Archive for August, 2008
ASP.NET Navigation and Content Management
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under ASP.NET, Content Management Systems, Web Design, Web Development, Web Technologies, Wordpress
At the moment it feels like I am re-designing a navigation system that has probably already been built before. The reason for saying this is because the navigation controls provided to you by Visual Studio 2008 produce table-based layouts, which is not what I want for my website. I want my website to generate valid XHTML and use CSS for layout. So what do I need? I need a navigation system that generates valid CSS and XHTML and that is easy to administer and update without having to meddle in C#, XHTML or CSS code. How do I achieve this goal? Would I have to write my own custom navigation system? It seems so for now. The basic structure of the navigation system would allow for a maximum of three levels of navigation:
- A top level
- A second level
- A third level
The navigation system will at all times make the user aware of where they are in the website, which can be achieved with a breadcrumb navigation system. Each navigation item will display its own associated content. Second level navigation items will have top level navigation item parents and third level navigation items will have second level navigation item parents. The navigation system will also act as a source for creating the site map structure. If a visitor clicks on any item in the top navigation area then content associated with that item will be displayed and the active top level navigation item will show its active. The second level navigation items that are displayed will be associated with the top level item. If a visitor clicks any of the second level navigation items the one that is clicked will become active and content associated with the second level navigation item will be displayed and the second level navigation item that is clicked will show that is active. If the second level navigation item has third level navigation items associated with it then those items will be displayed. If a visitor clicks on the third level navigation item then that item becomes active and content for it will be displayed and that third level item shows that it is active.
The next step is to create an object-oriented design from this structure. Using an object-oriented approach would allow for easy re-use throughout. So lets say we create a class called “section” and give it the following fields:
- ParentSectionField – This will indicate if there is a parent item
- SectionField – This will indicate what the current section is
- SectionHierarchy – This will indicate where in the navigation hierarchy the section item belongs.
The other issue that is a concern for me is content management, and understanding why it is important. Content management is important because it alleviates the need to mess with the code in your website. If your website has a decent content management system you will have a consistent look and feel throughout the website and you will be able to change that look and feel with a few clicks. Wordpress is a perfect example of just that. Wordpress allows you to easily change themes by uploading it to a directory and by changing it in your admin panel. Wordpress is a clear example of design being a layer on top of the underlying function. Content management systems are ideally defined as a layer of functionality or business logic with another layer of presentation logic on top of that. Content management systems are also characterised by its development frameworks. Development frameworks can be seen as large collections of functionality assembled into one component. ASP.NET is an example of a framework technology, because it provides a whole host of features and functionality that you do not have to re-develop to make use of. The ASP.NET Roles and Membership functionality comes to mind, and is not too difficult to implement and administer without having to write much code. The advantage of this is that these features take advantage of the framework features across the whole website. The Roles and Membership feature in ASP.NET is an example of this, because you could easily manage more than one website’s user base from a central administrator control panel. You would not have to re-code the model for each website.
Outdoorsy theme for Fremus.co.za
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under Fremus.co.za, Web Technologies, Wordpress
I regularly check out www.jimmyr.com for the top digg posts and images and I also clicked through to another very popular web design portal called Smashing Magazine and found their one of their latest articles with 30 “free” wordpress themes from which I found my current website’s theme. Its really quite clean and crisp
Don’t Take My Gems
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under Web Development, Web Technologies
I recently updated my Google Alerts and came across a really funny video clip. “I forgot to tell you about this other feature we have, it’s called suing you for everything you have.” lol
Originally found here
My new rig
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under PC Hardware
So I’m gonna spend some cash on a new system that I will primarily use for windows and web development, and also to play some Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3. The system will have:
- Coolermaster CM 690 Stacker check it out here
- Coolermaster Extreme Power 650W PSU
- Gigabyte Motherboard
- 4GB of RAM
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.40 Ghz
- Seagate Barracude SATA2 500GB
- LG Supermulti 20X DVD Writer
- BFG GeForce 9800GT
- Samsung 22″ Wide LCD (5 ms response time)
I’ll be running Windows XP SP2 simply because I don’t want any issues with software compatibility and I am going to be setting up a small network at home.
Web Development is not easy
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under Web Development
Writing simple programming instructions is an easy task, but taking those simple tasks and putting them to work in a complete framework requires a lot of thinking and problem solving. Its also way easier to define solutions on a conceptual level than it is to take those concepts and implement them on a technology platform. That being said a solution is nothing without a plan, you cannot jump into writing programs without understanding what the end solution will be. I guess its all about commitment in the end, both from the concept and solution perspective.
Silverlight uses a pretty intense Java Script programming model, and I initially thought that with Silverlight 2.0 you could get away not having to deal with JavaScript, but I guess thats not entirely true. A lot of functionality is still accessible through JavaScript, and C#. On Friday I found a Wordpress blog with a few great Silverlight tutorials. I managed to create my own skinned media player.
C# Access Modifiers
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under Application Development, C#
Today I was coding some C# and I decided to refresh my understanding of classes and how you declare methods and how they become accessible or inaccessible to other classes. C# has the following access modifiers, and depending on which one you use, it wll determine how other classes can use them:
- Public: Members and methods declared as public are visible to any method and to any class outside that class.
- Private: Members and Methods within a class marked as private are only accessible within that class
- Protected: Members and Methods of a class marked as protected are only accessible to methods inside that class and any classes that derive from that class
- Internal: The members in a class that are marked internal are accessible to methods of any class in that class’s assembly.
Mummy 3
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under Personal
Last night I watched the Mummy 3, hoping on a movie that would help me escape the real world for a while.I got that, but the reminder that the movie was far fetched came back quite a few times. I got the feeling that some of the ideas and concepts in the movie were at times separate from the main flow of the movie. It didn’t feel like The Incredible Hulk, where the flow of the story and the events that happened were too far attached from each other. Some of the scenes seemed to combine humour and action, and it failed in my opinion. The action scenes were not of the same quality as those in The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight in my opinion was the best movie of the year so far.
And it seemed to me that the character played by Brendan Fraser, as a father, was not much older than his son. Its not a movie I will watch again.
How often do you use GMail?
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under Browsers, Firefox, Web Technologies
How often do you use GMail? Well, if you use Gmail and you use the web-based version in your browser then you will know how boring the interface can be. With that being said I found Globex Designs and the Stylish Firefox plug in that literally transforms a mundane and boring looking GMail into a slick and awesome looking interface.
From Flock to Firefox 3
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under Browsers, Web Technologies
So finally I ditched Flock for Firefox. One of the main reasons I chose to drop Flock was because of Firefox’s cool address bar, which is better than sliced cheese in my opinion. You simple type in a few words (title tags) and Firefox will take you to that page. Another reason for ditching Flock is the plug-ins that can be used in Firefox. Some of the plugins that I really like using are:
- Firebug:An essential web development tool. It was interesting to note that Brad Abrams from Microsoft used Firebug at Mix Essentials 08.
- MeasureIt:A measuring tool is incredibly useful in a web development environment
- IE Tab:Unfortunately web developers have to code for audiences that use Internet Explorer but that doesnt mean you have to leave your Firefox abode. This add-on renders pages as Internet Explorer would. You can also change the rendering engine at any given time.
The Need for Content Management
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under ASP.NET, Silverlight, Web 2.0, Web Development, Web Technologies
So there I was today trying to understand why the Script Manager code and the Silverlight Javascript didnt want to work together. I soon realised and figured out that in your Script Manager tag you have to specify all the references to the Silverlight Javascript files. After I did this everything worked perfectly, and I was relieved, because I wanted to use Silverlight as a feature on a project I am developing.
The Silverlight issue, though, was not the issue that occupied my mind the most. What occupied my thinking and strategising the most was to understand why content management for a website is so important, and particularly why it is important. The most important reason or benefit for that matter of content management on a website is that you can separate business logic and presentation logic and in so-doing alter the presentation logic more easily. That is the single most important benefit of content management. If you look at a content management system such as Wordpress or Drupal it is easy to see that the presentation and business logic has been separated, hence the reason people are able to create themes for these content management systems and interchange them without losing the content. Content management systems present one caveat – the content is consistent but makes it difficult to implement uniquely designed pages without breaking the content management system.
