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Molly Holzschlag takes on the task of explaining what is meant by “Semantic HTML”, and does very well. For such a basically simple concept I have found it difficult to describe, so thanks to Molly for laying it out so clearly.
These projects have reached the ‘finger hovering over the launch button’ stage (they are live), and both were done with some new-ish PHP backend tool technology (Yawp, DB_Table, Savant2) in conjunction with a Glennweb custom CMS system:
All three of these great tools come from Paul Jones, who from the looks of his other projects is quite a busy developer.
Yawp: It’s not a framework but a well thought out class that helps pull together common PHP web development pieces. It is centered around a file-based configuration file which fronts useful tools from Pear and elsewhere. From that configuration file it is easy to setup Error handling, Database Abstraction, Templating systems, Debugging tools, etc.
DB Table: A small footprint Database Abstraction layer which is a Pear project. DB Table encapsulates the table/field definitions and table specific SQL code. It in turn uses the Yawp configured DB (Pear) database connection classes to interface with the database. It can also generate a Pear HTML QuickForms form from the same field definitions, making basic form processing very quick to develop.
Savant2: This is the first of Paul’s projects that I started using. It was an offshoot of some templating code that Brian Lozier had published a couple of years ago, following an article by Harry Fuecks (whew). Before Savant I had cleaned up Brian’s original code and used it in a few projects with great success. Savant takes PHP as Templating language idea quite a bit farther, rolling it into an Object Oriented structure and adding plugins and filters. It makes templating a site and incorporating dynamic site features a very straightforward operation and I have used it on all my recent projects.
I successfully launched the new Champaign City Site last Friday (6/11). The Phase II site redesign features a new look for all the secondary site pages (90+). The site also now features:
Glennweb.net work on the site included:
The site was designed by John Bonadies.
The UIUC School of Music site has received three awards recently: the UIUC Webmaster’s 2004 “People’s Choice” award, a CHAAMPS Gold web site award, and a CHAAMPS Jury web site award. It’s great to have the site recognized by other parties.
The site has a very eye-catching design thanks to John Bonadies and was very interesting to implement (hybrid CSS site, very few tables). The true test though is the client’s experience. All signs point to a very successful site, the Music School’s enrollments are up (partly thanks to new online enrollments) and after looking at comparable schools online efforts I believe the new site puts the UIUC at the forefront.
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The Virtues of Chitchat - Making I.T. Work - CIO Magazine May 15,2004
Hmm, interesting article, interesting idea. So interesting actually that I was doing this for IT projects with Userland Frontier in 1999, back before the ‘blog’ term was coined. It works well and makes perfect sense for physically separated project/client teams. Other tools to use in a similar ‘project’ vein are wikis and bug/issue management software. See ‘Our Unique Approach’ on the Glennweb.net site.
As Morton once said, when it rains it pours. This week (so far, it’s only Tues) has seen one new project get started, one on-hold project get fired up, 1 proposed project get scheduled, and 3 proposed projects get on deck. I thought it would be a quiet summer…
