibility readers may have trouble Navigating the content. Current standards use scrollable div layers to provide the look of internal frames.

JavaScript and DHTML are advanced coding options that have long been used for interactivity such as roll-over states for buttons, image effects, slideshows, date and time, page and form effects, calendars, etc. These types of scripts need to be evaluated carefully to ensure that they are compatible with different browser platforms and versions (many are not). The current scripting trend is the use of jQuery, which are advanced JavaScrpt libraries which provide new and enhanced styling effects, many similar to Flash.

In the past most sound on the web were midi files since they loaded quickly. The current practice is the use of MP3 files which are often converted into a flash format, or streamed. Sound can be applied to a website with or without user control options such as a Jukebox, though it is important to provide a way for music to be stopped easily if desired. Video can be included to a website in a variety of ways, but much like sound it is often converted into a streaming Flash format. Another effective option is to upload to YouTube, and then link to the file. This provides greater exposure, and allows for effective streaming of the video content. The Jukebox can be used effectively for both the presentation of MP3 and Video content.

Used for advanced interactive coding such as guest-books, counters, e-mail forms, search queries, shopping cart applications, CMS websites, and other dynamic applications that typically use a MySQL database. Of these PHP is the most commonly used since it works on a Unix platform (most web servers are Unix/Linux), and more code developers work in this language since Unix is an open-source platform. Note that ASP scripts are used on Microsoft servers, and Perl scripts are still used from time to time, but far less than in the past.

Pop-ups, "on click", can be an effective way to open up a linking page without leaving the page a guest is on, though it should be noted that some security settings will disable them. Furthermore if an image or button links to a page that pops-up then the image or link will be eliminated from the screen when security settings are set high. Pop-ups "on page load or timed" are often used to display advertisements or to load additional page windows. Of course a lot of sites use these but most people will find these annoying so they should be used very sparingly if at all. With contemporary JavaScript behaviors and DHTML coding most browser blocks can be circumvented. Sticky-notes are "pop-ups" of a type, though they are often borderless, very stylized, and timed displays. Tool-tips are little "balloon" type messages that are shown when one mouses over text or an image, effective to provide additional information.