Chris Shorey Lettings Ltd. printable page

Technical overview of the Chris Shorey Lettings Ltd website

Summary

On this page I will describe the thought process that went on prior to and during the site build. I will also mention what programs I used and what testing was carried out.

Thought processes

There were several different thoughts bouncing around my little head. Firstly, I wanted to build the site using CSS for styling rather than 'old fashioned' tables (I still used tables in forms though) . Secondly, I wanted the site to look good (of course), but I felt it didn't need to be cluttered up with unecessary stuff so the site also had to be clear and easy to read and easy to find the information the site visitor was looking for. I also wanted the site to provide helpful information through pages, documents to download and so on. Finally, I needed the search engines to pick up the new site with ease. The site was designed to be fast and with good information so that the likes of Google would rank highly. Searching for properties should be easy and the results should be easy to read also.

Programs used

I used Dreamweaver CS4 for the coding of the HTML, ASP and CSS files and in fact I used as a starting pointing one of the CSS styles from Dreamweaver. It did everything I wanted from a basic layout so that felt good to me (less work to start with). Photoshop CS4 was used to create images and edit photos. WiseFTP was used to transfer files from the PC to the Internet. I tested the site in the following browsers: Internet Explorer v7 & v8; Firefox v1.5, v2 and v3; Google Chrome amd Google Chrome BETA; Opera v10; Safari v4. I also tested the site using a netbook, a laptop with a standard screen and one with a widescreen (17"). As of writing I still need to boot up my Linux PC (or my Virtual PC's) and also test on various Macs (any offers for testing? thanks!).

Search Engine thinking

A website that has eay to access information and is updated regularly can often reach high positioning on Google page rankings. I talk about Google because the majority of searches and indeed referrals to our site from search engines, come from Google.

Behind the page - HTML, ASP, CSS etc

The design of the site is constructed (for the most part) by editing one file (screen.css). This file holds all the styles for each 'object' on the page. Take this text you are reading for instance, it's style is governed by the screen.css file. The same style can be applied to every bit of text on the site. If I want to change the styles of the text on the site, I just have to change it in one place. I've also avoided tables in the design of the site and instead used CSS to design the pages. This means the pages are a lot smaller and therefore also contributes to the speed of the site and possibly to search engine ranking.

HTML - For the most part I used dreamweaver in code view so I had direct access to what was going on in the code. Too many times (in my past) I have designed sites in 'design' view and the code has got messy very quickly. I will admit that the start of the site came from a dreamweaver CSS template, however I have customised and edited heavily the original files to produce what you see now.

ASP scripting - Because the site communicates with the database (to show properties in the database for instance). Our Ticket System was written using ASP and because I know a little about ASP, it was the obvious (perhaps not the best) choice.

Each page that you see on the site has certain elements that are repeated on each page. I expect you noticed already. With a traditional HTML website, you have to repeat the same code for each page. If I needed to edit the links at the top of the page, all I need to do is to edit the file that contains that code and hey presto, all the pages on the site reflect the change! This is also where a lot of the speed increase has come from because each page does not need to completely load each time the same things again and again.

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